News Agribiz Roast Boast: Water Street Coffee Joint finds growth organically, commits to quality
Roast Boast: Water Street Coffee Joint finds growth organically, commits to quality
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Liz Comrie, cafe operations manager at Water Street Coffee Joint, says the key to growth has been a consistent focus on quality. PHOTOS: NATHAN PECK |
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By Nathan Peck | FoodBiz
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KALAMAZOO — When is a cup of coffee more than just a cup of joe?
At Water Street Coffee Joint, the humble cup of coffee is part craft, science and experiment in social responsibility rolled into one.
Water Street, founded in 1993 by Mark Smutek, was for many years a one-man operation at its first location at 314 E. Water Street in Kalamazoo, in what was once a gas station. Today, the company employs 50 between its three cafés, a commercial kitchen, and roasting operations.
Liz Comrie, general manager of café operations, said the company has grown organically by consistently adding new products — desserts here, deli items there — and customers have followed. Comrie, once a barista, now heads up the operations of the Water Street location on Oakland Drive and the new location inside Borgess Hospital. All along, the coffee shop remains committed to providing high quality, locally sourced food and fair trade coffees.
Water Street has taken a field-to-cup mentality with its coffee. Smutek and the head roaster make trips to coffee plantations in Panama and Kenya to meet growers and source their fair-trade beans. By cutting out the middlemen, they are closer to the to the fields and have a better sense of the quality of the beans they’re buying.
“We realized that the more steps you do in-house, the more control you get over quality,” Comrie explained.
Arriving at Water Street’s Willard Street roasting plant, burlap sacks filled with green beans from growers around the globe sit waiting to be roasted. Depending on the bean and the desired flavor profile, green beans are sorted, then carefully roasted by hand for anywhere from three minutes to half an hour. The company started roasting its own coffee in 2001 and now roasts more than 2,000 lbs of coffee a week. Comrie picks up a cupful of two different roasts, one a light tan, the other nearly black and slick with the oils extracted from the bean during roasting.
“We know that if we make good coffee and good food, people will seek it out,” Comrie told FoodBiz.
The commitment to brewing the perfect cup doesn’t stop at the roaster. A great bean improperly ground or brewed can result in a less than stellar cup of coffee. Baristas go through lengthy training in a test kitchen of sorts inside of the roasting plant stocked with all the equipment in the cafes, capped with an exam over proper brewing techniques.
The company recently started offering its coffee to wholesale customers, supplying grocery stores and restaurants in the Kalamazoo area. Water Street remains committed to quality, rather than roast large batches of coffee and store them — beans are roasted to order. The wholesale operations have opened up a new market to Water Street.
“The new platform gets in front of people who otherwise might not stop into the café and otherwise wouldn’t know about it,” Comrie said.
Water Street Coffee Joint has seen steady growth in the months since the addition of the Borgess location. The key to success, Comrie explained, is having the right people on board.
“We love it here. A huge part of our success is having the right people — smart people with similar interests,” Comrie said. “There’s good energy, people understand what we do and the importance of local food. We share similar ideas — we’re passionate about what we do.”
