Aldo Coffee Company

I must be crazy. But I can't think of anything else to do, or anything I'd like to do more.

After numerous false starts of resuming my former marketing career, a brother's death and other challenges, I find myself well down the road to a relaunch of Aldo Coffee as a micro (nano) roaster.

It's not going to be a cafe in any commonly-accepted defnition of such. The focus will be on roasting and home brewing. Much as I'd love to go out and get a Probat 12k, that's not going to happen, at least for a few years. We're going to start small and nimble. Perhaps even portable. Given a 220v outlet, it could even be a temporary pop-up. Depending if I go 5lb electric I can start in my garage. For gas, I'll need to go find a place. I've got $20K dedicated to a roaster/venting/utilities in the bank, although I'll need double that to really get going - there's other equipment needed, along with graphics for bags, bags, a new website for online sales and some spare change to survive the first year.

I've been through the numbers a few dozen times now. I'd need to roast at least 10,000 lbs/year to make this worthwhile at a sustainable level. That's not very much even by standards of tiny roasting operations. Which is why keeping buildout and overhead to an absolute minimum is key.

And 10,000 lbs/year isn't even guaranteed. Pittsburgh isn't an ideal market to be launching something like this. All but a handful of cafes buy their coffee based on price over seasonality/sustainability/cupping scores.

Despite the image of Pittsburgh's coffee scene being progressive, the same half dozen players from 2009 are still the only ones actively promoting progressive coffee in 2013, with Orbis having replaced us and Coffee Buddha being the lone true addition (while Blue Horse is no more). For the most part it's still 21st Street, Tazza d'Oro, Espresso a Mano and Commonplace (which now owns Voluto) that operate exclusively in the 85+ point coffee stratosphere. There are some others on the fringe, but would not be considered "third-wavish" by the commonly accepted definition of such.

Each of those cafes has preferred suppliers. At best I might be able to crack 2 or 3 of them as a guest coffee with maybe 5-10 lbs/week. I know two of them are no-gos from the get-go (one roasts and serves only their own, another uses only coffees from "rockstar" roasters). As I'm not planning on selling or servicing equipment, I'm not going to be helping to open new cafes. So the wholesale potential at the cafe level is extremely limited.

I can do restaurants. I've already got established credentials there. But again, there aren't that many exceptional restaurants who would carry us. Maybe a dozen, of which I might get 3 or 4, again at 5-10 lbs/week.

Let's say our starting point is 40 lbs/week for wholesale. That's about 20% of the 200 lbs/week I'll need to be sustainable.

So where's that other 80% coming from?

Here's what we're thinking:

1. Farmers markets. We've been selling at the top farmer's market in Pittsburgh for four years getting great reviews and developing regular customers despite roasting on a $300 home rig that can only handle 12-13oz per roast cycle. Stepping up to a larger shop roaster with vastly improved control will only make our coffees better while allowing us to increase production so that we can support multiple farmers markets - and the higher retail margins associated with those. My target market doesn't drink Zeke's, who seems to be at every farmer's market within 50 miles - and even squatted right outside the one I currently do.

2. Subscriptions. Monthly coffee subscriptions have worked for others. The challenge to me is that most of those "others" are industry rockstars. Which I'm not. But Aldo Coffee does have a pretty decent reputation around here that might allow me to get a few monthly subs, including ones outside the Pittsburgh metro.

3. Catering. OK, it's not really doing much to increase roasting volume, but we used to make a few thousand a year on espresso catering at Aldo and I still have my Cimbali and 200 ceramic cups. Whatever helps to pay the bills. And we happen to be really good at it.

4. Supermarket. I'd offer regional exclusivity here for a guaranteed volume. The margins will be terrible and I know they'll undercut prices at both my farmers market whatever cafes I do manage to recruit. The one I'm thinking of is currently selling 12oz bags of Intelli and CCC for $12.99. But it's solid marketing/branding if I get in the 'right' supermarket(s). Unlike the national/super-regional roasters on the shelves I can actually stop by weekly, inspect the coffees, pull whatever needs to be pulled and keep the stock fresh. Come to think of it, I might not want to do more than one.

5. Out of the box. I can't discuss the ideas here. Let's just say they're a bit ambitious and perhaps a little crazy. But I have identified and explored some models that work in other markets that don't exist here in Pittsburgh.

6. Direct retail. If I can find the right place for the right price, I'll leave my garage. Seems there are always rental opportunities in non-central neighborhoods around $500/month. Which means I'd need around $2500/month in additional revenue to offset that cost. That's about 40lbs/week retail (54x12oz). It's a reach, but doable. And if I do that, I can think about retail sales of select brewing equipment as well as making a few bucks serving small drinks and drip.

As it's just me to start, I can't max out roasting time. Need to leave time for sample roasting, cupping, selling, marketing, etc. I'm about half funded at present, so will need to go Kickstarter for the other half. Soon as I can secure a decent video camera, I'll take care of that step.

If I can get to that magical 10,000 lbs/year, I can start thinking of expanding and starting up an interesting new cafe as well as some buying trips. But for now, I just want to concentrate on roasting using the sources I've had success with. I know there's a niche for the kind of quality sourcing and roasting I do and what I can bring to the table, the question is how big is that niche. That's not a knock on any roasters currently operating around here, it just is.

It's an exciting time. And scary as hell.

We're back at the popular Farmers@Firehouse market again this year.

The market is open 9am-1pm each Saturday through the weekend before Thanksgiving.

We're opening the season with a couple of beautiful coffees: Bolivia Buenavista Colonia Villa Rosario and Ethiopia Goma Duromina Coop, a lighter-bodied, crisper cup. Both coffees are organic (Bolivia is certified USDA Organic, Ethiopia is passive organic) and both are part Tom Owen's Farm Gate program, his version of direct trade, ensuring famers get paid premium prices for attaining specific quality goals.

Whole bean is sold in 8oz bags for $8.00 or brewed by the cup for $2.50.

We're going to miss a couple of dates early on due to travel on work projects and settling an estate in CT after a family death, but we made the opening and we'll be there this morning. Next two weeks probably not, then we should be OK for every week for awhile.

You'll know for sure if we'll be at the market on any given Saturday by following @aldocoffee on Twitter.

For almost a year now, I keep bumping into people who are surprised to see me around town.

"What are you doing here? I thought you were in Connecticut?"

Yeah, I was. For three months. Turned out what I had wasn't a real job. It was speculative. And I was supposed to justify my being by ensuring the existing marketing person got fired so that they could afford me. So that gig lasted all of 90 days.

I've been back here since last February.

Click here to go there.

Just discovered this video, which was shot shortly after the sale but before the Orbis remodeling. Kinda touching. Guess we'll be looking forward to seeing an Orbis barista or two in a competition soon?

If you came here looking for Aldo Coffee, we're not here.

But there's still great coffee being brewed in our former location, courtesy of the new owners. And you can now check them out here: www.orbiscaffe.com.

Lots more pastries. They brought back Intelligentsia Coffee and Big Train Chai. And panini. Plus an excellent Sunday brunch.

So bookmark it. And visit often.

Nice article in Table Magazine. Congratulations to the Schutte family on a successful transition. They're doing a fantastic job with the place. We've stopped in most every weekend since selling the place and the espresso and cappuccinos are as solid as ever. Even though we're no longer there, you'll still find great coffee, talented baristas and friendly service.

These are tough to write. We know we're going to forget someone or something important. But it must be done.

And it must be done now as on Wednesday, this site goes to redirect mode. We're assuming their site will be live by then :-)

In short, back on December 30, 2004, we opened with the thought that we'd try to do something different than yet another Starbucks knockoff. We'd do something radical for Pittsburgh for that time - we'd study brewing, serve only really good ethically sourced coffee, train appropriately and see where it took us.

Some of it worked. A lot of it didn't. Over the next seven years we converted a lot of people to our way of thinking about coffee. We pissed off a lot of others (well, Rich and a couple others did, anyway). Which brings us to a pet peeve:

People really need to look up pretentious in the dictionary before slinging it around. You're using it wrong. If someone can actually deliver the goods, it ain't pretentious, folks. If we charged you another two bucks and presented your coffee under a silver dome with some exaggerated performance while your drink got cold, yeah, then you'd have a point. But the way coffee is brewed and presented here is far from pretentious. It's simple. It's true. It's what we say it is. If you think all coffee should be about a buck and taste like a tire, that's your problem, not ours.

Whew. Feels better to get that out of our system. It wouldn't be us without saying something :-)

Anyway, talking to folks who came in this week, even we were stunned by the number of people who've been near-daily regulars for four, five and six years or more. Not all of them coffee drinkers. Lots of chai and tea folks too.

We hope they'll stay with the new owners. It'll be the same coffee, chai and tea for now.

We never had kids. It wasn't planned that way, just never happened. So a few of our baristas became surrogate kids. As a result we have an extended family we hope will stay together for years to come. Lauren, Melinda, Belle, Frank, Ruthie, Johnny C., Alyse and on the current crew, Clara, Sam and Max all became our "kids" at some point. It's been fun watching them grow up.

We had fun with customers (sometimes even for a cause). And then we had more fun with other baristas. We tried to play well with others. We were always transparent (and often misunderstood because of that).

We actually had 72 people in here once for a tango band. Don't know why we thought of that just now, but we did. And we had a steel drum band play. It was really loud. Bad idea. We've had many. But we'll take credit for having the first dog water bowl on Washington Road.  And we will miss spending our Thanksgiving and Christmas mornings with you here in the cafe.

We tried to be innovative where it made sense. We were the first Pittsburgh coffeehouse to blog. Possibly the first to tweet (seems none of those "find your first tweet" services work well or we'd post our first). We glommed onto Flickr when it became the new hotness. We even tried to get all Washington Road businesses to create an umbrella online presence. We were proficient enough at social media that early on we were probably better known nationally than we were within the South Hills.

On the coffee side, we competed and did well. We looked at the Clover (you didn't think much of it). We tried pourovers. And then we tried them again. (most of you didn't think much of those either). We got a terrific high-tech roaster. And the coffee that came out of it was served at the best restaurant in Pittsburgh.

Since Rich has to catch a 6am flight, time to wrap this up...

It's been really nice to hear from people we've inspired in some way (Wiggles almost brought us to tears). A number of people have come up to us this week to say we're the ones that put Pittsburgh coffee on the map. It's a nice sentiment for a legacy. Partly true even.

Thanks to Tom, Casey, Guy, Elizabetta, Mike and Dave for being early to the party and getting the word out for us. And to Roger, Greg, Sunil, Chris for their prolific tweets over the past couple of years. There are too many to mention on Facebook, although it seems over there our most prolific posters are customers who moved away. Or relatives. We miss you too :-(

Thanks to the folks who've been with us since the start. A special thanks to Angela (whom we apparently never could please, but she always comes back and leaves generous Christmas gifts), Ron and Pipi, all of our upstairs neighbors, and the late Giovanni whose spirit lives on in our kitchen and the late Jack, who, when he had the voice to tell us stories, told amazing ones. And we miss Fisherman Bill even though he's not actually dead. Dave, Bruce, Tom, Chris and Cheryl (and Porter), 61C John, Gary and Deb, Kim, Nail Shop Guy, Sybil, Jay, Larry... ah, this is long list. Heck, we'll even thank Bernardo Katz who used to hold his meetings here before he fled the country and was wanted by Interpol. So thank you to everyone who has amassed a fully stamped customer card. Or two. Or three or more. Thank you all very much.

Thanks to everyone who's had us cater an event. That was a nice side business. And we had fun doing those. (Except for trying to unload at LeMont). And thanks to everyone who's ever attended a free coffee class or paid training session here. Your desire to learn more about coffee is the best feedback we could ever ask for.

Special thanks to our straight espresso and traditional cappuccino customers. You're why we train hard to understand espresso. When there's not much else to hide the taste, the coffee needs to be exceptional. Special thanks also to everyone who's ordered a pourover. You get what we've been trying to do here and we appreciate your trusting us to brew a great cup.

Thanks to Intelligentsia for leading the way. Thanks to Stumptown for being way too generous. Thanks to the folks at Fresh Roast Systems for answering all our questions, even on weekends. Thanks to Daryn Berlin for the singlemost hysterical moment we've ever had here. Thanks to Walter who built the roaster platform, which is now the brunch station. Thanks to Al Liu/Atlas and Thom Owen/Shrub for amazing green coffee for us to roast and serve. Thanks to Scott Rao for writing two great books we use to train and for replacing our lost Barista's Handbook gratis (even though he hates Rich). Thanks to Nick Cho for staying out of jail so he could continue his solid work at raising the public's perception of the barista as a professional and promoting our community. Thanks to Jay Caragay for being Jay Caragay. Thanks to James Hoffmann for letting Rich win the first MidAtlantic sprodown. And thanks to Troy Reynard for hosting that event and for all his work to support our region's coffee professionals. And thanks to Mary Diamond for her hospitality at LaMarzocco and Piero for utterly confusing Melanie on the history of machines. Thanks to Anne and Neil for being neat houseguests and playing with the dog. And thanks to every barista out there who's ever given us a great drink. There are too many of you to mention, yet still too few in the world.

Local thanks to China Millman for all the great words about coffee and mentioning coffee in almost every restaurant review. Thanks to Matt and Luke & Alexis and Barb & Amalie and Melanie's BFF Amy Enrico for pushing the boundaries of coffee excellence in Pittsburgh. Thanks to Chef Sousa for believing and trusting in our coffee (and for that box of neato chemicals). Thanks to Bill Swoope Jr. for drinks at just about every coffee convention we've attended and for being a sounding point for us all along (and more importantly, for this). Thanks to everyone at Farmers@Firehouse for welcoming us into the club and buying lots of our coffee.

Last but definitely not least, thanks to the folks who are Aldo Coffee Co.: Our baristas. There have been a lot of them, but there are three distinct crews who merit special thanks.

First is the early "fun bunch" crew with Lois, Cara, Petra, Andi and Steve. That was the first crew who could actually make drinkable coffee and pour art.

Then there was the middle "Best Baristas in Pittsburgh" crew of Lois, Belle, Frank, Johnny C., Sonja and Lauren (with thanks also to Ruthie and Melinda who both just missed being in the "official" photo). They put us (and Pittsburgh) on the espresso/coffee map. That was an amazing time. If there's a version of "We Are Family" that pertains to baristas, they were it.

And now the current crew of Lois, Jess, Clara, Sam and Max who will remain with the shop as it transitions to new ownership. Because they earned it and we've learned that they can run the thing themselves.

We couldn't have done it without you. Our unending thanks for everything.

We are selling the store. The papers are finally signed.

As Melanie always said when asked if we would sell, "The business, any business, should ALWAYS be for sale." The thing was, at what price? We put a lot into this over seven years. The price had to be worth it. And then the timing had to be right.

Well, both those things happened.

Brand loyalty in coffee is a weird thing to us. To be fair, there was a time and place for brand loyalty when there so few roasters/importers doing good work. But now there are many excellent roasters. And they're all over the place.

We see reviews from Yelp and other sites where 'reviewers' leave comments like, "Intelligentsia (or Stumptown or Counter Culture) is the only coffee I'll drink" or various variations on that theme. Those comments leave us scratching our heads. Especially since so many of those reviewers self-categorized themselves as people who really know coffee.

We still drink Intelligentsia from time to time. We served their coffee for many years because it was usually very good. We served Stumptown for awhile because their coffee was also generally exquisite.

But not always.

We've had some less-than-spectacular coffees from every roaster we've ever dealt with. When we were roasting our own we had some sketchy batches. It happens. Coffees are sometimes released for retail that to our palates are not fully developed, underroasted, overroasted or have other consistency issues. It happens.