Rediscover Local: Vintage Coffee Roasters
In 2013, Jesslyn Collins decided that she needed a change from Toronto and made the move to Hamilton. Her eyes were set on the booming art scene, the architecture and the potential Hamilton offered her.
She got into the coffee scene by exploring how coffee works through home roasting. In search of a personal roaster to test out her skills, Jesslyn stumbled upon a commercial roaster at a good price. Using this retail roaster at home gave her the confidence to consider production at a larger scale and, if she could open up a coffee shop with minimal risk, pursue a career she was truly passionate about. As luck would have it, Collins came across a cheap fixer-upper commercial space on the busy King Street E. that was affordable enough to take the plunge.
Renovating the property was no small feat, however. A lot of sweat equity was put in to get the property looking the way Collins had envisioned it (scraping the plaster from the wall by hand to re-expose the brick was particularly “soul crushing work”).
During the set-up time, Jesslyn was also feverishly searching for the perfect coffee. When asked how she makes her bean selection, Jesslyn smiled and painfully admitted that “finding the perfect beans is trial and error, really. I’ll buy a $500 bag and try it out. Then do blind tasting because there is no preconception. It’s really about what you feel tastes best at the time.”
In July of 2015, Vintage Coffee Roasters opened its doors. Their grand opening event was shared within The Sherman Hub Facebook page and 200+ people visited opening day, which Jesslyn and her team said they were not prepared for at all. “We were expecting 15 to 30 people that day,” said Jesslyn. “People were cheering as they entered through the door.” The locals were quite vocal of their love for this new shop in their neighbourhood.
The success of Vintage Coffee Roasters is of particular importance as it gives locals affordable coffee in a once caffeine-barren area that doubles as a peaceful, communal amenity for residents. In Jesslyn’s words, “the idea was not to come in and clean the area, but rather respectfully grow together and support the people who have been here for a long time and who may be marginalized as house prices and rents go up.”
Support for the new venture didn’t end at the residents, however. “Every other coffee shop owner in Hamilton was so wonderful and helpful when starting up. It’s a real tight-knit community where every shop wants the other to succeed. If this was Toronto, it would be completely different; everyone would be competitive and negative about a new coffee shop opening up,” says Collins.
One of Jesslyn’s most admirable traits is how conscious she is of her actions, how they affect those around her, and how she can turn that to something positive for those who need it most. This is best demonstrated in her supply chain for the coffee beans she uses.
Jesslyn works directly with some of the farmers she imports her beans from — she can even call or Skype a few! In the coffee world, this is called direct-trade and is the best level of support you can give a coffee bean farmer. “[Coffee] is not this magical thing that arrives in your cup. It’s something that somebody farms and works their whole life at,” says Jesslyn. “There’s a whole process to it and I want to be more conscious of it. There are people working very hard to get beans to me.”
Collins goes on to say that “in many of these countries, it is the women who are doing the grunt work and their paycheck goes to their husbands or they get paid less than their male counterparts. So we support Cafe Femenino and women-run co-ops, which give women more agency and independence in their communities and work environments.”
At True Resident, we are all about discovering, supporting, and promoting local businesses opposed to franchises and I was curious to hear what Jesslyn had to say with regard to supporting local businesses. Her answer was powerful: “Supporting local should be more important to many people, but we’ve been sold this bill of convenience that everything should be easy and quick. Once you slow down to think about what you’re consuming and where you’re spending your money, it’s hard to rationalize how you cannot support local.”
While accommodating more local into your lifestyle does take a bit of adjusting, the effects of those choices ripple through the city. To support local is to support friends, neighbours, your community and business owners like Jesslyn Collins who do so much good for Hamilton.
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Robert Cekan is a young entrepreneur and proud Hamiltonian. He is the founder of the Hamilton discovery website True Resident, as well as Cekan Group, a property management group. He is also a Hamilton REALTOR® with Ambitious Realty Advisors Inc., Brokerage and an active blogger.
For all of Robert’s projects, please visit robertcekan.com
