For Randy Pryor, the perfect espresso shot settles like a pint of Guinness, boasts a two-toned creamy head and is consumed within 30 seconds. Six of these drinks, and the Gloucester entrepreneur is ready to face the day.Pryor and his wife, Jill, run Coastal Caffeine Co. — a specialty craft coffee bean roaster — out of the garage of their Abingdon home. The enterprise started as an afterthought in 2000, when the couple began roasting as an extension of their primary business of selling and servicing high-end espresso machines.
“We always roasted a little bit, just to calibrate the machines and do demos for our clients,” Pryor said. “We started giving away extras and leftovers to friends, families, neighbors, and pretty soon, it was ‘Where do we buy your coffee?’”
What I Like: The Pryor’s could have gone out and rented an expensive warehouse to run their business out of, instead, they are still running their seven year-old business out of the garage. Bravo.
Photo by Dave Bowman.
Rich on December 13th, 2007 at 9:05 am
Another interesting aspect Dane, is that they started the business selling high-end expresso machines. The coffee biz was an afterthought that will probably be bigger and more lucrative than the expresso machines.
Dane on December 13th, 2007 at 9:22 am
Excellent point Rich.
Sometimes, the product (or service) your business starts out with is not the product that is most profitable thing you could be selling.
Knowing when to add new products, or drop old ones, is key.