The Roasterie Cafe – 119th Shops

Specialties

The Roasterie is a specialty coffee-​roasting company that services espresso bars, coffeehouses, fine restaurants, high-​end grocers, offices, retail accounts, and coffee lovers in Kansas City and around the world.

Coffee isn’t just a beverage — it defines who we are and how we live. And for us, that means living life to the fullest and savoring every second.

We travel to the ends of the earth to find the best coffee beans on the planet. We source coffees for the discerning coffee connoisseur and air-​roast them to the perfect temperatures to unlock the most exquisite flavor profile each coffee has to offer. We’ll take hours, days, even months designing and perfecting a single blend.

We spend our lives in coffee fields and cafés to learn everything we can about the beverage we love.

History

Established in 1993.

On November 22, 1978, Danny O’Neill picked his first batch of coffee beans in the mountainous coffee-​growing region around the Poás volcano while studying abroad in Costa Rica. Right then and there, he fell in love with the country, the people and the coffee — especially the coffee. Fifteen years later, when Danny founded The Roasterie in his basement in one of Kansas City’s great neighborhoods, Brookside, it just made sense that he would partner directly with farmers and pay above-​market values to get the best of the best coffee beans.

Today, direct trade makes more sense than ever. The Roasterie still believes in partnering with farmers at origin, in mutually beneficial direct trade relationships — removing the middleman from the equation. By doing this, our farmers get much higher prices for their coffees than they would with other trade systems.

One of the most renowned coffee roasters in the nation, The Roasterie stands apart from other specialty and direct trade coffee.

Meet the Business Owner

Danny O.

Business Owner

Danny was born and raised in Denison, Iowa, and is the middle of ten children. During his senior year of high school he traveled to Costa Rica as a foreign exchange student and spent several weeks picking coffeel It was at this moment that his passion for it ignited. After his return he received his B.A. from Iowa State University with a double major in International Studies and Political Science, and a structured minor in Economics. In 1993 he received his MBA from the Rockhurst University Executive Fellows Program in Kansas City.

After holding various sales and marketing positions for ten years, he decided to take the leap and start roasting coffee in the basement of his home in Brookside. In 1993 he founded The Roasterie based on three basic premises: to find the best coffees in the world, to roast them the best way known to man, and get them to his customers as fast as humanly possible.