One-person start-up roasts coffee for restaurants, groceries, pubs

Wauwatosa — A couple of decades in the restaurant and wine businesses are the basis for Robb Kashevarof's new venture: Valentine Coffee Roasters.
Kashevarof, 42, is a new entrant to the area's coffee roasting scene, which is dominated by Alterra and Stone Creek, plus the smaller Bay View roaster Anodyne. All three have coffee shops in addition to their retail and wholesale businesses.
Kashevarof football jersey considered opening a shop, but for now he is focused only on selling to restaurants and retailers, and after 18 months, he's still striving toward turning a profit.
"I'd like to pay myself," Kashevarof said. "That's right around the bend."
Valentine Coffee Roasters is selling 300 pounds of coffee per week now, mostly to local restaurants, as well as to Nehring's Sendik's on Oakland Ave. in Shorewood and Groppi's Market in Milwaukee's Bay View neighborhood. That's enough to cover costs; 500 pounds per week would turn a profit.
The business is named for Kashevarof's grandfather, who was an Aleut Indian, and it is owned by his wife, Virginia, who works as a nurse. Valentine qualifies for certain benefits as a woman-owned business, and it was easier to get a loan with Virginia as owner.
Robb is the sole employee for now. He does the selling and the roasting, and he focuses intensely on each batch, monitoring and recording the temperature every 30 seconds. It takes 15 minutes to roast each five- to six-pound batch. Afterward, he performs a cupping exercise to check for taste. Some beans will have a chocolate finish. Some taste a bit like strawberries.
"If it sounds like I'm talking about wine, that's my background," he explains.
Kashevarof roamed far from Milwaukee after attending Wauwatosa West High School and Marquette University. He played professional soccer in Poland, managed restaurants in Oregon and Hawaii, and sold wine for General Beverage Sales Co.
"Coffee is like wine," said Jan Weigel, publisher of Fresh Cup magazine in Portland, Ore. Elevation and other growing conditions dictate the flavor of the beans, she said.
Weigel's trade publication sees a range of roasting operations around the country, with varying ambitions. But most roasting businesses, like Kashevarof's, attempt to find restaurants to buy their coffee, even if they operate a coffeehouse, she said.
Most of Carolina Panthers jersey Kashevarof's coffees are not blended, and none are flavored.
"What the farmer has done, I let it shine through," he said.
For now, Valentine Coffee operates from a storeroom/kitchen at the headquarters of The Bartolotta Restaurant Group in Wauwatosa. Kashevarof worked for owner Joe Bartolotta in the past, and Bartolotta has served as a mentor, he said.
When the coffee business grows, Valentine will need to find a place of its own, but for now, the business gets free rent in exchange for supplying coffee to Bartolotta's Mr. B's and Harbor House restaurants. By the end of September, Valentine also will supply Lake Park Bistro and Bacchus.
The biggest challenge has been the need to provide brewing equipment to each of the restaurants he supplies, Kashevarof said. The expensive equipment wasn't part of his original business plan, he said.
Terry Davis, owner of Ambex Inc., a coffee roasting company in Clearwater, Fla., said Kashevarof's oversight was typical for new coffee roasters.
"The biggest barrier to entry for new wholesalers is not understanding the ins and outs of different parts of the coffee industry," said Davis, who formerly operated a roasting business and learned from his own mistakes.
New roaster operators have trouble figuring out how much to charge for their coffee, particularly when dealing with restaurants. They also neglect to figure the cost of their own labor into profit margin calculations.
"Coffee tends to attract non-traditional business people," Davis said. "Sometimes you're so in love with the product that you forget it's a business."
These days, with the growing popularity of eating local foods, small coffee roasters have a good opportunity to get their products into grocery chains, Davis said. Coffee is an appealing product for a chain store looking for local items, because there is almost no chance that customers could be sickened by tainted coffee beans, he said.
Getting into restaurants can be more difficult, because the larger ones get coffee from big chains, Davis said.
Farmers markets are another good bet, because the roaster can sell product at retail, and has the opportunity to put it in front of the public.
Kashevarof started at local farmers markets, selling cups of Chicago Bears jersey freshly brewed coffee for $1.50 as well as bagged coffee beans.
"It's been a good test market," Kashevarof said.