There’s big things happening right now with coffee in Seattle. No, I’m not talking about some massive coffee corporation; this is much more of a family affair.
Since their launch in late 2012, Seattleโs Slate Coffee Roasters have earned a reputation as one of the city’s leading microroasters, marching to their own drum and earning converts in droves. Three years later, they’ve expanded from their original location in the city’s Ballard neighborhood into a pair of new addresses in separate pockets of town: the University District and Pioneer Square. That makes a total of three outposts, plus an Airstream waiting in hibernation to find its permanent home.
This city has a storied history of producing dark roast espresso. So while a few locals scratched their heads after Slate opened its first storefrontโwith drinks served in glass stemware instead of mugs, a hyper focus on customer education, and arguably the lightest roasts in the cityโlocal coffee enthusiasts embraced the roaster for its new approach from day one.
Slate is a family business, with Chelsey Walker-Watson running the retail side, her brother Keenan Walker roasting and buying green coffee, and their mother Lisanneย Walkerย helping with roasting production and overseeing operations. With Slate successfully tripling its footprint in Seattle in the past months, first and foremost the family dynamics hadย to keep up.
While there are challenges overall, Walker-Watson says owning Slate with her brother and mother has been successful because they each have โa level of investment and commitment and loyaltyโ that might be lacking in an average business partnership. โWeโre all deeply committed to our success, both because we want to support each other financially and because we want to see one another happy and fulfilled with our work,โ Chelsey Walker-Watson says. โYou get to see your siblingโs or parentโs strengths or talents that you probably wouldnโt witness if you didnโt work with them. It also strengthens us as a family.โ
The three partners worked alongside staff to flip Slateโs new locations quickly; they opened just a handful of days apart. Both storefronts were previously occupied by Trabant, a cafe that blossomed in the aughts. According to Walker-Watson, Trabantโs owner wasย relocating to New York and was quietly looking to sell to someone in the coffee community, โShe approached us a while ago. We were looking to expand our business and it gave us a way to go into two really wonderful neighborhoods with ease. Thereโs a ton of benefits compared to starting from scratch.โ
Slate quietly opened in a long, narrow storefront in Pioneer Square in September, switching out equipment and signage with a simple buildout. The U-District location near the University of Washington required more cosmetic changes, starting withย covering a huge mural of an astronaut with crisp white paint. Like Slateโs original Ballard location, both new stores serve the same pour-over coffee and espresso menu, with the addition of batch brew from the newย Marco JET. Both stores feature Slayerย V3 espresso machines.
While all three locations do serve espresso drinks in stemware, each has a unique ethos. โThereโs always a lot of intention that goes into ensuring that the environment of your shop fits into the community that youโre serving in your space,โ Walker-Watson says. She sees Ballard as Slateโs tasting room, a sort of โdestination location,โ while Pioneer Square, with its long row of tables, makes sense for business meetings or for people with laptops looking to โhunker downโ and work. It closes at 5 p.m., but Slateโs U-District store will remain open until later and may extend hours if thereโs a concert at next doorโs Neptune Theater or if itโs midterms or finals week for area students.
Walker-Watson says that when Slate launched in 2013, โwe were the first roaster [in Seattle] that was doing a really light roast, and I think weโre still probably the lightest roaster in Seattle. When we first opened we had to work so hard to explain who we were, what we did, and how we prepare our coffee. There was a greater degree of effort to make people comfortable within our environment.โ With newer additions including Elm Coffee Roasters, and Neptuneโs change in ownership, Walker-Watson feels Seattle coffee drinkers have more of a context for lighter roast profiles. They’re “becoming used toโand lovingโhand-brewed coffee and appreciating a simpler espresso menu where coffee is the focus,” she says.
Both new locations are designed for traditional line service so thereโs not as much time to orient new customers to the Slate ethos. The faster pace may mean baristas have less time to focus on coffee education, โbut I think that thatโs OK,โ Walker-Watson says. โSometimes [customers] want to grab and go and appreciate that moment on their own. We just want someone to have a great cup of coffee.โ
Sara Billups (@hellobillups)ย is a freelance journalist based in Seattle.ย Read more Sara Billups on Sprudge.