I believe in Xavier Alexander. The co-owner and founder of Chicagoโs Metric Coffee was born in the city and raised in Orlando, Florida, before returning home for good almost a decade ago. He speaks circuitously, addressing pieces of questions at a time before looping off into the past, telling stories. But he always eventually comes back up for air to connect threads of thought, doing so as if theyโre revealing themselvesย to him on the fly.
Alexander spoke with me over the cupping table in his Fulton Market roastery, bouncing between his seat and a Kenya Peaberry brewing in a Chemex. Together with co-ownerย Darko Arandjelovic, heย signed a lease on the space to house their โ61 Probat UG 15 back in 2013, after nearly a year spent refurbishing the roaster from the inside out in an unventilated garage.
Theyโd bought it sight unseen from a descendant of Probatโs founder in Germany eight months earlier.
โFinally it shows up to the US,โ Alexanderย says. โAnd we open the crate, and it’s completely trashed.โ
They could either sell the machine or fix it.
Alexanderย shrugs. โWe decided to fix it.โ
Like their roaster, Alexanderย and Arandjelovicย built Metric by themselves, with a little help here and there, and for the next three years operated mostly as a wholesale business. Although you could get their coffee at some of the best restaurants and shops in Chicago–includingย Caffe Streets, which Arandjelovic happens to own–Metric never had a brick-and-mortar location.ย That is, until 2016, when after another round of renovations they opened the front of their roastery as a bar.
Before Metric,ย Alexander was head roaster at Intelligentsia Coffeeย just down the road,ย where since 2009 heโd been honing his skills with what he considered the greatest coffee company on the planet at the time. But despite doing work he loved, something felt off.
โI still admire Intelligentsia and what I learned there,โ Alexander says. โIโll never not be thankful for those opportunities. But there was also a point where I as a human being wanted to express myself through our brand, our art.โ
Arandjelovic has his own origin story. He came to the United States from Serbia 16 years ago and fell into work in construction to get by.ย โIโm kind of handy,โ he says. โI can build stuff, and like making something from nothing.โ As for coffee, โPassion for coffee was something that was always there. Coffee is always our time, itโs something that restarts the day.โ
Arandjelovicย met Alexanderย through Intelligentsia, whose coffees he was serving atย Caffe Streets. What drew the two to each other was a shared vision and intensity.ย โItโs hard to find someone who cares as much as he does,โ Arandjelovicย says of Alexander. โCoffee is love, man.โ
Since beginning the company as the sole employees, the two have grown Metric to a staff of 13. That’s tiny in comparison to many coffee companies, but in Chicago their star is rising, especially in the city’s thriving culinary scene. Metric is on the menu right now at notable restaurants like Avec and Lula Cafe, as well as Cellar Door Provisions, Goddess and The Baker, and Beatrix, to name just a few.
โI think we have something special,โ Alexanderย says. โOther people are starting to see it, but it’s because of the people involved. We lit the match, but everyone is keeping the fire going. We get up in the morning have a meeting, have doughnuts and coffee. We laugh. We have a time of togetherness, and then we go to work. This feels like home.โ
Itโs a feeling thatโwhen youโre around him, with the smell of roasting coffee hanging in the airโis infectious.
Michael Light (@MichaelPLight) is a features editor at Sprudge Media Network.ย Read moreย Michael Light onย Sprudge.
