Our Sprudge Maps world tour heads now to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, home to Coffea Roasterie. In business for over a decade now, Coffee Roasterie has grown to include a roastery and lab, kitchen, and four cafes. To learn more, we caught up with CEO Darin Kaihoi to see how Coffea Roasterie has been weathering the Covid storm and continuing to serve the greater Sioux Falls area.
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Introduce yourself to our readers—tell us about your cafe!
Hello! Coffea Roasterie was founded in 2009 in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. We currently operate four retail cafes and a wholesale line. From the beginning, our goal has been to source, roast, brew, and serve exceptional coffees. Along the way, we’ve grown to include a kitchen that supplies our cafes with pastries and house-made syrups, as well as an expanded tea program. We love connecting with our community, and view our cafes and wholesale partnerships as opportunities to build genuine relationships around a passion for quality goods and positive culture. Of course, none of what we do is possible without the work of dedicated producers. We place a lot of importance on building lasting partnerships at the farm level and educating our staff and customers about the coffee supply chain and how we all fit into it.
What equipment do you use in your shop?
We have a variety of equipment across our cafés. At our downtown location we work on a Victoria Arduino Black Eagle, while two of our cafes use Modbar and another a La Marzocco GB5. We’ve been really happy with Nuova Simonelli Mythos Clima Pro grinders, as well as Mahlkönig EK43s. Acaia scales are found in every setup, as well as kettles from Fellow and Curtis batch brewers.
Which roaster or roasters do you serve?
We roast and serve all of our offerings.
What is the neighborhood like where you’re located? What’s some other cool stuff nearby?
We have the pleasure of being in three different areas of Sioux Falls. Our downtown cafe is on the same block as some awesome local boutiques and bars, including two staff favorites, The Carpenter Bar and The Treasury. There are a growing number of great breweries and restaurants in the downtown area, which has made for a really active local scene. Our westside cafe also houses our roasting and training lab. This location is just off of I-90 in a busy shopping area, so we get to meet lots of people traveling through and also host regulars who live and work in the area. Our eastside cafe is in a part of town that’s seeing expansion, which is exciting; although we’ll miss the view of the sunrise on the red barn across the highway when that day comes.
Did you close during a mandated Coronavirus shut-down, and if so, for how long?
South Dakota hasn’t had any mandated shut-downs, so we’ve been able to keep our doors open, however we did move to carry-out only for a couple of months. Indoor seating is now available and is limited to half capacity.
How has the Coronavirus impacted daily work at your cafe?
We thrive on customer interaction, conversations at the bar, and things of that nature, so the transition away from that has been tough. However, our team has been flexible and amazing and we’ve found ways to work with the new normal. We launched an online ordering system early on, along with offering take-home options, such as gallon cold brew and iced lattes, bulk pastries, and 2lb bags of beans. Like many other local shops, we’ve really felt supported by our community and are just thankful that we’ve been able to keep each other going.
What’s something cool or unique about your cafe you want folks to know?
We value quality ingredients and love partnering with like-minded local producers whenever possible. Our milk is from Stenslands Family Farms, which is a farm located less than 30 minutes from our cafes. We use local honey from a small farm in our drinks and baked goods. Our seasonal apple cider comes from an orchard just outside of the city. Our downtown cafe serves kombucha on tap from a local company called Songbird, and we think it’s the best anywhere. It’s an honor and so much fun to work with producers like these!
Is there a community organization or charity you’d like to shout-out as part of this feature?
We’ve been proud to partner with a few other local businesses in a “Sioux Falls Strong” campaign, which has donated merchandise sales to raise over $12,000 for a fund called One Sioux Falls. One Sioux Falls has distributed money from the fund to area residents to help them pay for necessities like rent, mortgages, and utilities during the pandemic. The fund has been impactful for the Sioux Falls community and a highlight of what can happen when all types of businesses, individuals, and groups come together for a common purpose.
We were also proud to help host the Sioux River Roast Off the last two years.The SRRO is a regional coffee event with the mission of bringing coffee professionals and enthusiasts together to experience area roasters, learn about the specialty coffee world, take part in fun stuff like a latte art throwdown, and, as the name implies, compete in a roaster competition. The event brought in over $22,000 in the last two years to help end homelessness in the Sioux Falls area through a partnership with a local non-profit called The Community Outreach.
Thank you!
Want your cafe featured in a Sprudge Maps Spotlight? Register your shop for Sprudge Maps, our user-driven compendium of coffee shops around the globe. It’s completely free. Sign up today!
Photos courtesy of Coffea Roasterie, used with permission
