The Roasterie

Overview

The Roasterie was founded in November 1993 in the basement of Danny O'Neill's Brookside home in Kansas City, after the Iowa-born founder spent 15 years drawn back to coffee following a 1978 foreign-exchange trip to Costa Rica's Poás volcano region where he picked his first coffee cherries. O'Neill discovered air-roasting on a study trip to Oregon and built the company around the technique, eventually serving a term as president of the Specialty Coffee Association of America. The Roasterie operates four Kansas City cafés today and is identifiable from the West Side highway by the vintage DC-3 airplane mounted to the Southwest Boulevard factory.

Known for

• Founded November 1993 in Danny O'Neill's Brookside basement, Kansas City
• Air-roasted coffee — uncommon technique in US specialty
• Founder Danny O'Neill is a past president of the Specialty Coffee Association of America
• Four Kansas City cafés: Brookside (Roasterie Café), Leawood, Crossroads (Corrigan Station, 2017), Factory West Side
• Vintage DC-3 plane mounted to the Southwest Boulevard factory — Kansas City landmark

Why it matters

The Roasterie is the heritage Kansas City specialty roaster — it pre-dates the modern third-wave by a generation and is one of the few US roasters at scale to commit to air-roasting rather than drum-roasting. For a US directory, it covers a geographic and stylistic gap: Midwest heritage specialty, commercial volume measured in millions of pounds annually, and a founder credentialed at the SCAA presidential level. Onyx and Ruby occupy the third-wave Midwest slot; The Roasterie occupies the second-wave-into-third heritage slot.

Production

destoning

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head roaster

Danny O'Neill (founder)

color sorting

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roaster machine

Air-roasting equipment (originally sourced from an Oregon manufacturer)

filter equipment

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cupping frequency

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roastery location

Southwest Boulevard, Kansas City, Missouri (Factory West Side)

espresso equipment

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annual volume tonnes

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Café

6223 Brookside Boulevard, Kansas City, MO 64113 (original cafe)

Recognitions

• Past President of Specialty Coffee Association of America (Danny O'Neill)
• Kansas City Entrepreneur of the Year — Henry W. Bloch School of Management, UMKC (2015)
• 30+ years in operation (founded 1993)

Sources

• https://theroasterie.com/pages/about
• https://www.brooksidekc.org/article/faces-brookside-roasterie
• https://www.kcur.org/community/2016-01-07/how-danny-oneill-is-changing-the-culture-of-coffee-in-kansas-city
• https://startlandnews.com/2018/09/roasterie-danny-oneill/
• https://www.feastmagazine.com/kansas-city/article_9989ee7c-c235-11e6-8fd6-0377530e2ccb.html
• https://www.inkansascity.com/innovators-influencers/people/by-the-numbers-the-roasteries-bean-baron-danny-oneill/