Kansas City · United States
The Roasterie
The Roasterie roasts in Kansas City, Missouri.
Since 1993 · Danny O'Neill
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
- head roaster
- Danny O'Neill (founder)
- roaster machine
- Air-roasting equipment (originally sourced from an Oregon manufacturer)
- roastery location
- Southwest Boulevard, Kansas City, Missouri (Factory West Side)
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)