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Santa Cruz · United States

Verve Coffee Roasters

Since 2007 · Ryan O'Donovan, Colby Barr

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Overview

Founded November 19, 2007 by Chico State friends and former musicians Ryan O'Donovan and Colby Barr — the latter from a Northern California pear and wine grape farming family — Verve Coffee Roasters opened its first cafe at Pleasure Point in Santa Cruz and was named Roast Magazine's 2024 Roaster of the Year. The company runs roasteries in Santa Cruz (Seabright), the LA Arts District (Roastery Del Sur), Oxnard, and Japan, all standardized on Loring roasters and tracked in Cropster, with ~24 cafes spanning California and Japan including the Shinjuku Station location and Meta and SLAC tech-campus shops.

Known for

  • Roast Magazine Roaster of the Year 2024
  • Highest score in coffee category at the Good Food Awards (2013)
  • 'Farmlevel' direct trade sourcing initiative
  • Producer Summits — convening Verve's farmer partners across countries to share knowledge
  • Multi-roastery production standardized on Loring + vintage Probats with Cropster
  • International footprint with seven Japan cafes and a Shinjuku Station location
  • Canned Nitro Flash Brew Coffee product line

Why it matters

Verve has demonstrated that a Santa Cruz-rooted independent roaster can scale to Japan, build pre-competitive farmer-to-farmer learning networks across origin countries, and earn Roaster of the Year — all while staying privately held and continuing to roast on vintage Probats alongside their Loring fleet.

Production

head roaster
Matt Tilley (Head of Coffee)
roaster machine
Loring S70 plus vintage Probat L-5, UG-15, UG-22, GN-45 (Cropster customer since 2011)
roastery location
Santa Cruz (Seabright) + LA Arts District (Roastery Del Sur) + Oxnard + Kanagawa Japan

Café

This roaster operates a café.

Recognitions

  • Roast Magazine Roaster of the Year — Macro Category Winner (2024)
  • Good Food Awards — Highest Score in Coffee Category (2013)
  • Coffee Spot Awards Best Espresso (2018)
  • World Latitude Caffe Prize Nominee (2021, Japan cafe)

Sources

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