Maggie Gustafson and Eric Faust – Photo by Lissa Maki
A trio of craft beverage purveyors will be sharing space in Canal Park starting Saturday. Duluth Coffee Company is opening a satellite coffee shop in the Ripple Bar on Lake Superior, which is adjacent to Hoops Brewing in the Waterfront Plaza at 325 S. Lake Ave.
City Girl Coffee, a Duluth-based coffee roaster dedicated to empowering women in the coffee-growing industry, has announced its varietals and blends are now available on amazon.com and at Minnesota Target locations.
The expanded distribution follows the company’s third anniversary on Nov. 12.
City Girl sources its beans from women-owned or managed farms and cooperatives whenever possible. The brand offers a product line of organic and Fair Trade varietals and blends from Guatemala, Brazil, Sumatra and Peru that are packaged in 12-ounce bags and single-serve cups.
The company was profiled on Perfect Duluth Day in 2016 and featured in Forbes magazine and the New York Times in 2017.
Duluth Folk School Director & Co-Founder Bryan French outside Dovetail Cafe – Photo by Lissa Maki
If all goes as planned, Dovetail Cafe and Marketplace will open in the second week of October. The unique eatery, housed within the Duluth Folk School at 1917 W. Superior St., will serve up meals made from scratch, products from local vendors and a side of education for those inclined to learn.
Duluth’s City Girl Coffee was featured yesterday in the online version of nationally circulated business magazine Forbes. In the Q-and-A article, City Girl founder Alyza Bohbot shares how her coffee business aims to source from women-owned and managed farms while working to raise consumer awareness of gender inequality in the world’s coffee-producing communities. She also details how she approaches the challenges of small business ownership and explains why social missions should be more than just a marketing tool.
Article link: Small Company, Mighty Mission
It’s remarkable for a family-owned business to withstand a century’s worth of cultural and economic changes, not to mention several generations of leaders. But Superior’s ARCO Coffee Company has reached this monumental achievement—100 years in business.
G.A. Andresen and W.J. Ryan founded the business in Duluth in 1916 as Andresen Ryan Coffee Company. Their names were later combined into the acronym ARCO.
Duluth Coffee Company launched as a boutique wholesale roaster in 2011 and expanded to open a retail café in Downtown Duluth in 2012. The café sells roasted coffees, brewing devices, grinders and coffee brewed by the cup to order.
Peru Cajamarca Norte is a full-city roast grown in Cajamarca, Peru. There is some oil on the surface of the bean, whereas light roasts have no oil and dark roasts are oily. Other characteristics of this coffee are heavy body and bitterness, with a rich and dark color. Duluth Coffee Company roasts beans onsite in a 3-kilo roaster, exposing the beans to higher temperatures for a darker roast.
The coffee industry has undergone significant changes in the past couple of decades, as an increasing number of specialty roasters enter the market. The Duluth area is now experiencing what some call the “third wave” of coffee. The first wave of coffee was about convenience and mass production (think instant coffee, like Folgers). The second wave of coffee involved the rise of chains like Starbucks, where consumers were introduced to fresher and better quality beans and the experience of drinking in coffee shops.
Alyza Bohbot poses in front of Alakef’s original roaster with City Girl Coffee schwag
Alyza Bohbot never intended to take over Alakef Coffee Roasters, her family’s wholesale coffee roasting business. She was living on the East Coast and had just finished a master’s degree in school counseling when her parents, Nessim and Deborah, told Alyza, their only child, of their retirement plans.
Alyza says she had a “gut check moment.” She realized she didn’t want to see the business her parents worked so hard to build leave the family. She agreed to move back to Minnesota for a six-month trial period to determine if it was a good fit. Three years later, with her parents’ guidance and the help of veteran Alakef staff, Alyza is running the company and taking it in an interesting new direction.
