Roosroast Not Your Ordinary Cuppa Joe
Coffee entrepreneur brews up a winner for a micro market

When it comes to doing business, John Roos is playing with fire. Just about everyday, Roos, owner of Roosroast Free Speech Coffee, takes a small batch of green coffee beans, fires up his low-tech roaster that sits on the porch outside his small shop on the edge of downtown Ann Arbor, and roasts coffee with names such as Frontal Lobe Focus and Rich French Neighbor. Roos, a one-man operation, resists thinking big. He's not out to compete with the national chains and even credits the ubiquitous Starbucks with kick-starting the coffee craze. When he opened his coffee roasting operation nearly two years ago, it was to roast the best batch of coffee beans anywhere, not the most, he said. He does that by roasting tiny batches in an open flame, not through convection heat. "My business philosophy comes from the old mom and pop model," Roos said. "I lived in Hong Kong for three months and I like the way the Chinese do business: They take a real simple idea and they work with what they have within the space they have." While he would someday like to open a coffee shop where he can brew and serve Roosroast, he has no design to grow large. "I don't want to be driving around town in a truck delivering these huge amounts of coffee," he said. "Instead, I want to have the best coffee." Still, sales have seen a steady increase since he opened. Roos goes after the finicky customer, the coffee connoisseur. He's the coffee version of the fine wine shop, he said. He uses words such as complex, wild and earthy to describe the flavors of some of his roasts. Flavor is linked to freshness, and he only wants to sell it where it will move quickly. "My business plan isn't about selling a lot of coffee," he said. "It's about selling it to the right people. I want people who sell it to love it so they'll promote it. It needs to move so it will be fresh." Roosroast is sold at a number of shops and restaurants in Ann Arbor, including Jefferson Market on the Old West Side and Eve's Restaurant. It will also be served at the Ann Arbor Film Festival next month, and he sells it off of his Web site. Customers can sometimes catch him at his store, located in the collection of small businesses off of West Huron Street, across from the YMCA. He delivers his roast, packaged in brown coffee bags that carry his own artful designs, to customer's doorsteps. And he's never without a few freshly roasted bags of beans in case he bumps into a customer. Roos juggles his roasting business with his work selling cars and as an artist. He sees his three worlds - Subaru car salesman, painter and print maker and coffee roaster - connected. He was selling his art at the Sunday artisan market adjacent to Kerrytown and noticed sales for consumable goods such as homemade soaps were brisk while expensive artwork moved slowly. He started selling coffee roasted by a northern Michigan company, but soon decided to roast his own. He gave away free bags of his home roast to customers who bought a car from him. In March 2006, he started Roosroast and a year ago he moved into his store. He recently filed to become an LLC. The sales skills he's honed selling cars has helped with his own business. "I get to combine the three things I love: Cooking, art and marketing," he said. Roosroast is located at 410 W, Huron and can be found on the Web at roosroast.com. He does not hold regular store hours.

Janet Miller is a freelance writer.

From the November/December 2006 Issue of Art Showcase Magazine

"Roosart is grass roots art. It's a direct response to the people and landscape around us, art of the everyday, where painting represents an essential reality, and provides a form of visual communication. My paintings are illustrated phrases about the necessity of being present in life."

Thinking Globally, Acting Locally

John's status as "Ann Arbor Famous" was recently confirmed when his face appeared on the cover of the 2006 Ann Arbor Observer City Guide. We love the way they say that although there are many cafes nearby, the great smell is probably coming from the Roosroast that's being carefully roasted a few blocks away...

From the Ann Arbor Observer 2006 City Guide:

Direct from the source

Late one afternoon, you're riding your bike up Liberty Street and stop for the light at Main. You watch early-arriving folks from out of town window-shopping their many dining options in a city burst-ing with restaurants, some of which pub-lish their own coffee-table cookbooks. The light's still red when you hear the magic words: "Would you care for a free sample?" They're coming from a tall waiter in a white apron, working the outside tables at Starbucks. "Our blackberry almond bars," he says simply, extending the tray over your handlebars. The pastry, like the experience, is rich—and perfectly comple-mented by the smell of fresh-roasted coffee in the air.
Although there's coffee brewing in many cafes within a deep inhale's radius, the aroma is likely drifting uphill from the "art barn" shared studio complex on West Huron. That's where car salesman and artist John Roos custom-roasts coffee in small batches.He's convinced the key is to "pay attention at the end of the roast, by ear— 'cause when the beans start to crack too fast, they go bad." Roos began by throwing in a bag of his signature roast with every new Subaru he sold. When people started coming to the dealership for more coffee, he established retail outlets at Red Shoes and other boutiques. Roos has served up tiny samples of his coffee at Ann Arbor Art Center gallery openings.

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Off the Wall, Current Magazine, December 2005:
By Kyle Norris

Roos Roast

It's not clear if John Roos is first and foremost a painter, coffee maestro, or car salesman. Really, he is all of these things, balanced in an intriguing and unlikely way.

He's also a lifelong cook, which is part of the equation and probably a good place to start when trying to understand the man.

John grew up in Ann Arbor and went to Pioneer High School. After graduation, he moved to Colorado to become a ski bum. John had cooked since the age of eight, and the culinary arts became a nice way to support himself in Colorado.

He traveled the world, using cooking as a way to make money. He worked in places like Maui, Nice, Hong Kong, New York City, Miami Beach, and Bangkok. John chronicled his travels in journal after journal, filling them with drawings, writings, and sketches. "Everywhere I went I kept journals with my thoughts," he says.

While living in Hawaii, a friend suggested he try painting. "When you're in a beautiful place like Hawaii, with its light and contrast in things, it's almost hard not to paint it," he reflects. "I had also worked with food -- working with colors and the plate and making the food look good all the time. So painting was the next step for that."

John has always nurtured a passion for good coffee -- a taste he developed while working as a cook. He also drank coffee while he painted. "People told me, 'You should write a book about the best cup of coffee in the world,' but I never really found it. Everywhere I went, I was always tasting around for the best cup of coffee."

Several years ago, he read an article about people who home-roast small batches of coffee beans. He bought a roaster that promptly broke. He tried several more and eventually connected with a man on eBay who made his own coffee roasters. At the time, John had returned from his travels and decided to live in Ann Arbor. He wasn't impressed with the local coffee and decided to roast and sell his own beans on a regular basis.

Another thing he was not impressed with was the local market for purchasing artwork. He remembers getting a show at a downtown coffee shop and going in to hang his paintings on the wall. No one even looked up from their tables. When he went back a few months later to take down the paintings, again no one stirred. For all they knew, he says, he could have been stealing them.

He decided he needed to market his art in a different way. He had also been studying the Ann Arbor culture, wondering if people here really bought pieces of art. He noticed people drove nice cars. Maybe the cars are an art form in this community, he thought to himself.

When he spotted an ad in the paper announcing a sales position at the local Subaru dealership, he knew this was his chance to fulfill another thing he had wanted to do since childhood: be a car salesman.

"I'm definitely not a car salesman first. I'd say I'm an artist first because as an artist you need to have a connection to all kinds of things. And that helps me as a car salesman. I'm sensitive to the outside world. As an artist you bring excitement and high energy to everything you do."

John says the three categories in what he calls his "triangle" (coffee, art, and Subarus), give him the chance to express different parts of himself. As a painter, he can hone in on the painting with utter focus. As a salesman, he is much more social and communicates constantly with people.

And yet it's all connected. "Cars and coffee are things everyone needs and wants," he says. He also uses the car sales and coffee as ways to help promote his art. (Not to mention, a free bag of coffee comes with every car sold.) Alternatively, the coffee and art aspects help him in the business world.

"If you come in to buy a car and learn that the salesman paints art and roasts coffee, you realize he's not a scoundrel."

At some point down the road, John says he'd like to open his own coffee place, but for now, he's found a happy balance in the different worlds. "The coffee thing is amazing because it combines all these things I wanted to do. It provides a quality service. I can have my artwork on the bag. It also combines my background in cooking, taste, sales, and marketing. And I'm making people happy and giving them something they'll like."

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