Our Story

How two coffee skeptics fell in love with smooth, fresh-roasted coffee — and each other.

I used to hate coffee. Not just dislike it — hate it. To me, it tasted like charred asphalt mixed with regret. For years, I avoided it like the plague. Then one fateful weekend at a church campout, a friend handed me a cup of coffee he’d roasted himself at home.

The Cup That Changed My Mind

That coffee was smooth. Actually smooth. No bitterness, no burnt aftertaste — just rich, chocolatey flavor. I was instantly hooked.

I started bugging my friend to teach me how to roast, and before long I was roasting my own beans and forcing everyone I knew to try them. I became that guy — the one who wouldn’t shut up about fresh coffee.

Coffee, Courtship, and a Business Idea

Somewhere along the way, I met Alisha. She came from the Hills Brothers Coffee family, so good coffee was already part of her world. When I told her about my roasting obsession, she didn’t roll her eyes — she got excited. A woman after my own heart.

We started dating, and coffee became part of our relationship. Late-night roasting sessions, road trips hunting for good coffee, and lots of taste-testing. One day she looked at me and said, “We should start a business.”

I laughed… then realized she was serious.

Building Lake City Coffee Roasters

So we did. We started Lake City Coffee Roasters with a simple goal: roast the smoothest, lowest-acid coffee we could find and get it to people while it was still fresh. No long warehouse storage. No middlemen. Just really good coffee, roasted in small batches, to order, and shipped the same day.

That’s still what we do today. We source high-quality beans (mostly from Tarrazú, Costa Rica), roast them low and slow, and focus on flavor without the bitterness. Alisha handles a lot of the tasting and day-to-day operations, while I do most of the roasting and technical nerding. It’s a true partnership — in business and in life.

Why We Do What We Do

We’re not trying to be the biggest coffee company out there. We just want to roast coffee we’re proud of and treat people the way we’d want to be treated. If that means we stay relatively small and keep things personal, we’re completely fine with that.

We also believe in giving back. A portion of what we make supports organizations doing good work. You can see who we support below if you’re interested.

Thanks for reading our story. We hope you enjoy the coffee as much as we enjoy roasting it.

— Russell & Alisha Volz