We're Just Getting Started | Coffee is Growing in Columbus, Ohio
The beginning of a good thing
It’s wild to see how the Columbus coffee scene has changed since I started as a barista in the Clintonville neighborhood back in 2008. With only a handful of local roasters and seemingly as few local cafes, it felt lucky to have specialty coffee back then- in what I know now was just the beginning of this city’s growth in independent coffee. We’ve since seen the expansion into dozens of roasteries, bakeries, cafes, coffee shops, pop-ups, carts and everything in between in these 18 years, and it’s been wonderful to see this community grow into an innovative, thriving, welcoming community.
It’s a special privilege to have been a part of this growth, being a part of the 2010 era third wave coffee boom. I remember being in my twenties and getting psyched to bring pourovers into town, or when I helped open the first cafe in town (to my knowledge) that offered just “espresso”- no single shot, no double shot, just espresso. (This was a significant move for us in the industry as we worked to differentiate ourselves from the Starbucks model of commodifying every ounce of every drink.)
We had barista jams where coffee people got together at a local shop to see who could pour the best latte art, who could identify where a coffee was from just by tasting it and who could do it all while a little too inebriated. This was all before rosettas, single origin or pour over were more commonly understood and marketed terms. It was an exciting time to witness and to usher in, as so much of the foundation was being laid for what we all know now as independent specialty coffee.
The rise of independent coffee
Around this time, I recall watching a 2013 episode of Brooklyn 99 (R.I.P.) and saw Charles use a Chemex coffee maker (a prominent and classic pour over coffee maker from the 40s!). It seems silly now, but I remember seeing that moment as notable for our industry, surprised and delighted by the foodie-oriented nature of someone getting nerdy about coffee on a national sitcom.
Part of the seeming silliness of it all is how damn far we’ve come since then. In Columbus alone, we’ve welcomed specialty coffee into so many of our neighborhoods. From pop-ups to bakeries to full service cafes, we’ve seen a notable increase in quantity and quality in specialty coffee.
Latte art is now the norm in pretty much every shop. Many of our restaurants carry local and specialty grade coffee, occasionally serving high quality espresso drinks- not an easy thing to execute in a restaurant environment. Interesting, innovative flavored drinks have replaced the “two shots of hazelnut” as we’ve moved from Third Wave Coffee to what some have called New Wave Coffee. Tasting notes, coffee fermentation processes and $10 cups of coffee (another article is forthcoming on why this is a good thing) are now common in a town where a $20 per pound bag of blueberry-tasting-Ethiopian-coffee once absolutely blew folks’ minds.
A return to community, hospitality
From an industry perspective, this took a lot of work to implement. New developments in roasting and brewing technology were paramount. Finding new methods for service and training also accompanied the growth, working to account for new ways to describe, prepare and serve the increasing popularity of our cafe culture.
As the number of coffee companies have grown in Columbus, so have the teams that support them. We have baristas and roasters, trainers, technicians, managers and operations directors. We’re expanding our industry to accommodate professions in coffee sourcing and tasting, development and expansion teams and more. There’s increasing room for more specialized positions in the industry and it’s really starting to show.
We’ve also seen the return of the barista jam, now more frequently called a latte art throwdown, collaborations between multiple roasters, cafes and local businesses. We’ve seen our baristas become nationally recognized and work to spread awareness of social and economic development in our industry here in Columbus.
Supporting a culture of growth
The collaborative nature of the coffee industry has always surprised and encouraged me. Even from the beginning, the thinking of “a rising tide raises all ships” was such commonplace that, if something wasn’t available at the shop you were visiting, they would be the first to recommend another shop up the street. And while some might see this as a poor business practice, my opinion is that it is exactly this type of community-oriented thinking that has caused the independent coffee community to not only thrive but to become known for the culture of care and hospitality that many have come to love about it.
I love to see how this industry has its own unique events that encourage teams from many different companies to gather and support one another. I love the way that, if one of the shops has an issue, they know they can reach out for support from their communities. This mindset has always been something that attracted me to this work, and I am so thrilled that I now get to support this community through my work in photography and writing.
Columbus has a beautiful collection of coffee folks waiting to serve their community, and there are so many more ideas and locations and new companies in the works and I’m honored and truly excited to have the privilege to share these stories with you, and this is just the beginning.
