Specialty Coffee Retailer is a publication for owners, managers and employees of retail outlets that sell specialty coffee. Its scope includes best sales practices, supplies, business trends and anything else to assist the small coffee retailer.
Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/58144
OSLO COFFEE Brooklyn, N.Y. A small sign in the shape of a coff ee cup hangs over the entrance to Oslo Coff ee Roasters, the only hint that inside it's all about the bean. Oslo is a coff ee institution in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, N.Y., an area now packed with cafés, but owners J.D. Merget and wife Kathy were unlikely pioneers when they opened this location on Roebling Street in September of 2003. "It was my dream to roast coff ee and work with coff ee, but not to run and do the whole thing," says J.D. Merget. J.D. has spent his entire career in wholesale coff ee, beginning as a delivery driver for Starbucks in Seattle, but it was Kathy, then an art teacher, who suggested they open a café and roaster. It took the couple a year and a half of looking—and discovering Manhattan commercial real estate was too expensive—before they found this space in a brand new building, across from a public school. Th ey designed and built the interior themselves, with help from friends, based on Merget's industry experience. "I looked at the coff ee shops I helped open and worked with and saw which ones were successful and which ones weren't successful," he says. On the outside, the café shares the same blue windows and doors as its retail neighbors on the ground fl oor of a generic light brown brick apartment building, but the inside is large and bright, the front wall all window, which can completely open for warm weather. Th ere's an antique Royal typewriter on the communal table at the front of the store, but laptops, a Williamsburg café staple, are few and far between. Th ere's no Wi-Fi or even electrical outlets at Oslo, a decision made to keep the vibe sociable. "We prefer that you sit and meet and talk to people," says Merget. Th e crowd at Oslo runs from parents with strollers to local freelancers and artists, although it's developed a morning commuter rush as more offi ce professionals moved into the area. Oslo now has two more stores, one on nearby Bedford Avenue and one in Manhattan's 38 | March 2012 • www.specialty-coffee.com BY DANIELLE BEURTEAUX Yorkville neighborhood. Roebling Street isn't their busiest in terms of foot traffi c, but Merget is glad they opened there fi rst. "It was a good learning curve," he says. "It took us two or three years to really get going at this location." Roebling boasts a brand new La Marzocco Strada espresso machine, but the other Oslos have La San Marco Levas. Th ey both make great coff ee, Merget says, but he professes a soſt spot for the old-fashioned Leva: "Th e variances in the Leva sometimes make a better shot because they can't be reproduced." Th e Mergets do everything themselves, from bookkeeping to hiring, and—J.D.'s true passion—roasting. "Roasting is one of the biggest challenges I ever had," he says. "I thought it would be much easier." A few blocks north of the shop is the warehouse where they roast beans, and deliver to their own outlets and wholesale accounts. Th ey use a 1980s Probat L12 that roasts 20 pounds at a time. Oslo sells and serves 1,200 pounds of beans a week. Originally, they planned to roast in the store, but the city couldn't fi gure out how to permit the roasting. Th ey mostly piggyback their orders with brokers, but are also now working with a new New York-based organization called the Coff ee Collective, a group of 10 coff ee shops, roasters, and importers that buys directly from coff ee farmers. Th eir fi rst was an El Salvador Himalayan, and they're looking at Ugandan and Nicaraguan as follow-ups. Each season, they release four new single origin roasts, and an employee designs a new logo and silk-screens bags. What does it take to be a good roaster? "Love and understanding," jokes Merget. "Really, the whole deal is, you have to taste and taste and try and taste, and it's always a learning experience." OWNER: J.D. and Kathy Merget EQUIPMENT: La Marzocco Strada espresso machine; Proback L12 roaster; Mazzer Robur-E grinder WEB: www.oslocoffee.com Oslo Coff ee Roasters 133 Roebling St., Brooklyn, N.Y. 718-782-0332 Weekdays: 7 a.m.–6 p.m. (7 p.m. summers); Weekends: 8 a.m.–6 p.m. (7 p.m. summers)