Today we’d like to introduce you to Laidrey Roasters.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
Laidrey started long ago in my home garage, where I was roasting coffee for myself, friends, and family. I had initially discovered my love for specialty coffee in New York while attending grad school. I moved back to my hometown of Tarzana, CA from New York in 2013 and got a job at UCLA working as a project manager for clinical trials in behavioral health. On my way to work every day, I struggled to find good quality coffee. So, I started roasting coffee myself on a small 1 lb Behmor Roaster in my garage. I had no idea how much I would love roasting. It became a slight obsession and my husband was intrigued. We started handing coffee out to friends and family. I was pleasantly surprised at all the positive feedback and excitement for what I was doing. I’d also give some coffee to my boss and mentor at UCLA who I had worked with for over eight years. She encouraged me to follow my passion and always provided me with great insight and advice. I spent time with her and her husband (who is an expert in the beverage industry) and they would advise me on how to expand on my passion. Fast-forward four years later, the 3 of us partnered together to start Laidrey. With their expertise and support, we are now awaiting the opening of our very first roastery in my hometown of Tarzana (just steps away from the area that housed the very first movie theatre I ever went to!). I feel proud and blessed to be able to bring my passion to my neighborhood.
Currently, our coffee cart is situated in our newspaper stand at the corner of our building every day from 7:30am – 12pm. We opened the coffee cart on June 11th to introduce ourselves to the neighborhood and give a little taste of what we are all about. We offer a full coffee menu and a selection of delicious pastries from BakersKneaded, which is delivered fresh every morning.
We plan on opening our roastery Mid-October. We will continue to serve our delicious pastries inside as well as a carefully curated breakfast and lunch menu. Our roastery will be the first of its kind in the west San Fernando Valley. We are excited to provide a fully immersive coffee experience that will include holding public cuppings for our customers and showcasing our coffee roaster in our shop.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
SMOOTH ROAD?? HAHA! That’s a very good question. Well to start – we decided to open our roastery during the middle of a worldwide pandemic so there have been some unique challenges. We knew it was going to be a tough road but we were committed to bringing our passion for coffee to our local community and decided to start building with the new “normal” in mind. We found our perfect location that has the ability to serve customers both inside and outside, through a take-out window and a newspaper stand allowing us to bring our coffee to our customers in a safe way. We also added mobile ordering with curbside pick-up to make the experience as smooth as possible. To reach beyond our local community we’ve incorporated a subscription option allowing us to directly ship our freshly roasted coffee anywhere in the world every month to our customers.
At the core of our business, we work very hard to continuously offer the best coffee beans in the world that not only taste amazing but are sustainably grown and ethically sourced. Once we find the coffee we love, we have to be quick in reserving. For our opening, we were very lucky to be able to source Puno coffee from a very small region in Peru which is some of the best coffee in the world. We use our Peru coffee in our cold brew because we believe it highlights all the delicious vanilla and brown sugar flavors.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
In terms of the roastery, we believe we are bringing something new and unique to our community where specialty coffee shops are rare and roasteries do not exist. We plan to give our customers a fully immersive and transparent coffee experience where they can watch coffee being roasted, packaged, and brewed. Our mission: Ethically Sourced, Meticulously Roasted, Freshly Brewed. Not only do we pay very careful attention to our coffee beans, we also locally source our ingredients for our menu items. Every ingredient, even our Vanilla syrup (half Madagascar half Tahitian) is carefully curated in order for our customers to have the highest quality ingredient in every cup. We bring a set of unique drinks such as our Beach Brew and Maple Oat latte. Both have been a summer favorite on our cart.
A little bit about us:
Our day jobs are very different: Marisa is a molecular biologist, Paul is a successful entrepreneur in the food and beverage industry, and I am a social worker turned coffee roaster. Yet we all share a love for coffee and our local community. Coffee has always been a part of our daily work life and at home as parents with young kids. Coffee is our sanctuary. A sip of delicious coffee in the midst of a chaotic morning with little ones running around or a long commute can be all we need sometimes. We also know what it’s like to anticipate that yummy coffee and get disappointed when it does not taste as good as you were expecting.
This is where my interest in coffee began, which led to me roasting at home and eventually becoming my true passion. As I started to think about a possible coffee roastery, Paul began helping me on the operations side and together we saw a foundation of a great business venture – this is how Laidrey was born.
Throughout our coffee journey our families have been a huge source of inspiration and when it came time to naming our business, we knew exactly what name to choose. Our children’s names are Leo, Aiden, and Audrey and together their names make Laidrey.
What does success mean to you?
Success to us is being able to do what you love for a living and doing it in a way that can help make a difference in the world. As a coffee roaster, my passion lies in what I do but in every step of our business, we have made conscious decisions to make a positive impact. It starts with sourcing coffee from farms that use sustainable methods in harvesting and processing coffee plants and beans. We work to pay a premium for our coffee beans so that equitable pay and equal opportunity is given to coffee farmers who happen to be 70% women. We also source from farms that give back to their communities, through supporting local education, health care, or community projects. We hope to grow big enough to use our proceeds to give back to our coffee community around the world.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: www.laidrey.com
- Instagram: laidreyroasters
- Facebook: laidreyroasters
- Yelp: laidrey roasters
