Business Spotlight: Valentine business partners found coffee kept calling them back

The first cup of Valentine coffee was sold at a farmers market, traded for a bag of snap peas.

Nearly five years later, the 12-employee team has hundreds of wholesale accounts, a growing line of brewing equipment and a wine-inspired tasting room just outside the Wauwatosa city limits.

"We're about 30 steps outside of Tosa," explained Joe Gilsdorf, who owns Valentine Coffee Roasters with fellow java devotee Robb Kashevarof.

"We can see Tosa," Kashevarof teased.

It wasn't where Kashevarof thought Valentine would land when he moved from the humble beginnings of his Delafield garage to set up shop on West Martin Drive, near Hawthorne Glen.

"My wife and I started the company in our garage with a tax return and a credit card," Kashevarof said. "It's as grassroots as you get, just a sample roaster, a $1000 machine, and a lot of trial and error."

For Kashevarof, it was a journey that started in Oregon, where he first learned about micro-roasting and specialty coffee after pursuing a career in professional soccer in Poland. Eventually, he returned to Wisconsin and began selling wine.

But coffee was something he couldn't quite shake.

Gilsdorf had the same preoccupation.

He fell in love with coffee as a kid, stealing sips from his mother's cup. Interests in craft-brewed beer, whiskey and wine led him around the country before he, too, returned to Wisconsin — and coffee.

Gilsdorf joined Valentine in 2011 and, a year later, after a residential construction project forced them from their space on Martin Drive, the company moved to Vliet Street — a move that allowed the duo not only to increase their brewing capacity, but also share their products with the community one cup at a time.

"Every roaster needs to have a laboratory," Gilsdorf said. "We just happen to have a lab that opens onto Vliet Street with a cash register and a couple of tables."

"We call it a tasting room and not a café, although it really functions as a café," Kashevarof explained.

And, much like the time honored tradition of pairing food and wine, Kashevarof and Gilsdorf have partnered with local restaurants to find an assortment of early morning indulgences and, starting soon, late night bites that complement their coffees.

Of course, Valentine is first and foremost a roasting company. So, while the storefront functions as a café for the Washington Heights and East Tosa neighborhoods, it also serves as a training center for their wholesale clients.

"You can go to the source and learn about the product. We can invite restaurant staffs in here, cafe staffs in here, and show them how it's supposed to taste," Gilsdorf said.

It's a philosophy that has led Valentine to provide brewing equipment for its wholesale customers.

But don't worry. The new venture won't distract them from what they do best.

"We're going to be relatively small roasters for the foreseeable future," Gilsdorf said.

Kashevarof agreed. "There's nothing I'd rather be doing. Being able to source this green coffee and roast it and have it be really good and have people enjoy, it is pretty darn fulfilling."

JUST THE FACTS

BUSINESS: Valentine Coffee Roasters, 5918 W. Vliet St.

WEB:www.valentinecoffeeco.com

PHONE: (414) 988-8018

OWNERS: Joe Gilsdorf and Robb Kashevarof

INCORPORATED: 2009

TYPE OF BUSINESS: coffee roaster

PEARLS OF WISDOM: "We started with gumption and the will to work."

— Gilsdorf

."A complete stranger once (approached us and) said, 'Are you Valentine Coffee?' Then, she put her hand on my shoulder and said, 'Thank you, thank you for what you do. You make my life better.' That's rewarding."

— Kashevarof