Freelance Coffee Project

Everything is roasted on site and sold single origin only, credited to the farm: the washed Kenya Kii from the Rungeto Farmers Cooperative Society, the Costa Rica El Mango off the Régulo Ureña and Isabel Rojas family plot. The founders put it plainly: 'We don't blend our coffee, because we don't believe in blending in.' It is a room of black steel, stacked burlap and floor-to-ceiling glass onto the roaster, and for all that theater there is no manual brew on the bar and no roast date on the bag.

Bar and retail alike come off the Mill City Roasters machine behind the glass, run by head roaster Ryan Okko, a Q Grader, buying single origin only through importers Ally Coffee, Cafe Imports, and Olam Specialty Coffee. Retail lots carry farm credit (the washed Kenya Kii from the Rungeto Farmers Cooperative Society at $36), though only two lots name a varietal and none print a roast date.

Natalie Taormina led the interior here: custom black steel made with their longtime welder to answer the industrial block, earthy neutrals and living plants, and burlap sacks of green coffee stacked at the center for texture. Floor-to-ceiling windows hold the roastery open to the seats, so the 1,200 square feet of production is the room's centerpiece rather than its back office.