OUR STORY

Fred may no longer be with us, but he's the reason we are here 🙏🏻

My coffee addiction started at a very young age thanks to my father. He worked for Food Craft Coffee Services (now known as AltaFoodcraft) in Los Angeles and it was a treat to go to work with him. FoodCraft was an early player in the office coffee service for business and they would deliver coffee,tea, and break room essentials, to businesses all across the Southland. Walking into that warehouse and being overwhelmed by the sweet, coffee aromas that saturated everything within those walls, is a smell I will never forget. Their vehicles were UPS style trucks that allowed the driver to cruise with the doors wide open, soaking in the mild, morning California temperatures and abundant sunshine, and that was all this 6 year old needed to think his dad had one of the coolest jobs out there. My addiction to coffee began.

A few years back, my wife and I bought an old horse trailer that we were going to renovate into a mobile coffee cart (think a food truck but with beverages) and we would cruise around town selling our favorite coffees and sharing them with the community, allowing them to discover new bleands and roasts they might not ever heard of. I really wanted to serve one of my favorite roasters at the time, but when they told us we "weren't a true coffee shop because you aren't brick and mortor", well that left a really bad taste in my mouth and discouraged me from the dream we were currently chasing. So I thought fine, if they don't want me serving their coffee, I'll figure out a way to serve my own. I had no idea the depth of coffee beans and the science behind them. I took our small savings and bought a small home roasting kit that came with samples, hit the internet for anything and everything coffee roasting, and got to work. Lots of beans were burnt, lots of beans were thrown away, but like anything else, it takes practice and consistency. This was the beginning of Fred's Roast.

Once we had a roast figured out, we needed a name for it. I asked the girls and we started throwing around cliche terms and names, but then they said why not "Fred's". It was meant to be. My dad loved coffee. He was responsible for my love of coffee. I was responsible for their love of coffee. It all made sense. Once he put down the alcohol, it was all I ever saw him consume. He always said it was more than a cup of warm liquid and now I understand that more than ever. My sister said he always wanted to start his own coffee company with his slogan being "The Roast of the Town", so it only seemed fitting that we would call it Fred's Roast.