From Roastery to NYCC: A Fan-Built Coffee Brand Story

This story smells like roasted coffee, sweat, and adrenaline. It starts in Florida, ends in Manhattan, and includes a hurricane, zero sleep, and a 25-foot van that absolutely did not belong in Times Square.

Manhattan Was the Destination. Chaos Was the Journey.

At 7am, we boarded a plane in Dallas, Texas, already running on fumes.
By 3pm, we landed back home at RSW in Fort Myers.

We showered. Changed clothes. Repacked.

At 3am, we were back on the road—this time racing a Category 5 hurricane pushing toward us from the Gulf. The goal was simple: get far enough north to avoid gridlock. By 9am, we reached Jacksonville, Florida, exhausted but wired, laughing at how unreal this all felt.

Final destination: Manhattan.
New York Comic Con.

It was our first time ever going to NYCC.

Not as fans.
As vendors.

Maybe we’re a little crazy.

The Night That Made It Possible

The night before all of this started was pure sensory overload. 

It was just myself & Tony.

It was already brutally hot outside—thick Florida air that clung to your skin. Inside the roasting facility, the heat was overwhelming. The roasters were running high and hot, and we rolled open the big bay door just to push the smoke out, hoping for a breeze that never really came.

The air smelled deep, rich coffee with sweet cocoa notes floating through the space, mixing with heat and exhaustion.

Our bodies and minds were working at 110%.

The sounds stacked on top of each other:

• grinders roaring nonstop
• the bagging machine’s steady tap-tap-tap, dropping the perfect amount of coffee into each bag
• the cooling machine whining as it fought the heat
• the mixer spinning, tossing hot beans around to cool them down just enough

Over all of it—Green Day and Linkin Park, blasting loud enough to cut through the noise and keep us moving.

In the next room, our kids slept soundly—somehow—on top of burlap coffee sacks. Wrapped in the smell of fresh coffee, completely unbothered by the chaos.

We don’t remember eating.
We don’t remember drinking water.
There was no pause button.

Tape, Boxes, and Muscle Memory

As batches finished, we packed and stacked boxes nonstop. Tape rollers screamed as they sealed box after box—fast pulls, quick cuts, overlapping strips. We counted inventory out loud while our hands moved on autopilot.

Count. Stack. Tape. Mark. Move. Repeat.

The floor felt harder with every step. At some point, we couldn’t feel our backs or our feet anymore—but we knew they had to hurt. Coffee dust clung to our skin.

By the end of it, we had prepared over 5,000 pounds of coffee and loaded it into the van in less than 12 hours.

Just the two of us.

We pulled out of the driveway and looked at each other—both thinking the same thing:

“We did it.”

The next priority: stay awake long enough to reach Jacksonville, FL and beat hurricane traffic.

We were running on pure adrenaline.

It’s not like we had time to stop and brew coffee anyway.  I remember watching the sunrise on I-95, and it was beautiful. 

Welcome to Manhattan

Nothing about this trip was familiar territory.

It was our first NYCC ever. We’d never even gone as fans. We showed up as vendors, pulling into Manhattan with a 25-foot van, having absolutely no clue where the loading docks were.

And that’s when we learned something important:

In Times Square, lanes don’t matter.
If you can fit—you go.

Tony got the green light and committed. A big bus loomed ahead. He squeezed through.

WHAM!

I jumped. Then it hit me.

“Oh crap… you hit that bus’s mirror. I think you broke it.”

A few seconds later, the bus pulled up right next to us on the passenger side. I braced myself—fully expecting yelling, horns, or worse.

Instead, the bus driver calmly opened his window, reached his arm out, and pulled his mirror back into place.

Turns out… they’re made for that.

We lost it.
Relief. Laughter. Total disbelief.

Lights flashing. Horns blaring. The smell of hot pavement and street food drifting in through the windows—coffee still lingering in the van.

Only in New York.

Built by Fans, for Fans

This brand exists because we are fans first.

Fans of comics. Pop culture. Sports. Rivalries. Late-night debates and inside jokes that only make sense if you love the same things. We didn’t want to build something for everyone—we wanted to build something for people like us.

When you share the same passions, treating customers like family comes easy. We speak the same language. We care about the same details.

We’re the kind of fans who wait for midnight game launches, plan cosplays months in advance, and display collectibles like museum pieces. Whether it’s anime and Hoyoverse worlds, Marvel and DC storylines, Lord of the Rings, Disney nostalgia, competitive gaming, or sports collectibles, fandom is how we connect—and coffee is how we fuel it.

Quality products and customer service always come first.
Marketing comes...whenever.

Marriage, Business, and Different Roads to the Same Goal

Working together as a married couple is rewarding—and incredibly hard.

We have different ideas. Different priorities. Different paths to the same goal. And it’s very hard to work together when you both care deeply and don’t always agree on the way forward.

But that tension sharpens everything.

It makes the work better.
It makes the brand stronger.

Why This Story Still Matters

That night—hot, loud, exhausting, unforgettable—says everything about who we are.

Being a fan means showing up.
It means staying late.
It means pushing through discomfort because you love what you’re building.

That’s how we approach coffee.
That’s how we approach our customers.
That’s how we built this brand.

We don’t want customers. We want family.

And if you’re a fan like us—of comics, coffee, pop culture, sports, or just great stories—

You’re already home.