Page Roasting Company

07/07/2025

♥️

HEY FRIENDS! AS MOST OF YOU ALREADY KNOW, I - ERIN ERDMAN - HAVE HAD TO CLOS… Erin Erdman needs your support for Community Support for Page & Avionics

07/03/2025

Things changed recently as a shocking gas/electric bill showed up sans any usage of the roaster in terms of gas/electric... Anything contributed beyond $1k will go directly to Avionics to carry them through this insane time.

HEY FRIENDS! AS MOST OF YOU ALREADY KNOW, I - ERIN ERDMAN - HAVE HAD TO CLOS… Erin Erdman needs your support for Community Support for Page & Avionics

07/02/2025

Hey friends, appreciate you all and just hoping for a touch of help to get us through this transition. No expectations at all, just appreciation for our time together and great hope for the future.

HEY FRIENDS! AS MOST OF YOU ALREADY KNOW, I - ERIN ERDMAN - HAVE HAD TO CLOS… Erin Erdman needs your support for Community Support for Page & Avionics

05/23/2025

*IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT, FRIENDS*

First and foremost, rest assured that Flying Machine Avionics lives and will go on.

For those of you who don’t know, Avionics and Page are distinct businesses that both began in 2017, with Flying Machine Urbana coming first in 2013.

It is with great sadness that I - Erin, of Page Roasting Company - am going to be closing my roasting business.

It would be really easy to blame it just on the tariffs, but it’s so much more complicated. One of the reasons I wanted to announce this last minute was because I didn’t want to be bombarded with potential solutions, fixes, “ what ifs”. This is happening. And I’m sorry.

Between climate change and tariffs nearly doubling prices for my green coffee & supplies, ongoing mechanical problems, mental and physical health concerns, this venture that I’m so proud of is simply no longer feasible. I’ll leave it at that.

It has been the greatest honor of my life to hone a skill like this that allowed me to make some peoples lives a bit easier. Doctors & nurses who had my coffee before going to work, stylists, artists, construction workers, advocates, meteorologists (looking at you Andrew), service workers, teachers, uber drivers. The list goes on.

Furthermore, it’s the hardest for me to absorb the reality that people had my coffee in their home kitchen. They brewed it. Poured it in a cup. Perhaps doctored it. And that maybe their day was better. Imagining that scene brings tears to my eyes in writing this post. I hope I helped a little bit.

Some of the best days of my life were in 2017, days spent demolishing this space and rebuilding it. The tables and chairs. Painting the walls. Josh is my best friend and during these years of tremendous loss, he has lifted me up time and time again. I’ve lost my Dad and many family members and mentors and friends. We survived covid, we survived a massive fire and flood that destroyed much of our inventory and files. I survived an accident that left me different.

And now, it’s time for me to close this chapter of my life. To heal and reflect.

What next?

For now I’m going to roast up and sell my inventory, dismantle and clean up the roaster and create more seating area for the shop.

There will be a limited available number of bags for sale online exclusively for shipping. I ask that no one orders more than 4 bags total. At the shop, we are setting a 2 bag per-customer per-day limit on retail coffee. But you are welcome to come everyday if you so choose. If a certain variety is not stocked on the shelf at the shop, that just is the case.

I will ask for the dignity and grace to not be questioned or pitched-at for the duration of this transitional period. I’d like to roast in my little room alone until I’m done. For old times sake.

If you see me out, “ thank you” will do just fine.

Soon, we will be starting up a gofundme situation to support the costs of deconstruction and the financial hole left vacant by my no longer contributing to rent and utilities in the building.

My only wish is that Avionics - Josh, the staff - thrive and encounter no hardship as a result of this closure.

Rest assured that they are working with incredible roasters to bring you the best coffee around and that everything will be okay.

Thanks you to everyone who has been so supportive, loyal and kind for the last 8 years. I promise my heart breaks as much as yours does. I simply have to put the oxygen mask on myself first.

(PS. Ill be around the shop daily for at least a month or two after I’m done roasting)

Love you all. “Thank you” simply doesn’t suffice.

09/03/2024

Tough stuff to share on here but essential.

I’ve been sharing a space with Flying Machine Avionics for nearly 7 years. Through deaths, the pandemic, fire & devastating flooding and inventory loss, it is true that things have changed like the menu and hours.

The midtown desert that was once on the up & up took a dramatic downturn and we are flanked by rotting and abandoned buildings.

I write this with absolutely no self interest as my business distributes and is relatively okay but I’ve seen patronage drop so intensely at the coffee shop and I just don’t get it. The house-made pastries are killer, the staff are lovely and kind and hardworking, the parking is plentiful, there is a beautiful park right around the corner, there’s outdoor seating and lovely indoor ambiance, and forgive me for my lack of modesty here but as someone who has - with certainty - roasted well over 10,000 batches of coffee, manually, the coffee is damn good. I even created a new espresso blend I’m so proud of that is served exclusively at Avionics.

Summers are brutal for small businesses in college towns and with students and faculty back, it’s so strange to me that the shop was nearly empty all day today. And it wasn’t that popping last week either.

I saw a post about a small business closing today and I truly hope that the beautifully hand built, thoughtfully designed, hard-worked-for, quality and full-of-heart cafe that is Flying Machine Avionics has a chance of making it to next year.

So if you have a coffee outing routine (and no I’m not talking about buying bags of coffee but rather drinks and pastries and such), please consider incorporating Avionics into that routine. Even if just once a week.

Josh and everyone who works there are more than just service workers. It’s a family. And we/they need y’all. I’m gonna send a screen shot of this post to Josh and he is gonna cringe bc he is so good and so humble and so modest and I know he might be peeved but I don’t care bc we love him. And he doesn’t have Facebook 😂. Can you blame him?

Please try to support your local businesses. It’s utterly devasting every time one of them closes after pouring themselves fully into serving others.

08/03/2024

Go see my buds downtown and grab a bag of beans!

WHAT’S THIS?!?! Limited edition Modern Drugs Whole Bean Coffee at our merch table for the rest of the summer and beyond!

07/15/2024

NEW COFFEE!
After much experimentation, we have developed a new espresso blend. Exclusively served at in all espresso beverages and for sale in 12oz bags for $17. We are all very very proud and happy with the blend we have created together with so much help from the and the staff of Avionics.

12/15/2023

Hey y’all. We have more t-shirts in thanks to .things ! And holiday 4oz stocking stuffer bags of coffee!

Dark grey on black available in XS and XXL
Mustard yellow on black available in S, M, and L

All $20.

All shirts available online.

Due to the fire & flood, and my negligence to reorder the 4oz bags for coffee, we only have about 100 bags for the holiday season. All whole bean and only available at the shop. They are 1/$6 and 3/$15.

11/18/2023

Today is the day! OPEN FROM 8-3!!

Get that latte and blueberry muffin. Buy a tshirt or a mug.

Come say hi. We have all missed you.