08/21/2026
This week, we're celebrating our 7th year in business, and what a ride itâs been!
When we kicked this thing off in August 2019, I couldnât have imagined how much Iâd learn, the support weâd receive, the challenges weâd overcome, and the relationships weâd build. But here we are SEVEN years later, and we have YOU to thank.
I hope that weâve been able to bring you something special: not just superb specialty coffee but top-notch service and meaningful, genuine connection. I hope weâve helped cultivate a real and true sense of coffee community based on genuine care for our craft, for learning and improving, for our customers, and for our community. Thatâs always been our goal, and if weâve done thatâif weâve been able to give back a fraction of what youâve given to usâI feel pretty good about where we are, what weâre doing, and the direction weâre heading.
Itâs been one heck of a journey. I started roasting my own coffee on a popcorn popper, burning a couple batches of otherwise wonderful specialty coffee to a sleek jet black. I called that first scorched batch the âApollo Roastâ because the beans looked like something from space, perhaps a moon rock or a black hole. Yes, I drank it anyway because Iâm stubborn and I refuse to waste coffee.
With lots of practice and many lessons learned, we started attending farmers markets at the Tuscaloosa River Market, often roasting Friday nights until the wee hours of the morning to bring in Saturdayâs load. Now, 7 years later, we still attend the Tuscaloosa Farmers Market, and weâre still treated like family. We get to spend time with vendors we know and love, who our kids know and love, and who have shown our family nothing but kindness, generosity, and respect. If you want to see what small business, entrepreneurship, and hard work looks like, just talk to a vendor there. Youâll be hard pressed to find a more driven group of folks who take pride in what they do, and weâre honored to be among them.
Over these seven years, weâve been blessed to meet and interact with so many of you, and itâs been a true joy that we continue to cherish and appreciate.
And we've been blessed with opportunities we never saw coming. We were invited and appeared on Season 1 of the Weather Channelâs Fast: Home Rescue with Cody and Felicia Walker. In 2023, we were voted Best Local Business in Tuscaloosaâs Communityâs Choice Awards, and weâve been blessed with many other opportunities to contribute to causes we hold dear. There have been several âWow. What is happening right now?â moments that feltâŚwell, surreal.
Weâve also endured some hefty challenges, sacrificed countless hours, and wondered many times what fate stood waiting around the next corner. Weâve come a long way, but we still have much to learn and improve.
We want to give enormous thanks to Tuscaloosa River Market for giving us a place to start and continue to grow, and we also owe a huge thanks to Mill City Roasters for hooking us up with a killer coffee roasterâand unmatchable roaster supportâthatâs helped us keep on roastinâ (though weâre outgrowing olâ Dali at a pretty good clip).
I owe the biggest debt and gratitude to my wife, Meghan, and to my kiddos for everything they've contributed and all they've sacrificed--and for enduring my hard-headed nature and my irrational tendency to find and fight uphill battles. I couldnât do this without them. Yâall know as well as I do that Meghan does a superb job running our market table and generally keeping the train on the tracks.
So, to all of you whoâve enjoyed the specialty coffees weâve been roasting and the wonderful interactions weâve shared, and to those whoâve helped spread the word and left us such wonderful reviews, thank you to the moon and back.
Here's to 7 years and still roasting đĽâď¸âď¸đĽ
With love and gratitude,
Surreal Coffee Roasters
