Heritage Coffee Co. & Cafe: coffee bean roaster Grady Saunders brews business expansion.

• Author: Ripley, Kate
• Position: Company Profile

Grady Saunders of Heritage Coffee Co. & Cafe in Juneau cites two reasons he finds the coffee business rewarding: the product and the people. A native of Palo Alto, Calif., Saunders travels extensively throughout Central and South America, Asia and Africa.

In those countries, he meets with coffee bean brokers, plantation owners and farmers -- faces behind the 140,000 pounds of "green coffee," or unroasted beans, he buys for the company each year. "My vacations end up being work, but I love my work. I love coffee and everything that goes along with it: the growers in the Third World countries, the people. It's a wonderful, rewarding business in that sense," says Saunders, 40.

It is also a business that has grown dramatically since November 1974, when Saunders opened a small coffee store called Quaff's Coffees & Teas on South Franklin Street in Juneau. The business was so successful that Saunders ran out of coffee five times before Christmas.

Seven months after opening Quaff's, he began carrying ice cream, and the business -- then known as Quaff's Coffees, Teas & Ice Creams -- moved into Merchants Wharf on Juneau's waterfront. Several years later, Saunders sold the ice cream portion of the business, moved back to another South Franklin Street location and concentrated solely on coffee, opening Heritage Northwest in 1978.

Partner Irene Phillips joined the company as manager about a year later. She now serves as vice president; Saunders is president.

In 1980, the business moved again, relocating across the street to the second floor of the Emporium Mall. During those early years, Heritage purchased coffee from Starbuck's Coffee Co. of Seattle. But realizing that providing the best product to customers meant delivering the freshest product, Heritage's managers decided the company should begin roasting its own beans.

Heritage bought a German roaster in 1983 and began roasting about 6,000 pounds of coffee beans a year. The business continued growing, and a year later the roasting and wholesale portion of the business moved out of the retail store to a 2,000-square-foot warehouse at Lemon Creek, about five miles north of downtown Juneau.

In 1985, the retail store moved into its present location on the first floor of the Emporium Mall and became Heritage Coffee Co. & Cafe. Initially selling mostly frozen pastries, the cafe soon expanded into homemade soups, sandwiches, croissants, scones, cheesecakes and muffins.

Now, Heritage has grown out of its...