Today we’d like to introduce you to Jason Foster.
Jason, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
After a number of rolls working, and managing in the food service industry, my journey brought me to Starbucks. After no more than a week into my training I realized I had a real penchant for coffee, and everything surrounding it… the people, the atmosphere of a bustling shop, and just a general passion for leading a store. My wife Ashley and I begin immersing ourselves into the independent local coffee scene; literally taking notes of the smallest details, tasting everything, and figuring out how we could be a part of this. At the time, Ashley was entrenched in the business to business culinary sales world, and just a pretty committed foodie in general… Our individual skills were pretty complimentary to one another.
As we gave up countless nights and weekend crafting a business plan for what would become Groundswell, I begin experimenting with different coffee brewing methods, reading coffee books, roasting at home, and attending workshops on specialty coffee all while developing a sound operational foundation, and honing my leadership skills at Starbucks.
With our plan completed, some time passed as we begin to get a bit discouraged trying to find funding through traditional routes. Literally weeks before we were going to pull the plug and move on, a happenstance meeting at a UIC baseball game with an old friend named Armand (we both are UIC baseball alumni) was the final piece of the puzzle. Armand is a real estate developer on the North Side of Chicago and asked me if I was still with Starbucks. I replied “yes, but am working on a plan for my own shop”. He said he asked to see the plan, and that he had some vacant commercial spaces for me to look at. I sent the plan immediately, and no more than 2 hours later he wanted to invest, and was my business partner.
After seven months of learning how to build a coffee shop on the job we opened the doors to our first shop on Damen Ave. Since then we’ve expanded to a West Loop location, a Lincoln Square location, as well as an offsite roastery in Ravenswood.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
The road has been rife with obstacles! Although growing so quickly has been fantastic, it comes with a number of challenges. Prioritizing where to invest, rolling out employee training plans across three locations, making sure employees stay engaged and happy in their rolls, and basically everything that was difficult with one store gets multiplied by three.
Doing coffee well on a larger scale presents unique challenges as well. Most products are packaged and ready to consume when they leave the door (think a bottle of beer). When coffee leaves our roastery there are still layers of storage and preparation involved… all of which can easily compromise the end product. With that said, it’s important and challenging to stay diligent, and close to the product until it hits store-level, as well as ensuring our wholesale customers are equipped with the knowledge they need to reap each coffees potential.
Personally, one of the largest challenges has been elevating myself out of the day-to-day operations and working “on” the business vs “in” it. I’ve effectively promoted myself to a new job that I’ve had no training for. I’m grateful for this, as it was the plan since the beginning, but learning to lead a company in a different capacity is a new challenge each day. The cliché about wearing many hats is truer than ever.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Groundswell Coffee Roasters story. Tell us more about the business.
We are a specialty coffee company in Chicago. Our primary specialty is roasting coffee in small batches to share with customers at our three retail stores, as well as wholesaling to select shops and restaurants in the Chicago area.
Compared to other specialty shops, I believe we’re quite approachable to customers who are curious about fantastic coffee, but feel uneasy about trying a new style of coffee. I also think we’re in a couple of neighborhoods where you typically wouldn’t see shops who are so focused on the craft aspect of coffee which makes us a bit unique.
Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
Luck is definitely a large factor. I can think of a few turning points or random, seemingly trivial decision points that would have led to Groundswell never existing… however I’m a firm believer that you can create luck to a certain extent. Making well informed decisions, exercising kindness, keeping a relatively positive outlook, and most importantly… persistence has definitely helped put us on the receiving end of some luck. With all that said, perhaps 20% luck and 80% persistence/grit seems to be a good combination.
Contact Info:
- Address: 4839 n Damen Ave.
1168 w Madison St
5008 N Lincoln St. - Website: Groundswellcoffeeroasters.com
- Email: jfoste1@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/groundswellcoffee/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groundswellchi/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/GroundswellChi
- Other: https://getjavaya.com/collections/groundswell-coffee-roasters
Image Credit:
@fxdejesus
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