Lucky Rodrigues is co-owner of Insight Coffee Roasters in Sacramento, and roasts on an SF25 coffee roaster. He's also a bearded man with unmistakable excitement and humility in his demeanor. "I’ve worked for every local coffee company in town except for Chocolate Fish," he says. "I’ve been in coffee in Sacramento since I was 15."

Starting as several other prominent Sacramento coffee folks have by working for Chris Pendarvis of the Naked Lounge, Lucky and his co-founder Ben Lance opened doors at Insight in 2011. The company has grown rapidly and draws visitors from around the country to California's capitol city.

"Having a machining background, I approached the selection of my roaster from a simple standpoint," he says. "How does the machine work? I like very simple, straightforward equipment." He also liked the design of the SF25--specifically the air flow, cyclone, and afterburner designs. Driving three hours to the Fallon, Nevada plant and being able to talk directly with Bill on the phone certainly helped, and he's enjoyed watching the revival of the company since he bought his roaster.

San Franciscan is built through a world-wide network of coffee roasters who engage with the roasting process in every way, and usually they are driven by love. Love of coffee, love of roasting, and love for the San Franciscan. CEO Bill Kennedy is no exception.

Bill often comes home from a day at the factory to roast a batch or two on his private refurbished SF25, while his sons rollerblade around the bags of coffee behind him. "I’ve loved the roaster since the first time I saw a San Franciscan," he says. "I thought it was the coolest piece of equipment on the planet. It had that old fashioned look to it, and I love that. And it just seemed like a sweet, cool-looking piece of equipment. I guess you could say I was drawn to the roaster first and then to coffee after."

Bill's journey as a coffee roaster and then owner of CoffeePER is driven by the unique nature of the San Franciscan roaster, a tool for artisans.

Since not all of you coffee roasters get the chance to fly to Fallon and experience our creative, slightly cluttered working environment, we thought we'd welcome you to our virtual lobby with a photo walk-through. Art and ingenuity, with a healthy dose of classic Nevada frontier grit: that's us!

Welcome to San Franciscan.

Bill is a fan of old radio, fans, and grammaphones. Can you tell?

Our very own coffee plantation

We have an eclectic mix of visitors.

An experimental template in zinc.

This hand-tooled copper bird was given to Bill by the Governor of Papua New Guinea's Central Province. He traveled across the world with his entourage to choose a SF25 and take a coffee tour of the Northwest with us.

And on that note, a rarely-updated map of our roasters across the world.

That's it for now, folks! Thanks for visiting us!

More peeks into our operations to come.

Teresa Pilarz’ coffee roasting company and coffeehouse, Espresso Elevado, opened its doors in March 2011, using a San Franciscan SF1 coffee roaster to get started. In a suburb strategically located between Detroit and Ann Arbor, Elevado is the first quality-focused coffeehouse in the area and, says Pilarz, offers a unique take on coffee with a culinary approach. 

Like many coffee people, Teresa Pilarz has a widely varied background—at one point she taught Spanish, as well as worked in business for years. But through all the jobs she held, her first coffee job during the early 90’s stuck with her. She dreamed of starting her own shop and, being Teresa, started putting action to her dreams by taking classes in coffee, meeting coffee people, and teaching herself the basics of coffee roasting. 

“Our customers have really embraced what we do—whether roasting our own beans to doing our own mixology to crafting our own syrups. One of the things I value in business is innovation and not copying anyone else,” she says, and one of the ways Pilarz and her Elevado team distinguish themselves is by putting together their own syrups using spices, herbs, and simple syrups. The syrups can get rather involved—their holiday Gingersnap syrup has around ten ingredients!

A SCAA Certified Lead Instructor and BGA Level 1 Barista, Pilarz now roasts on a SF6, which she says is “Super easy to clean and maintain, and a real craftsperson’s roaster. Since you don’t have the benefit of digital data logging, it forces you to understand every aspect of your roasting process. We log our own data and use our senses when roasting.” Originally looking for a 1 lb roaster, Pilarz shopped around for a while before settling on San Franciscan and flying to Fallon for further roaster training on her SF1. She says that Bill’s background in artisan roasting played into her decision as well as how helpful he was and the ongoing support he promised. 

Pilarz’ enthusiasm for what she does is undeniable. Look out, Michigan! Here she comes!

In our first San Franciscan Roaster Series post, we introduce Natalie Van Dusen of Little Red Wagon Coffee! Natalie is a vivacious world traveler who first discovered specialty coffee in 2008 while on a motorcycle trip through South America, when she visited a coffee farm in Colombia and learned to roast on the farmer’s stovetop. She brought some green beans back to San Francisco with her and has been roasting ever since, with a popcorn popper, then a small home drum roaster, then most recently with a San Franciscan 6-pound coffee roaster. She’s visited coffee farms and roasted coffee with farmers in Hawaii, Costa Rica, Panama, Indonesia, and Laos.

Natalie is one of three partners who formed Little Red Wagon Coffee in Bozeman, MT, in August 2013. All three moved in the last few years to the lovely mountain views and clear air of Bozeman. (Whitney Metzger is also from San Francisco and Kelly Meredith from North Carolina.) “We’re obsessed with coffee at every step,” admits Natalie, who will be visiting the Managua region of Nicaragua in a week to form direct trade relationships with farmers in the area.