About Us

The Roast Father was built on a simple belief: great coffee should be made the right way—slow, intentional, and with character.

I grew up with the best of both worlds. My mother is from North Carolina, raised by sweet, quiet, traditional Southern grandparents. My father is from New York City, shaped by loud, tough, and endlessly entertaining grandparents. Although I was born and raised in the South, I’ve always had an obsession with New York—the stories, the grit, the energy.

My grandmother was born and raised on the Lower East Side of Manhattan—streets that produced immigrants, corner businesses, and figures like Meyer Lansky, Albert Anastasia, Lucky Luciano, and Bugsy Siegel. It was a neighborhood where reputation mattered, respect was earned, and cutting corners carried consequences.

My grandfather was born in the Bronx—“a place so tough,” he used to say, “they had to put the in front of it.” He grew up in the tenements of the South Bronx, near Tremont and Belmont, home to figures like Vito Genovese, Tommy Lucchese, and Frank Costello. Those streets were built on hard work, loyalty, and survival.

They met in the Bronx, where my dad, uncle, and aunt were born, before eventually moving outside the city to Stony Point, New York. After high school, my dad moved to Winston-Salem, where he met my mom and started our family here in North Carolina.

Growing up rural in NC, I was fascinated by their stories of New York life. My grandfather would tell me how he learned to swim by jumping the fence at the Bronx Zoo after it closed for the day. My grandmother would laugh about running the streets with her friends, getting free Chinese food from local restaurants because everyone knew they didn’t have much money. It was a completely different world back then.

Almost always, these stories were told with a cup of coffee in front of them—sipping while we played cards, laughed, and argued. They raised me to believe one thing above all else: family is everything. Period.

I didn’t start drinking coffee until college. It began with more creamer than coffee, but over time, I transitioned to drinking it black, learning to appreciate how beans from different parts of the world carried completely different flavors.

My roasting journey began in college when a friend introduced me to an incredible woman named Sara Pitzer—a former professor, author, and food, beer and coffee connoisseur from up north. She became my college grandmother, and I think we connected so deeply because she reminded me so much of my own.

I baked my first bread in her kitchen. My wife and I brewed our first batches of beer for our wedding there. And one day, I asked her about a small bag of green coffee beans sitting on her counter. That’s where I roasted my first batch.

I can still picture her standing on the back porch, pouring beans into a sifter, blowing the chaff away, then sealing them in a mason jar and putting them in the freezer for the next day.

From there, I moved from an air roaster to inheriting her drum roaster and eventually to upgrading to the Bellwether Shop Roaster.

Unfortunately, my grandparents and Sara never got to see this company come to life. But they are the foundation that holds it together. Everything we do is rooted in honoring them—by crafting the freshest, most honest coffee possible.

This isn’t mass-produced coffee.
It’s coffee with backbone—bold, balanced, and memorable.
Whether you’re starting your morning or sharing a cup with family, our goal is simple: deliver coffee you’ll come back to, again and again.