Exploring Life & Business with Matt Ashton of Lekko Coffee

Today we’d like to introduce you to Matt Ashton.

Hi Matt, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I was a classical musician in need of a morning/day job. During the time I had both careers going, I studied the coffee business like I was studying music. A year later, I left my first coffee job in an attempt to join and buy out a different local company. While I wore every hat at that job, a deal was never made and COVID started, decimating the industry.

During that time, my wife and I decided that if jobs were going to be questions marks anyways we should gamble on ourselves and control our own future through owning a business.

I started roasting in my basement on a 600 gram – 1.3 lb – roaster in my basement, fulfilling online orders from friends and family while searching for a location. Due to some luck, a shop in Ohio City that serviced a co-working space had gone under due to COVID, and we signed a 5 year lease and bought out the equipment sitting in the shop. I roasted on that tiny roaster for the first 10 months of the shop being open, splitting roasting time with my Dad while running the roaster 7 days a week, until we found a warehouse and bought a production roaster.

That roaster did 8 pounds, which felt like a lot coming from the tiny home machine, until we kept growing and gained wholesale clients. Quickly, 8 pounds every 20 minutes became a limiting factor, and we had to adjust again as we added a shop and grew as a company.

Today we have a new roasting facility in downtown Cleveland where we have a Sivitz SRM-15 which roasts 32 pounds 5 times an hour. We have two beautiful shops in Ohio City and Downtown, and service about 20 wholesale locations. This gets done by about 17 staff members who do a great job greeting each guest, making incredible coffee beverages, and creating a good environment for hundreds of people each day. While I took the risk, started Lekko, and do my best to navigate it through interesting economic times, I would not be able to do so without the wonderful people who the public interact with everyday.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Absolutely not. While we have a great set of regular customers, community who has embraced our concept and our staff, and wonderful staff, I entered business ownership at an enormously difficult time.

When I started, the world was just adjusting to what life after COVID might look like. Many cafes still refused to let people come inside for a beverage, consumers were moving towards brewing coffee at home, and coffee became more expensive to purchase as a raw agricultural product than at any time in recent history.

In the time since I started, coffees I use as the base of my espresso have gone up as much as three times their original cost, tariffs were introduced which increased prices anywhere from 10% to 50% depending on the whims of a single petulant man, gas costs have skyrocketed making shipping much more expensive, and shipping routes have been disrupted through the blockage of the Suez Canal and the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.

On top of that, consumer prices have gone up in large amounts in the post COVID world and the Trump economy, creating situations where customers might be less likely to go out for a coffee or a pastry, or buy specialty grade coffee instead of commodity grade coffee.

These were all extraordinary events that piled on top of normal business ownership tasks and difficulties. I have been lucky – I’ve been able to navigate these changes as they happen and adjust my gameplan as needed. We have worked closely with our suppliers to find coffees that fit our needs, found the right local partners for milks and teas and other ancillary products, and have moved roasteries twice to fit our stage of growth.

Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Lekko is a coffee roasting company with 2 cafes, specializing in high quality coffee and signature beverages. We source our coffees very carefully from select providers, many times directly from farms, and roast with intentionality to ensure we get the coffee to the right finish point for its final usage.

I opened Lekko as a living wage coffee company – working to make sure that employees across the supply chain are treated properly personally and in their paycheck. We do this by ensuring our staff are receiving a number that is above the latest living wage calculator numbers and only purchasing through reputable companies who have similar values.

Our cafes are designed to ensure that the space feels good for customers, drinks are delicious, and service is warm and personable. Our wholesale service is similar – that is to say that we are here to help ensure our partner’s success as we start programs with them and share in their journey as they grow.

I’m proud that I have been able to build a brand that acts and exists with these ideals in mind and always aims at doing better in these arenas as we grow, learn, and expand.

Let’s talk about our city – what do you love? What do you not love?
Cleveland is a city that actually functions as a large town. Everyone is at most two degrees of separation from each other, and the creative community is quite close knit. People are genuine and kind. The city maintains lots of personality from when it was one of the largest cities in the nation, has amenities and culture of a large city with one of the best orchestras and art museums in the world, has great sports culture, and punches above its weight in the food and beverage categories.

Where the city could see improvement is in the density and interconnectivity of different neighborhoods.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://lekkocoffee.com
• Instagram: lekkocoffee
• Facebook: lekkocoffee