Today we’d like to introduce you to Andy Piper.
Hi Andy, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I started in coffee as a teenager working as a barista in Bluffton, OH while I was studying music at the local university. After a few years, I moved to Chicago to study philosophy and continued working as a barista for an Italian coffee company there. The 2008 recession made it difficult for me to survive and go to school, so I focused on the only opportunity I had with this company where I was able to dive a bit deeper into the barista craft, as well as discover some of the other parts of the coffee industry like roasting and green coffee sourcing.
Various life events eventually led me to move to Columbus and be closer to my family. I attended culinary school here and shortly picked up my coffee career as a barista, then manager of a small, independent coffee shop called Java Central in Westerville – a suburb of Columbus. I became very close with the owners of this business. My then-employer and current business partner, Ralph Denick, supported me and helped me through some very difficult life challenges.
In 2014, Ralph’s wife and partner in the shop, Jane, passed away from cancer leading to him asking me and my wife Megan if we might be interested in becoming business partners to continue running Java Central. I needed some time to think on this and spent that year working part-time as a farmhand on an Alpaca farm in Springfield, OH. Eventually, we said yes, with the condition that we open a coffee roasting wing of Java Central, as well as look into sourcing our coffee directly.
That was 8 years ago. We now have a separate facility to roast our coffee – which we needed to keep up with the demand for our product – as well as a second location that is a collaboration with a local beer brewery. What’s most exciting for me is that I am privileged to source our coffee directly from coffee farmers and work with our supply chain partners throughout the global coffee industry. It has become my passion and life’s mission to advocate for greater economic equity and support social justice improvements for our partners in Latin America. Java Central has played an integral part in improving the lives of coffee producers and we can point to success stories from our involvement as their clients and colleagues.
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?
No, definitely not smooth! We have been working with shoe-string budgets… okay let’s be honest… we’ve gone into a lot of debt (like many small business owners) to pursue our mission.
Just when we began to be profitable, the Pandemic nearly closed our business for good. I’m enormously proud to say that our staff and our local community pledged their support and loyalty to us to keep our mission alive. We, in turn, promised to not let go of any employee who wished to stay with us through that nightmare. We were creative and let our employees explore their innovative ideas during the shutdowns. We served our community as we always vowed to do. We opened a mini-mart in our coffee shop, delivered paper goods like toilet paper to people’s houses, and supplied tons of batches of coffee to our local hospitals and emergency responders. It was an incredible effort only possible through the compassion and dedication of our team and our amazing customers.
And we survived, but then the following years were even more difficult. Issues in the economy, supply chains and the chaos we experienced following 2020 made staying afloat really hard. But we made it again. I will say that our company and our community do not back down from the challenges we face.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
My work is a beautiful, diverse mess of projects and ventures that I both love and am exhausted by every day! My primary function is the Chief Operating Officer of my company which includes our cafe, roasting facility and collaboration in Columbus. These responsibilities can be fairly mundane, run-of-the-mill business ownership things like bookkeeping, cost analysis, paying taxes, etc.
But what I love most about my career is the space I have carved out to create and pursue projects that improve people’s lives. Our company is known in Central Ohio for our radical hospitality – especially welcoming to the marginalized folks in our community. We are a music and arts venue showcasing local talent and providing a platform for artists to access their audience. Many musicians and graphic artists have begun their career through our cafe.
We also unapologetically support LGBTQ+ and anti-racist activism in our local community. Many of our staff and our customers seek safe, respected community at Java Central and we have been proud to stand with them as allies and activists.
The personal focus of my career has been my work with coffee farmers, producer, and other supply chain colleagues in Latin America. I have traveled extensively in Central and South America in the last eight years. These trips – though ostensibly are to create business relationships for our coffee purchasing – have spawned my personal purpose and vision for my work. The systemic inequities and troubling challenges I have discovered in my industry have inspired me to create a new venture called Cafequity Productions. My goal with this is to share the beautiful, sometimes heartbreaking stories of the people who live and work in tropical agriculture. The challenges they face from climate change, social inequality, and the residual effects of post-colonial agriculture are entirely relevant to our lives in the United States, in ways we may not even consider. My hope is to connect these amazing people to coffee drinkers or other consumers in the US in a meaningful way that inspires us to consider the effects of our buying decisions and the companies we support on a daily basis.
What were you like growing up?
I was a daydreamer as a kid. I had undiagnosed ADHD until my mid-20s. No one thought to consider it because school was so easy for me up until college. I learned to play several instruments, dabbled in a lot of different hobbies. I was skinny, awkward, and moody from mental illness as a teen. I had (and have) great parents who supported my passions, but I struggled to understand the missing pieces of my life that would become clear much later through therapy and psychiatric help. I had a hard time making friends and fitting in. My neurodivergency led to a lot of painful lessons as a kid and young adult as I tried to understand how to navigate the world. These lessons serve me well now and I believe my ADHD is a key part of my success as a leader.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.javacentral.coffee
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/javacentral1/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/javacentralcaferoaster/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-piper-896a9661/
