Rainshadow Coffee Roasting Company expands to California

SEQUIM — California coffee lovers are in for a treat as Rainshadow Coffee Roasting Company looks to expand its coffee business south.

Rainshadow Coffee owners Nick Batcheller and his father, Don Batcheller, plan to offer fresh, quality coffee both in Sequim and now in Paso Robles, Calif.

Since 2011, the owners have roasted their coffee beans for wholesale and retail markets using a family-built roasting machine out of the business’ space at 157 W. Cedar St. where they bag and distribute their coffee from Forks to Silverdale.

Nick said he and his father plan to keep the roasting business in Sequim, but after they sold their coffee shop entity in October 2017, Don wanted to go back to California and start building roasting machines for a new facility.

“It’s still so intimate and so close to us and we’re dedicated to it,” Nick said. “I see every batch go out and put every sticker on each bag.”

Nick said the coffee shop played a significant role in the business’ growth, but he and his father wanted to focus more on the wholesale aspect of the business.

“We didn’t want to try and manage both entities,” Nick said.

“We were so busy running this place [the cafe], roasting took a back seat.”

Dominique Hall bought the coffee shop and kept the name Rainshadow Cafe. Nick said the cafe continues to be the main retail outlet for the roasting company and he and Hall have an open-door relationship between the businesses.

Nick said since Hall took over, he’s received positive feedback from the community as she’s added more food items and baked goods to the cafe.

“She took what we had started and it’s much more of a cafe,” Nick said.

Back to basics

Nick shines a little light on what’s made the family business successful over the last eight years: They put a lot of love into each batch of coffee.

“We enjoy drinking our coffee as much as making it,” Nick said.

The owners also buy only grade 1 Arabica beans sustainably sourced from small farms around the world and roast coffee in small batches using their own roasting machine.

The new roasting space in Paso Robles will allow the business to expand its wholesale products, Nick said, and return to the family’s California roots.

“It’s a really exciting time for us,” Nick said.

Don is working from the ground up building a new batch of roasting machines for the new facility and one for Sequim, Nick said. They plan to move a new roasting machine to Sequim around March.

Manufacturing roasting machines is a new aspect of the business his father is looking into, Nick said, and it might be a market the business taps into for the future.

“There’ s a big hole in the market for roaster manufacturing,” Nick said. “There’s a demand for it.”

Once they have the machines built and the roasting space established, Nick said they hope to distribute their products in the “five cities” area, from Pismo Beach to Paso Robles and beyond.

In the future, Nick said they are interested in opening a new retail shop once they find a multi-use space in California where they plan to sell fresh coffee and coffee-related merchandise.

Nick said he’s also working on a new website for the business that should be up and running by the start of the new year, complete with a list of all of Rainshadow’s coffee and the business’ story.

In Sequim, Nick said it’s the community that has kept the owners doing what they love.

“People are so dedicated to us and wanted to see us succeed,” Nick said.

“Once you get that confidence, [the business] built upon itself.”

For more information about Rainshadow Coffee Roasting Company, visit www.rainshadowcoffee.com.

________

Erin Hawkins is a reporter with the Olympic Peninsula News Group, which is composed of Sound Publishing newspapers Peninsula Daily News, Sequim Gazette and Forks Forum. Reach her at ehawkins@sequimgazette.com.