Boston Stoker Coffee Roasters

Boston Stoker was founded by Don and Sally Dean as a pipe and tobacco shop in Englewood, Ohio in 1973. As a strategy to build their customer base in a new business, the Deans started offering free, freshly brewed specialty coffee to customers while they shopped. It worked for keeping people in the shop and the demand began to grow from more and more people to buy the coffee to take it home, eventually leading Boston Stoker into the specialty coffee industry. As the tobacco business grew for Boston Stoker, so did the demand for coffee. In 1983 Don bought a Probat coffee roaster able to roast 5 kilos at a time. Purposefully installing it to be visible to customers at their Fairborn facility and focusing on the freshness and quality of the product. Reaching into the mid-80s, coffee continued becoming more and more a part of Boston Stoker’s business and a larger roaster was soon needed. The Gothot roaster could handle 55 pounds and replaced the Probat roaster in the Fairborn store. In 1986 Boston Stoker became one of only 80 charter members of the Specialty Coffee Association of America, this group is now a global association that boasts tens of thousands of members. It was around this same time that Boston Stoker established its first and longest standing direct trade relationship with Hacienda LaMinita in Costa Rica.