Catalyst for Community

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Maybe, when you think of Kaladi Brothers Coffee, you think of them as the supersized Alaska coffee company with cafes all around Anchorage and down the Kenai Peninsula. And yes, you can find their beans at most grocery stores, including many big box spots. But did you know they got their start as a tiny coffee cart on 4th Avenue in Anchorage in 1986? Co-owner Tim Gravel says when the cart began, they bought their beans from Café Del Mundo. Pretty quickly Kaladi’s owners decided to start roasting their own, and they’ve been doing so and growing ever since.

Even after they left the coffee cart and began the roastery, they didn’t have a café. They had a buzzer on the roastery door, and if you rang, they’d come make you an espresso. Gravel was studying at UAA and serving at Red Robin to pay the bills, before Midnight Moon (as it was originally called) took off.

Eventually, the buzz got around. Coffee was big, and as Gravel says, they were growing fast and “we couldn’t do anything wrong.” But the founders wanted something more than to be coffee capitalists. They wanted a purpose. “We actually locked ourselves in a cabin for a couple days, which was a lot of fun. And put paper up all over the walls. We wrote tons of notes. And what we really noticed… in all of our cafés, (you see, this was before the internet), you’d have people talking to each other of all different backgrounds. And so the whole… ‘catalyst for community’ was born from that. And that’s really what drives us in everything we do… we’re a coffee company, but it’s our cause, our purpose, to serve the community and do what we can to help other people serve the community. That’s what we do in Alaska. We take care of each other.”

That support takes many forms. Their welcoming, unique coffee shop environments are hubs for socializing, organizing, and working for so many Alaskans. Some cafés even have meeting rooms that community groups can reserve for free. Kaladi Brothers supports a multitude of nonprofits through donations of time and product. They even send a mobile coffee truck to dispense complimentary drinks at community events.

Gravel says the philosophy remains after all these years. “We’re not just selling coffee; we say we’re selling ‘a smile in a cup.’” And what’s the most popular smile they sell? Their signature drink is the Kaladi Latte featuring their own custom syrup blend. Kaladi syrup is a secret mix of vanilla, creme de cacao, and chocolate. If you ever want to make a latte at home, the syrup is available for sale in their shops. Fire up your espresso machine and follow these pro tips from the Kaladi Academy to get the perfect latte at home.