Inside Gimme! Coffee’s roastery, where pride and precision fuel every cup

This article is our second installment of Made in Tompkins, our new recurring feature dedicated to showcasing the diverse range of manufacturing and development businesses that call Tompkins County home. The first week of each month, the series will spotlight some of the many companies producing goods and services right here in our community.    

Four days a week, the roasters at Gimme! Coffee pour beans and carefully calibrate the temperature of an 80-year-old roaster to perfect the company’s beloved blends.

On a recent Wednesday morning, roaster and production assistant Matthew Thompson kept an eye on the temperature inside the spinning drum, consulting a chart on a laptop before pulling his favorite lever — the one that releases a cascade of freshly roasted beans onto a cooling tray. After being stirred and sorted to remove stones, the beans are poured into buckets, ready for packaging.

Thompson darts around the room attending to 10 things, one after the other, as he keeps the process moving along from one batch of beans to the next.

“Once you start roasting for the day, you start to think a couple steps ahead. As you finish up the things you started and start other things, you get that rhythm and everything just runs smooth, and it’s very nice,” he said. “And you can control the pace.” 

Thompson takes pride in his work. “I like to go to the cafes, and every once in a while I’ll grab a bag off the shelf, check the roasting date, and if I was the roaster that day, I like to point at it and say, ‘That was me!’” he said. 

From start to finish, Gimme!’s process transforms coffee from small green beans shipped in burlap bags from Ethiopia, Peru and other growing regions to the company’s signature red-and-white packaging, stamped with an exclamation point and names like Leftist Espresso, Stargazer and Deep Disco. The beans are sold wholesale, through subscription services and at Gimme!’s five Tompkins County cafés: on Martin Luther King Jr. Street, Cayuga Street in downtown Ithaca, Community Corners, Main Street in Trumansburg and Gates Hall at Cornell University.

Gimme! not only roasts its beans locally but also bakes the muffins, scones and other treats sold in its cafés at its Krums Corners Road facility in Ithaca.

In a separate building from the roastery, bakery director Kate Smith was busy packaging the company’s holiday candy — Coffee Toffee, made with Gimme!’s espresso. Smith, who has been with the company 14 years, began as a part-time prep cook and worked her way up to her current position.

Smith develops all of the bakery’s recipes and appreciates that her early-morning schedule allows her to be home in the afternoon with her daughter. While she packaged toffee, other bakers scooped muffin batter and mixed ingredients for savory scones. 

Meanwhile, in the tasting room, coffee operations manager Chris Laue was teaching newly promoted lead roaster Quinn Knight the process of “cupping,” a method used to taste-test coffee. They poured hot water over carefully prepared samples and loudly slurped the brews.

“That’s to aerate the coffee and spread it across the palate,” Laue explained, “to hit all those taste buds.”

Curiosity led Knight, who previously served as production manager, to the tasting sessions. “I’d peek into the tasting room and wonder what was going on,” Knight said. “Then, I started inserting myself during the Leftist Labs on Wednesday mornings to get more hands-on experience. That’s really what started it for me.”

Gimme! transitioned to a cooperative ownership structure in February 2020 and is now owned and operated by 21 worker-owners.

As an employee-owned cooperative, Gimme! follows the seven international cooperative principles, including democratic member control, economic participation, education and training and concern for community.

The change in ownership — along with the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic — helped shape some of Gimme!’s current philosophies. The company hires only full-time employees, pays a living wage and creates predictable shifts by pairing up café employees and having them work together consistently.

“[Our scheduling] creates camaraderie, but it also creates an understanding of what to expect day to day,” said head of operations Claire Christensen.

Employees who have worked for Gimme! for a year can request part-time schedules, but the full-time policy aligns with the company’s commitment to providing benefits like health insurance and steady hours.

Christensen said that the approach improves both employee well-being and customer service — a point echoed by retail manager Rachel McDonald.

“People get to know the baristas, and the baristas get to know the customers,” McDonald said.

Cornell is Gimme!’s largest catering client, but the university’s recent budget cuts have reduced those opportunities.

“We are the go-to option for coffee and pastries for every [Cornell] meeting, every dissertation reading,” said Adam Morris, director of wholesale operations. “Hopefully, we’ll get that back soon.”

Expanding its catering services is one of Gimme!’s major current goals. Morris said many people don’t realize that the company offers catering, or that their offerings include large cakes for weddings and other events as well as pastries and coffee for smaller gatherings.

No matter which part of the business they focus on, employees said they feel like they’re selling more than coffee — they’re sharing a piece of Ithaca. It’s one of the things that sets Gimme! apart, resulting in 25 successful years in business, said Tompkins Chamber President Peggy Coleman. 

“It’s a belief in producing a great product,” she said, “doing it in an ethical manner, supporting their team and supporting their community.”

Made in Tompkins is sponsored by the Tompkins Chamber and Tompkins Cortland Community College.