River City Roasters Among Top 100 Small Businesses

Tyler Fivecoat prepares a Latte for a customer Wednesday afternoon.

Tyler Fivecoat and Erich Goetel, co-owners of River City Roasters are among two businesses in Wheaton to be named in the top 100 Businesses by U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The window to apply and news of being named the top 100 came at an unusual time for the business.

“I filled the application out like two days before we went to Africa,” Fivecoat said. “When we were in Africa, right before we came back, we found out we made the top 100.”

Wheaton Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Kerry O’Brien said any business could apply, but River City Roasters was one of the businesses she encouraged to apply. One of the others was Prairie Path Books, Gatherings and Great Reads , who are also in the top 100 businesses.

“Those were the two that let me know they were applying,” she said.

The business owners were in Africa to research coffee beans and the possibility of purchasing coffee directly from a farmer - known as direct trade coffee. But such a prospect is very expensive, so they would have to partner with other roasters to do so.

“The cost for me to bring over coffee is very very expensive, like $90,000 expensive,” Fivecoat said.

To get around that cost, small roasters split a container.

That is because small, independent roasters like River City Roasters roast only about 3 pounds at a time.

“Our roaster has a capacity of 5 pounds, so we’re real small,” he said. “We consider ourselves a micro roaster.

“So you have Budweiser, Miller, all your big beer brewers, but then you have your craft brewers. That trend is like exploding in beer, but not a lot of people are doing that with coffee outside of Chicago, Los Angeles or New York.”

Like fellow business owner Sandy Koropp, who owns Prairie Path Books, Gatherings and Great Reads, entering the 2015 Dream Big Contest sponsored by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was something they did after prompting by the Wheaton Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Kerry O’Brien. Now that they have reached the top 100, they are only two steps away from winning.

The community can vote for River City Roasters to be one of the seven finalists for the Dream Big Award. Community members will vote and select the 7 regional finalists. From those 7, one finalists will be selected at America’s Small Business Summit June 8-10, 2015 in Washington D.C. The overall winner will be awarded $10,000.

And Fivecoat said the store has plans for the $10,000.

“We would use it to finish updating our space and getting everything we want in the store to give the customer the best experience they can get,” he said.

Voting ends at 11:59 p.m. eastern March 4.