Red Berry Coffee Bar

Before opening his own coffee shop, Jeff Hampton honed his craft by reading everything he could on the topic of specialty coffee and by training in the well-recognized coffee destination of Portland. Only then did Jeff determine he was ready to birth Red Berry Coffee Bar with his wife, Lisa. Today, the couple partners with Chromatic, Verve, and an overflowing of other roasters to connect customers with powerful pour-overs and expressive espresso. Jeff’s favorite part of the job is introducing customers with no previous experience of specialty coffee to an exceptional cappuccino—then watching their faces brighten after that first sip. The locals have claimed the space as a neighborhood haunt, perhaps attracted to Lisa’s attentive efforts to create a cozy interior. Her intentionally hunger-inducing color scheme consists of rich, food-themed shades like chocolate, caramel, pecan, and (of course) berry red.

Jeff: “I’ve always called Red Berry ‘artisan coffee without the attitude.’ Everyone says, ‘You know, you’ve got to be a hipster to own a coffee shop.’ I’m just not a hipster guy. I’m pretty laid-back. We’re not condescending to people that come in that don’t know anything about specialty coffee.”

Lisa: “We have a lot of roasters sending us coffee samples. Some make the cut, some don’t. We continue to rotate through them. That’s really one of the values of our coffee bar—we’re never the same. There are always new coffees to try as the roasters make them available and as we put on bar new roasters. That was one of the values of the basic business concept to start with: we would not remain stagnant and only serve the same thing. It’s given us a lot of flexibility, and it’s served us well.”

Written by Johanna Hickle