WORDS Tara Crutchfield
PHOTOGRAPH Amy Sexson
Haven Coffee Roasters “My goal with Haven is to bring specialty coffee to central Florida,” said Jonathan Lane. He and his wife, Lynsey, are opening the first and only coffee roastery in Winter Haven, called Haven Coffee Roasters. “We knew that the downtown was really cute, and it was up-and-coming, and it was somewhere we wanted to be,” said Lynsey. “We thought we needed to bring that joy and that craft coffee to Winter Haven.” The family has always lived in the central Florida area, now settled in Lakeland. They have three children – Jonah, ten, Elijah, eight, and Hannah, five. Lynsey, who has an elementary education degree from Southeastern University, has been a stayat-home mom since they were born. Jonathan attended Johnson and Wales University in Miami before venturing into real estate and eventually the coffee biz. “I fell in love with coffee just as a fan,” he said. He went to work for a family of Colombian coffee producers who own five farms there. Jonathan traveled to Colombia several times, even bringing Lynsey along for one trip. “I got to learn where coffee comes from – from the plant all the way to the roasting,” he said. Through his job traveling the country from roastery to roastery, Jonathan would talk with them about their craft, learning the trade tips and tricks. Unbeknownst to him at the time, he would be putting that knowledge to work at his own roastery down the line. DARK ROAST DREAMS Last year, like so many, Jonathan lost his job. He applied for some ninety jobs to no avail. But, he had an idea. Jonathan wanted to put his love of and experience with coffee to use by opening a coffee roastery. “Visiting thousands of coffee roasters, I already knew what to do. I already knew where to get it, and I knew how to get good coffee from good sources. I already knew what good coffee was.” He brought the idea to Lynsey, his wife, and partner – the realistic and logistic yin to his dreamer, creative yang. “He has a lot of ideas, a very entrepreneurial spirit,” she said, open to the idea of a family roastery. “There were some speed bumps, but there was never a stop sign […] God put everything in place,” Jonathan said. By July of last year, the Lanes had a two-kilo coffee roaster and began roasting coffee in their garage, selling it online to their growing customer base. They spoke with several potential investors about Haven Coffee Roasters. Eventually, they found the right match with a group of Winter Haven locals who loved the concept enough to support bringing it downtown. Haven Coffee Roasters debuted at the Winter Haven Farmers Market in October of 2020 as they prepared to open their CONTINUED ON PAGE 30 -
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