Interview with Todd Brizzi of Zeke's Coffee
Today I sat down with Zeke’s Coffee’s Todd Brizzi, who is the company’s graphic designer and quality control guy. He is very involved in the roasting process from beginning to end, but given both my time constraints and Zeke’s busy day, today I just went over some of the basics with him as the company is preparing for this weekend’s 2nd annual Lauraville Block Party.
He explained that the idea to start Zeke’s came from the past experiences of founder Thomas Rhodes, who worked for a different roastery that moved their operations out of Maryland. Rhodes decided to use his years of roasting knowledge and love of coffee to start Zeke’s in 2005 with his wife Amy; eventually moving to their current Harford Road location in Lauraville in 2006.
Brizzi talked with me about what makes Zeke’s different from the national brands, and he made the comparison of bakery bread to store bought national brands.
“If you want bread, you can go in the grocery store and buy a loaf of Arnold’s and it will probably be OK. But you could also go to a bakery and get fresher, better quality bread; it’s the same thing with coffee.”
Basically Zeke’s offers something that it’s national counterpart cannot. Since they are a smaller operation, a lot of care goes into making sure everything is fresh and of good quality. Some may call them a “gourmet” coffee roastery, but Brizzi says its just plain better coffee or as he put it, “fiercely independent coffee”.
When it comes to advertising, Zeke’s has avoided traditional avenues (i.e. radio, television) to promote their coffee. They do put ads in local magazines and publications (City Paper, Baltimore Magazine), but they mostly rely on word of mouth to get recognition, which has definitely worked in their favor thus far.
The economy has definitely affected local area businesses, but for some reason Zeke’s has been able to . Coffee is a necessity for a lot of people these days, and consumers are still willing to pay for the taste and quality of Zeke’s coffee. They offer some more exotic premium coffees that are upwards of $40 a pound, but people are still coming in to purchase these unique beans despite the price and the suffering economy.
Brizzi lives just outside of the Lauraville area in Arcadia, but has spent a lot of time around Lauraville working at Zeke’s. He said his favorite thing about the community was the do-it-yourself, grassroots attitude. He pointed out there has recently been a lot of “positive motion towards becoming a viable commercial district” as well as building a strong fellowship among the community.
I was left with this anecdote about the affect of Zeke’s on the community. One of their customers was broken down on the side of the road with a Fueled by Zeke’s bumper sticker on their van and somebody stopped to give them a hand. As the person finished helping get the van going again, he said to the van driver, “I too, am fueled by Zeke’s”.
- “Fueled By Zeke’s” Bumper Sticker
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I am looking forward to learning more about Zeke’s roasting process as well as talking with company President Thomas Rhodes about how it all got started. Check back for updates or subscribe to my RSS feed.
