Stumptown Coffee and its founder Duane Sorenson had an eventful 2011, with fast-flying rumors of the sale of the company and the openings of Woodsman Tavern and Woodsman Market, Sorenson’s latest Portland ventures. With a new central headquarters and a second Stumptown Café opening in New York City, 2012 seems to be following a similar, busy trend.
Portland’s most celebrated coffee roaster, founded in 1999, lived and breathed the live-and-die local business model that successfully catered to the Portland coffee nerd. But last year, suspicion arose as to whether or not Stumptown had sold out to Wall Street.
Rumors of the sale were first reported by an Esquire Magazine blog post on May 31, 2011. The post, authored by Todd Carmichael, the co-founder of a direct trade coffee roasting company called La Colombe, didn’t go into the details of the sale due to legal reasons, but his post was the first shot fired signaling changes in the Stumptown coffee scene.
“Duane Sorenson, the founder of Stumptown, the Che Guevara of the rock-star barista movement, sold his life’s work to the highest bidder,” wrote Carmichael in the blog post.
That same day, Willamette Week posted public documents that shone more light on the Stumptown gossip grapevine. In a blurry image posted in the article, one can barely make out the registrant shift from Duane Sorenson to Alexander S. Panos, a managing partner of the New York private-equity fund TSG Consumer Partners.
Following the document’s release, Willamette Week published a second article stating that Carmichael revealed a few of the details regarding his original post. Carmichael stated that TSG was interested in forming a partnership with his company and that they had already purchased 90 percent of Stumptown.
“I’m still in control of Stumptown; the only thing that’s changed is that I brought in an investor, a buddy of mine, who brought in some money so that I can do the things I want to do,” Sorenson told The New York Times on June 2, 2011.
Sorenson’s reassurance, however, still hasn’t squashed the fear for some of Portland’s hard-core coffee drinkers.
“I worry that the expansion of Stumptown Coffee will affect the core Portland stores negatively,” Ian White, a Seattle’s Best barista and regular Stumptown customer, said.
While White isn’t alone in his sentiment, there are others, like Bryony Redhead, a junior design major at PSU, who feel that the expansion could herald good change.
“As long as they stick to their top-quality tastes and passion for coffee, I am all for the expansion,” Redhead said.
According to The Oregonian, Stumptown will move its central headquarters to a 37,000 square foot space in inner Southeast Portland sometime in summer of 2012. On Dec. 26, Stumptown purchased a 10-year lease on Southeast Salmon Street (the former Macforce building). This new venue will allow Stumptown to increase its operating capacity and allow the coffee roasting company to bring in 75 new employees.
Along with the new headquarters, Stumptown also purchased a 10-year lease on West 8th Street in New York City. It will be the first stand-alone Stumptown coffee shop in the city—the first New York City shop is inside the Ace Hotel—and will open sometime this spring.
Redhead, who has spent a few years in New York, also commented on the addition of a Stumptown café in New York City. “As for another shop in New York, yes! A location downtown or in Brooklyn may be more fitting, and a more Portland-y audience would be drawn in,” Redhead said.
In addition to the Stumptown expansion, Sorenson has had his hands busy carving a niche in the Portland high-end dining scene.
Woodsman Tavern and Woodsman Market, Sorenson’s side projects, opened in the last quarter of 2011. Woodsman Tavern, a rugged cocktail-centric restaurant, and Woodsman Market, a local grocer’s safe-haven, are both located right next to the original Stumptown café on Southeast 45th Avenue and Division Street.
Noah Cable, an employee at Woodsman Market, commented on the symbiotic relationship between the Market and Woodsman Tavern. “I love getting a chance to work with Duane and the people from Woodsman Tavern,” Cable said. “It’s really great to sit down each week with the chefs and order the produce and the fresh meat from the Tavern and work with them weekly to create a really fresh and awesome menu.”
“Working at the Woodsman Market is rad,” Cable said. “We get new products in each week and continue to expand our repertoire.”
What happens to Stump-town Coffee next is anyone’s guess, but as New York City prepares for its next Stumptown infusion, Portland embraces Sorenson’s newest local-centric enterprise.