Houston, a Coffee City of Spirit, Resilience, and Community
Houston’s Boomtown Cafe
By Sherri Johns
HOUSTON, Texas
A strong spirit binds the coffee folks in Houston. It’s a Texas trait. Specialty roasters and retailers like Greenway Coffee, Fix, Catalina Coffee, Southside Espresso, Black Hole, Revival Market, Beans, Brasil, Kaffeine Coffee, Siphon, Boomtown Coffee, and others paved the way for Houstonians to enjoy a delicious cup.
Harvey certainly tested their resilience.
Houston, a Coffee City of Spirit, Resilience, and Community
Matt Toomey and roaster Savannah Childers pitched in to help Houston.
Hurricane Relief
The needs in coffee-producing countries are immense. Catholic Relief Services (CRS), Catholic Charities USA (CCUSA), and Mercy Corps provide disaster relief.
CRS: support.crs.org
CCUSA: www.catholiccharitiesusa.org
Mercy Corps: www.mercycorps.org
Individual cafes and a few roasters were flooded. Everyone felt the economic impact, some lost homes. But rather than focus on the damage and losses this is a story of character. Since Houstonians began their recovery, there have been more hurricanes, more coffee communities devastated. Tropical storms hit Central America and hurricanes devastated the Florida Keys and Puerto Rico. All these communities are now working together to recover. When disaster struck, the Houston coffee community pulled together and helped one another in spirit, demonstrating resilience and pride.
No one expected the magnitude of Hurricane Harvey’s impact. Cafes might have prepared for the hurricane beforehand, taking precautions like making an extra-large batch of cold brew so customers could have the comfort of coffee if power failed. One could envision baristas covering windows with plywood, roasters raising their equipment to higher ground and moving big sacks of green to safety? But the answer was “no, we didn’t expect it to impact Houston,” recalls Matt Toomey of Boomtown Coffee and the Honeymoon Café. There was very little Houstonians did to prepare. They were unaware of the scope of the storm, he said.
During the storm, Boomtown flooded, but damage was minor. Honeymoon had to shut down for a while.
HOUSTON HAS IT ALL
“All I know is that we opened back up as soon as possible, it was an amazing feeling. People had been cooped up and just needed some normalcy. Some rhythm. And, good coffee,” said Toomey.
“During the city’s shut down, many local coffee shops and roasters came together to do what they do best; serve,” says specialty roaster Avi Katz. “We offered coffee to first responder groups, city officials, and FEMA relief centers and communication hubs. Coffee shops around town opened, offering free coffee to anyone who could make it in and who just needed some human interaction,” he said.
Toomey shares a collective belief that coffee helps people. Sharing a hot cup is the backbone of camaraderie, of ritual, and normalcy. Regular customers become as much a part of the family as the baristas.
Houston, a Coffee City of Spirit, Resilience, and Community
Boomtown Cafe suffered minor water damage.
Boomtown stepped up to roast for others where needed but mostly focused on donating coffee....so much coffee.... brewed, ground, whole bean. “We donated a few hundred pounds of whole bean as well as a metric shit-ton of brewed coffee (I’m not sure how many 6-ounce cups this is…) and fresh drinking water and food, mostly to the George R. Brown Convention center,” he said.
Boomtown also donated coffee to the fire department and local police department. “Many others did the same without fanfare, without hesitation. It was the good people of Houston,” says Toomey.
The storm forced Beans Café to close. Her flooding occurred after the hurricane when they released the Addicks Dam to avoid a breach, Toomey explains. “I have never seen anything like the undercurrents of chefs and business owners and volunteers networking to provide meals. It was inspiring,” he said.
Boomtown considered closing at one point. Many cafes closed to repair damage, but the spirit and community of Houston held strong.
Matt stresses, “ensuring staff safety was paramount and the safety of our customers. The shop was second. Boomtown Cafe sustained minor water damage. Nothing serious.”
The Honeymoon Café had to close for more than a week. When the water receded, it was not over. Without power for the walk-in cooler, they donated the contents to others who could prepare and serve the EMT’s, police, and fire crews. Anyone who needed a meal was served. Boomtown Coffee participated in a Hurricane Harvey Relief Fund sponsored by the Greater Houston Community Foundation (https://ghcf.org/). The foundation collected $93,603,405 to date with donations at 11 shops amounting to an impressive $13,230.
Matt founded Boomtown Coffee in 2011 “roasting my own and slinging shots at the now shuttered Café Luz and Kitchen Incubator. We opened our shop in the Heights (242 W 19th St.) in February of 2012 and the Honeymoon downtown (300 Main St.) in the summer of 2014. We currently employ about 25-30 good folks,” he said. “I run my business with the mantra of positive energy and love...it is quite simple really. Our customers are our everything,” said Toomey.
Nowadays he rarely finds himself working in the shop as a barista. More often he can be found sample roasting, cupping, and educating his staff as well as his wholesale partners on coffee. He opens a lot of espresso pop-ups which keep his barista “chops” well-seasoned.
“Sensory and education is where my passion is these days,” he shares. Toomey shares coffee expertise with others outside of his business as an SCA instructor of level 1 and 2 barista, level 1 and 2 roaster, level 1 coffee taster and recently he completed his Q certification.
Houston, a Coffee City of Spirit, Resilience, and Community
Staff from Houston’s Greenway, Southside, and Boomtown coffee shops at the 2017 SCA conference in Seattle.
Houston is an amazing city full of amazing people, he observes, “That’s the key...the people. We just want to live our lives and do what we can to make things right. I think that is seen throughout coffee typically and in Texas you see a little tighter camaraderie. When you zoom in on Houston you see a special group of folks who genuinely connect, unconditionally,” he said. No one expected the hurricane to impact Houston. And yet it did - in a positive way.
Sherri Johns is the principal at WholeCup Coffee Consulting with expertise in marketing, quality assessment, sourcing, cupping, education, special events, retail expansion, trade show and exposition support, origin travel, coffee cupping, and barista competitions.