When Vesta Coffee Roasters (facebook.com/vestacoffee) opens the doors to its Arts District location sometime this month, you’ll see it immediately: The Probat P12 coffee roaster, a sexy beast that produces 12 kilos of beans every 18 minutes.
“My plan is to max this thing out in a year,” says Vesta’s roaster Jerad Howard, who’s opening this Casino Center Boulevard spot in collaboration with Le Thai’s Dan Coughlin, Shauna Dong and Puoy Premsrirut. Howard is self-taught and detail-obsessed: “Every roast is data-logged,” he says, from roasting temperature to atmospheric conditions. But he’s also putting major effort into everything surrounding the Probat—the décor, food, vibe.
“I know I can roast great coffee,” he says, “but I want people to come here and say, ‘This is a place I can hang out.’”