Nestled in the foothills of New England's Berkshires, our coffee roastery hearkens back to an earlier America...a time and place where fine things were produced by village craftspeople who nurtured their products from start to finish. You will find that our hand roasted coffee beans, whether organic coffee, decaffeinated coffee, or our rich assortment of flavored coffees-- are as delicious as coffee can be.
Shelburne Falls Coffee Roasters was born out of a love of coffee---of great tasting coffee in all its varieties & manifestations, and all the ways & places in which coffee is enjoyed. Inspired by the classic cafes of New York’s Little Italy in the 1960’s, the sophisticated, elegant simplicity of Parisian street café culture, and of course the grand tradition of Italian espresso, founders Kathy Lytle and Curtis Rich set out over 20 years ago to bring the joy of artisan coffee to their community. With a wing & a prayer and a very small budget, Kathy & Curtis bought a nice little espresso machine, a grinder and some coffee, and began playing…
They sold their first beverage, an “Iced Island Delight,” on the ferry dock of Peaks Island, Maine, on July 4th, 1990. From there, they packed their growing collection of equipment (and daughter Annabelle, now our GM!) into a van & a trailer and set off to fairs & festivals up and down the east coast, bringing high quality coffee to places that’d never seen or tasted it before!
After a year of purveying coffee on the road, Kathy & Curtis decided to plunk down retail roots in their village of Shelburne Falls, MA, and opened a shop in one of the tiniest, cutest cafe spaces the world has ever known. Soon locals & travelers were happily rubbing elbows in this narrow little alleyway of a shop---which also provided space for ongoing cribbage games, high quality live musical entertainment---and after about a year, a coffee roasting machine! And lots of 150 lb sacks of high quality green coffee! And thus was Shelburne Falls Coffee Roasters finally born…
From there, new locations started to cry out to house an SFCR shop---and so they were born in Northampton, Easthampton, Greenfield, Hadley, East Longmeadow, and most recently, an additional cafe located on Main Street in Northampton!
Along the way, we started baking our own fresh, delicious pastries, and have continually added new goodies to the lineup. And we began making our fabulous signature blender drinks featuring fresh squeezed fruit juices---and sumptuous, savory breakfast & lunch sandwiches---and then we started making our own hand-dipped chocolate truffles! Wonder what’s next...?