My main goal has always been to get everyone in Indianapolis to love local coffee as much as I do, and y’all are really catching on.

Instagram
January 23, 2016: A curated guide to Indianapolis coffee. Ahhhh, yes.

Can I paint you a picture? In 2016, I was lost. I was chained to my desk at a soul-sucking company that had drained me of my creativity. It was not a good look.

I needed an outlet. I needed a portfolio. I needed caffeine.

The Idea

Needing to branch away from my monotonous daily routine, I started hunting down local coffee shops to haunt, but I didn’t know of any offhand. A quick Google search left me with nothing. Yelp? Even worse.

To this day, search for ‘local coffee’ on Yelp and see what happens… Starbucks. Starbucks at Target. Starbucks at Kroger. Dunkin’ Donuts. Speedway. Speedway? The gas station??

You get my point.

The need became immediately clear, so I quickly set out to document all the local coffee shops in Indianapolis.

Twitter. Instagram. Domain name. Bam-bam-bam. The Indianapolis Coffee Guide was born.

The Community

The immediate response from the coffee community was overwhelming in the very best way. The day I started posting photos and tweets, a handful of industry people reached out to express their interest and support – including Bee Coffee Roasters (the first!), Tinker Coffee, Open Society (RIP), and a few others.

I had no idea there was and is a giant community (and family) in local coffee, and they all welcomed me with open arms. I also knew nothing about coffee when I started this project, and that was immediately rectified by all of these amazing people. They made me fall in love with the coffee community.

Today

Four years ago — launching a new version of this website, developing a mobile app, and partnering with tons of local organizations — none of these things were on my mind or even on my radar. But here we are.

My main goal has always been to get everyone in Indianapolis to love local coffee as much as I do, and y’all are really catching on.

So thank you for being on this journey with me. Thank you for partnering with me. Thank you for putting my stickers on your laptops. Thank you for letting me buy you coffee.

Keep tagging @indianapoliscoffee in your photos. Keep tagging your friends in the Coffee Guide posts. Keep reading and learning and growing with me.

Scott