Check Out Mike Carty’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Mike Carty.

Hi Mike, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
After retiring from Ford Motor Company and moving to North Carolina, it was time to start a new hobby, I studied and practiced different methods to brew coffee which then led to a curiosity of roasting coffee beans. Once I learned the basics of roasting coffee, I began sharing the beans with family, friends, and neighbors. They encouraged me to stop giving it away and start selling it, and that was the beginning. I started selling within our neighborhood in May 2020, during the midst of the pandemic and the stay-at-home order from our governor. My customer base grew by word of mouth as most everyone was working from home and loved having fresh roasted coffee delivered to their doorstep.

I spent hours at my workbench roasting beans from around the world, refining the process, and drinking a lot of coffee, and that’s how our name, Workbench Roasters, came to be.

Since the beginning, we’ve stood behind our mantra which is fresh roasted coffee. We don’t keep an inventory of roasted beans, but instead we roast to order and deliver locally or ship within 48 hours. This ensures our customers get the freshest roasted coffee possible.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Starting a business during a pandemic was borderline impossible. So I got creative with our marketing and promotion of our products. In addition to selling online, I started attending various farmer’s markets to get our coffee in front of as many potential customers as possible. Even with the COVID restrictions and mask mandates, I was able to use the smell of fresh roasted coffee beans to sell our products. We always have an open ‘smelling jar’ of each of the beans we sell. It’s amazing how the smell sells it. People walking by our booth smell the beans, stop to check them out and often leave with a bag or two. Many of these people have become regular customers of ours.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
Being a coffee roaster isn’t something I’ve always done. I was a product development engineer and supervisor at Ford Motor Company for 33-1/2 years. It was after retirement from that career that I entered the world of roasting coffee. What started as a hobby for my own consumption has grown into a small but steady business. I like to think I’m using what I learned about business during my Ford career, and especially what I learned about customer satisfaction, to build a solid customer base. By staying true to what we do best, small-batch coffee roasting, and keeping it a hands-on, manual process, without the use of computer software to control the roasts, we believe we are providing a high quality and tasty product crafted one small batch at a time.

We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up?
So many childhood memories come to mind, but I’d have to say one of my fondest memories is our grandparents’ family cottage in Michigan. My brothers and I would spend most summer weekends at the cottage with our parents, cousins, aunts and uncles, and grandparents. Life on the lake provided endless fun, adventures and memories.

Contact Info:

• Email: workbenchroasters2020@gmail.com
• Website: workbenchroasters.com
• Instagram: @workbenchroasters
• Facebook: @workbenchroasters