Chris moved to Saint Paul, MN, from the sunny Sonoran Desert in Phoenix, Arizona, in 2022 (and believe it or not, he wanted to! He’d rather be shoveling snow than sweating for a living). He moved around a lot growing up, so although Phoenix is “home”, still holding the record for the longest he’s ever lived anywhere, Colorado is where the coffee love affair began.
The specialty coffee scene in Colorado Springs quickly became his main haunt in high school, being a cool place where a teenager could feel passionate and pretentious about something with their friends. After moving to Phoenix for college, he got his first barista job at a drive-through café, and the rest was history! Followed by his only stint away from coffee to sell guitars and valet around the valley, he landed a barista position where he wanted to be all along – at a specialty café. From this point, years as a barista trainer and café manager followed, as well as an understanding that making great coffee with great people was just about the only thing he wanted to do for money.
After meeting his wife, a WI/MN native (this must have been her plan all along!) and taking a few more years to savor that dusty desert air, he moved to the Twin Cities and continued managing a local café. Now, he feels super lucky to be working in green! Feeling more connected to the coffee world than his younger self could have imagined, sipping on a pourover in Colorado all those years ago.
Legend says, he can be found talking someone’s ear off about Sonic the Hedgehog, Dune, or Lord of the Rings, at a café near you.