Taking flight
Gooseneck Coffee Co was born out of friendship and a love of coffee. For several years before founding the company, Bill Streicher and Noah Salter bonded over a mutual love of coffee. Coffee was an integral part of the night anytime their families would spend time together. In December of 2015, still before there was a thought of a company, the two set up a pour-over bar for their friends at a Christmas event. It was their wives, seeing the joy they had serving coffee to their friends, that encouraged them to look into a business in the coffee world. After some careful consideration and conversation, it was decided that they would pursue roasting and selling their own coffee. January of 2016 marked the beginning of Gooseneck Coffee Co.
Starting on a small 500g (about 1lb) roaster, the two began learning through trial and error and reading many books and articles about roasting. By May of 2016 the company set up a booth at the local farmers market. From the very beginning, Gooseneck Coffee was to be about bringing joy to their community through good coffee.
The community was quick to embrace the company, and by the end of the 2016 farmers market season the output from the small roaster was already having difficulties keeping up with demand. Throughout the 2017 farmers market season Bill and Noah put in long hours on their small machine, until it became far too much. In October 2017, Gooseneck Coffee turned to their community for help and launched a Kickstarter in order to secure the funds needed to purchase a larger roaster. Successfully raising the money needed, Gooseneck Coffee purchased a 2kg (about 4.5lbs) Mill City Roaster, and looked to the future.
Not too far away, another coffee company that had been one of their knowledgeable resources at the very beginning, Drifter Coffee, was set to open a brick and mortar cafe. In January 2018, Gooseneck Coffee reached out to Drifter Coffee owner, Alleah, to congratulate her on the big news. Unexpectedly, Alleah asked the roasters to set up a roastery inside her new cafe, solving a production issue for Drifter and a location issue for Gooseneck Coffee. After a few years of roasting in Ferndale, MI, Gooseneck needed to expand our roasting capacities and moved to Plymouth, MI where we are excited to root ourselves even deeper in the community.
