Roger’s Coffee

In 2015, Roger Snellman decided to make a change in his career, bought a roaster and founded Roger’s Coffee. Nowadays the roastery and the attached FIIKA cafe & Company coffee shop are popular destinations in the Jakobstad old town.

Roger’s Coffee started in the garage!

In the year 2015, Roger Snellmann changed his career path and opened a micro coffee roastery in his home garage. Roger bought a Giesen W1 semi-automatic coffee roaster and high-quality green coffee beans. This is how the Roger’s Coffee story started to take shape.

Endless hours of education and experience sharing trips, including one to Germany to visit the Probat coffee roasting training course, gave results. Coffee packages started to find their new homes in Jakobstad. They also opened a small coffee package shop in the city centre.

Let’s buy a cafe!

Soon enough, the Roger’s Coffee story made a plot twist. Roger decided to join a local bakery, which had a really good location in the very centre of Jakobstad. Excellent cakes and locally roasted coffee? Sounds like a perfect match. And it was.

However, the bakery owners wanted to eventually move on, as they were still searching for the right path for their business. This is where Roger did something unexpected. He offered to buy out the whole place. The bakery owners were shocked and happy at the same time. This is how the FIIKA Cafe & Company opened its doors for the very first time.

The whole family gets to work

Running a cafe is not an easy business, it takes time, resources and passion. But Roger had no issue with that. He invested his own time and his family also offered the invest theirs. Even the 7-year-old Minnie was excited to help, with occasionally bringing freshly washed dishes from the kitchen to the bar.

Roger’s Coffee is well known around the city for their traditional and tasty cakes (from the previous owners), their delicious sandwiches and fresh savoury pies, made in the kitchen downstairs as well as many, many more self-made, fresh products.

The cafe has a big conference room upstairs and all of the coffees served in the cafe were roasted in Roger’s garage. The roasters were Roger and his good friend Jimmy, who kept the coffee super fresh and high quality. It all turned out really well.

Let’s bring the roaster to the cafe!

In the summer of 2018, Roger invited two Latvian coffee experts to Jakobstad’s busiest week – the Jakobsdagar festival, to work and help during the massive festival and consult on the coffee development. This was the moment when Roger made a decision he had been thinking about before – to move the roaster to the cafe, and to combine the Roger’s Coffee brand with FIIKA Cafe & Company.

The Giesen W1 was integrated into the cafes right corner, green coffee bags were put next to it, ventilation was installed and it was ready to roast some excellent coffee! One of the Latvian experts also applied for a job at FIIKA Cafe & Company, was accepted and started to work there as a barista and a coffee roaster.

Speciality coffee, roasted in the Jakobstad centre

Now, with all the development, both Roger’s Coffee and FIIKA Cafe & Company are strong brands, working together as a family. The FIIKA cafe crew is in top shape to brew and present the best coffees, and the roasters, Roger and Martin are putting their heads together to further develop the coffee business and raise coffee quality every day.

If you ever visit Jakobstad and happen to walk by the wonderful rocky seaside or visit the old town Skata, do not hesitate to visit the FIIKA Cafe and Roger’s Coffee to have a sip of locally roasted filter brew or an espresso-based drink, made with love form quality ingredients.

SLURP helping develop the brand reputation

Roger’s Coffee has been working with Slurp almost since the beginning and it has been a wonderful experience. Slurp has been a great platform, allowing Roger’s Coffee to meet new audiences all over Finland and even abroad! It has also been amazing to visit the Slurp office in Helsinki and talk with the team, drink great coffee, exchange experiences and think of ways to improve.

As Roger’s Coffee is growing, there will also be new interesting coffees to try. Since the roaster is quite small, Roger’s Coffee can offer flexibility and change from a light roast to dark roast and everything in between for every coffee we have. Send Roger a message and we can discuss and find the perfect coffee and roast level for you, delivered to your home by Slurp!