North Hollywood Roastery

Our 5,000-square-foot headquarters sits inconspicuously among the parking lots, loading docks, and near-constant truck traffic of North Hollywood’s Cleon Avenue. A closer look, however, tells a more colorful story. Solar panels cover the structure’s roof, drawing enough energy to power the entire building. Pallets of freshly delivered green coffee appear briefly in the sunlight as they’re whisked into the building’s loading bay on the tines of whirring forklifts.

Inside, steel racks filled with cases stretch to the ceiling. The cases hold every imaginable product necessary to stock a well-run coffeehouse. Along one long wall, a row of towering silos hold more than 25 varieties of green coffee beans. And in the middle, two massive coffee roasters function as the beating heart of the entire building. These 70-kilo, low-emission machines are a marvel of old and new technology — a fitting blend of the traditional and the innovative.

This is the Groundwork Roastery, where every day a battalion of employees makes use of the building’s every conceivable nook and cranny to produce, pack, and ship coffee and tea for our customers. The cupping room does triple-duty as a training center and lunchroom. The tearoom presents a dizzying array of colors, scents, and textures as fragrant teas, herbs, and spices are blended by hand.

Coffee roasting can be a fairly violent process in which green coffee beans are exposed to temperatures approaching 500 degrees. There are flames and smoke, and noise, and a lot of sweat and, well . . . you get the picture. But at Groundwork the job is half the fun. The other half is drinking the fruit of our labor.

Please note the roastery does not have a café.