Banyan Coffee Company Thrives Despite Pandemic

BRADENTON, FL — Josh Schmitt remembers his first cup of coffee well, but not fondly.

He was in his early twenties and attending flight school near Chicago, taking night courses. To stay awake, he’d order “traditional airport coffee,” he said. “The stuff that’s been sitting and baking for probably 10 hours, and it wasn’t the best, you could say, but I needed a pick-me-up.”

Those were “my less glory days of coffee,” said Schmitt, who today owns and operates Banyan Coffee Company, a specialty coffee roaster, in Bradenton, with his wife, Abbey.

“As you get older, you get a little bit of, let’s say, tolerance and appreciation towards it. Then you start to get into more of the specialty third-wave coffee,” he said. “I gradually got into that and I also wanted fresh coffee.”

After flight school, Schmitt, who grew up in the Midwest, moved to the Bradenton area, where he had a job lined up as a pilot. There, he met and married Abbey, who was born and raised in the area.

When he accepted a job in Oregon, the couple spent a little over a year in the Pacific Northwest. This is where their appreciation for coffee deepened. They explored the coffee scene, discovering the Dutch Bros Coffee chain.

“That changed our mindset about coffee,” Schmitt said. “They have a business philosophy of just having fun with coffee and not being too reserved. Sometimes when you walk into a coffee shop, it has a cold feeling to it.”

In 2014, they moved back to Bradenton. By then, he was an avid coffee hobbyist, experimenting with different beans and roasting them in a popcorn machine at home. He’d frequently bag coffee he roasted himself and give it away to friends and family, receiving rave reviews about the quality and taste.

As he began to move away from aviation and wondered where his career might take him, his wife encouraged him to give the coffee business a shot.

Schmitt created the Banyan brand, launching it at the Downtown Bradenton Farmers Market. He sold out during his first few markets and realized the potential for his new company.

“I though, ok, maybe people do need fresh coffee,” he said.

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The couple runs Banyan Coffee together. While Schmitt focuses on the roasting, his wife, a former Anthropologie display coordinator who studied interior design, handles their marketing, social media and design.

“She’s more stylish than me,” he said. “I’ve been piggybacking on her. Her word lately is ‘aesthetic.’ It’s how she operates. She’s very creative and into the design stuff. She’s always pushing the wheel on doing something new and different.”

And while he tends to stay behind-the-scenes, focusing on roasting, she’s often face-to-face with customers, he said. “She’s a jack of all trades.”

It was her idea to purchase a coffee truck, he said, a 1984 Cushman Truckster, according to Daily Coffee News.

The bright blue mini truck fits in well with Banyan’s image, Schmitt said. “I want people to be like, ‘Oh, they look like fun. Let’s party with them. Let’s check them out.’”

It’s all part of his goal to make specialty coffee more “approachable,” he added. “Coffee can be intimidating, especially when you first get started. In the coffee industry, there is this coldness sometimes. It’s pretentious, a little bit. At the end of the day, to me, our philosophy is we don’t want that. We want to knock down these barriers or walls and bring coffee for all.”

They launched their new truck last year with the goal of booking private events.

“Then the pandemic happened,” Schmitt said.

While there haven’t been many events, they bring the truck to the farmers market, though, and are occasionally hired for small pop-up events.

“Lately, we’ve been doing a lot of school events for teachers,” he said.

They’ve also used the truck to make local deliveries to those who order coffee through their website in the Sarasota and Bradenton areas.

They sell coffee both wholesale for restaurants and other businesses, and also smaller bags for individuals brewing coffee at home. They offer free delivery – using their coffee truck – to anyone in the Bradenton or Sarasota areas who orders online.

They also ship to other areas, Schmitt added, offering free shipping to anyone who spends at least $25. Otherwise, shipping is a $5 flat fee.

Business has been going strong since the start of the pandemic, he said. “We’ve had quite a bit of uptick in our online sales.”

Even before the pandemic, they had been improving Banyan’s online presence and social media marketing.

“We were geared up and ready for it,” Schmitt said. “Like everyone, we got tossed into it, but we didn’t have to really adapt much. I think that’s what’s helped us out a lot.”

He’s also focused on collaborating with other local businesses.

“It makes total sense to bridge the gap between local businesses,” he said. “My lightbulb went off one day. Both businesses benefit from working together. And then the money ends up staying in Bradenton/Sarasota rather than going elsewhere. When you bridge local-to-local stuff, it actually has a bigger impact on not just your business, but money staying in the community.”

Banyan Coffee is available to purchase by the bag in various Bradenton shops, including Geraldson’s Family Farm, Little Saigon Café, The Anna Maria General Store, Island Fresh Market, Back Alley Treasures, Fruitville Grove and REinspired Boutique.

They also continue to set up at the Downtown Bradenton Farmers Market on Saturdays.

As they work through the pandemic, Schmitt looks for inspiration from the company’s namesake, the banyan tree.

“The way they grow is so different. They root themselves from their limbs. The vines actually grow from their limbs and then they reach the ground, they’re just constantly spreading that way,” he said. “We want to keep growing, too. We have to adjust to whatever is ahead of us in this pandemic. What is normal anymore? We have to adapt and keep going.”

He added, “It was a tough year, but we had so many blessings. We sold more coffee this year, connected with more people, got our coffee truck going…I’m trying to stay positive about it going forward.”

Learn more about www.banyancoffeecompany.com.