Today we’d like to introduce you to Serina Roy.
Hi Serina, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I was born and raised in New Hampshire, I moved here after college to work as an Account rep for Holy Cross Hospital.
I loved numbers, but I loved being out with people even more. One evening I had the opportunity to go on a ride along with a Frederick City Police Officer. I fell in love with all aspects of the job, and spent the next year training for that position and was accepted into the Police Academy.
I enjoyed Police work so much, and became active in several of the Special Units, to include Bike Patrol, and then the K-9 Program.
I had been trained to roast coffee and loved the relaxation it brought to my busy, chaotic world. It became a hobby of mine, and soon I purchased a small coffee roaster to roast at home for friends and family. I started to travel to coffee producing countries on my vacations, and learned a lot about the people, the land and the struggles. I started Dublin Roasters Coffee out of the love of the coffee families and the comforting it feeling it brought to me.
At the end of Nightshift, after a long evening, I would turn on the coffee roaster and work for a couple of hours just letting the trauma and turmoil roll off me. It became a true passion for me.
After 10 years of Police work, Dublin had grown to the point of being able to support me, and was starting to take off in a more retail direction. I took a 1 year sabbatical from Police work to start a retail location, It was a terrific success, and I said goodbye to Police work and hello to Dublin Roasters Coffee, Inc. on North Market Street in Frederick
I never forgot the need for community, and really wanted to integrate the feeling I had when I was an officer into our Community Coffee roasting Cafe.
Dublin Roasters Coffee is celebrating 22 years in business!
I have a terrific daughter and son-in-law, whom are both Police Officers in Arizona, along with a beautiful one and a half year old Grand Daughter. A very loving, successful partner to share life with, and her 3 amazing children. We coincidently have named all of the kids starting with the letter “A.”
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Life always throws in a few bumps along the way to make sure you appreciate what you have of course.
I am an advocate for education, and the idea that no matter what your major is, you will still fall back on what you have learned in school.
Starting a small business, especially one open to the public, and requiring employees will always have problems and things that will remain out of your control.
The success will be in how you are able to adapt, learn and grow from the struggle that presents itself.
In the beginning, one of the struggles was how to price coffee. I quickly learned that you have to add value in the fact that buying from coffee farmers, importing, brokering, and educating your local consumers is important, and will create a loyal following.
Another struggle was keeping a slow measured growth in mind. I wanted to grow without creating too much debt for myself. When I took on too many customers, I created a shortage with the product. It was a balance of new business and sustaining my current loyal customers.
Another issue I had was marketing and advertising, and the cost involved with balancing both. I decided donations and word of mouth would be a good strategy. It was a valuable lesson in many regards. I saw the good with that decision when Covid hit, and my cafe closed. People purchased gift cards, and ordered subscriptions, because I had donated to their school, church, organizations year after year. I had cards, and letters talking about how much I community work I had done in the years prior.
When I decided to grow the business, the effort was put in by hiring Sarah Rachael Cooper, a Personal Brand photographer (and eventually she became my loving life partner) to document the coffee trips, and then State Side marketing of daily life at the cafe. Our social media and deliberate marketing grew the business exponentially.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I travel to other coffee producing countries to meet the families and communities that grow coffee beans. We cultivate a relationship with the farmers to understand what they need from us as purchasing agents of their livelihood.
In return they learn what they can do to create a sustainable, ethically sourced, higher price yielding coffee that we will buy.
This way of doing business will help generations to come in creating a product that we will always want to purchase.
Once in the US, Dublin really educates our customers on where the coffee comes from. We offer roasting demonstrations, cuppings, tastings, and as much information as we can to help people make informed choices about their coffee.
We custom roast the coffee for our wholesale customers, as well as our individual customers.
We also custom label our bags of coffee and create blends to market to other companies.
In our large cafe, we are known as a community cafe, we create a safe space for all, a nd host many events, parties, discussion groups, dances, and meetings.
I am most proud of our brew crew, who work together as a team, and create the environment that keeps people coming back daily.
Alright so before we go can you talk to us a bit about how people can work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
People often do fundraisers using our coffee. We create a label on our custom roasted bags of coffee, and market them together with the company featured, $5.00 of every bag is donated to the organization. Schools, non profits, and special events have really benefited from this program.
Social media ambassadors have been such a help to Dublin, getting the word out and promoting our Coffee subscription club, called the Java Luv Club.
Customers can support us by logging on to Our website; which sells all of our varietals, flavors and blends, we offer preorder pick up at the store, local delivery to your door 7 days a week, or shipping nationwide.
Pricing:
- Our bags of beans are more than a pound, because we tare out the weight of the bag and label: $15.50
Contact Info:
- Email: info@dublinroasterscoffee.com
- Website: www.dublinroasterscoffee.com
- Instagram: @dublinroasterscoffee.com
- Facebook: dublin roasters coffee
Image Credits
Sarah Rachael Photography
