Raleigh’s 321 Coffee is expanding. Spend a shift with 2 roasters who make that possible
Sophie Pacyna can’t get enough coffee.
She starts her day with two cups from her Keurig, each with sugar and a little bit of milk. At work, she’ll make a pour-over or two, weaning off add-ins for a more bitter cup. After clocking out at 4 p.m. to relax at home, she might pour a splash of Kahlua in her late-night Joe.
But coffee isn’t just her hobby. It’s at least 40 hours of her week — thanks to Raleigh’s 321 Coffee.
Pacyna, who has Down syndrome, works at 321 Coffee, which exclusively employs roasters and baristas with intellectual and developmental disabilities. On top of its five (almost six) locations and recent Weaver Street Market partnership, the company began selling its roasts at six Whole Foods Locations this month.
With these partnerships (and plans for even greater expansion in the future), the 321 team has begun significantly ramping up production — especially in their roasting facility. Roasters’ work hours can now increase by about 30%, said CEO and co-founder Lindsay Wrege.
“I woke up at 7 and got here at 8:30, so I’m a little bit tired — and sweaty and stinky,” Pacyna, 25, told The News & Observer during a trip to the roasting facility one afternoon this week.
“But I’ve been working hard because I love my job and I love coffee. And I love getting paychecks!”
Grocery store expansion ups 321’s production
There’s certainly been “a big jump” in operations, said Michael Evans, co-founder and CFO.
The company already roasts more than 1,000 pounds of coffee every week using its accessible roasting machine, equipped with touch-screen tablets and vacuums. Features like these help make sure roasters don’t need to lift heavy objects or greatly rely on manager approval throughout a shift to boost independence at work.
The Whole Foods partnership means even more coffee needs to be packaged and shipped, and more hours need to be spent roasting. 321 Coffee already employs more than 50 people with disabilities, and they’ll now be able to tap into their 300-person waitlist to hire more.
“Production has picked up, so [roasters] are needed more here, and the coffee cart has been busy so we need to have people there, and traffic at the shops have been picking up so we might start to hire more there too. It’s so exciting that there’s the need across the board so we can bring more people on,” Wrege said.
321 Coffee plans to hire more, add hours
Some employees are happy with their pace of work (roaster and barista Paul Kocher, 29, prefers working more days with shorter hours, for example) while others welcome the grind — pun intended.
“Sophie likes working full time and even said she wants to work more hours, since she’s moving into a townhouse soon and has expenses to cover,” Wrege said. (Pacyna and her fiancé Sam Hening, who has worked with 321 since 2017 and recently started a second position with NC State University’s food services, will be getting married this September. Hening, 34, also has Down syndrome.)
The N&O spent a shift with Pacyna and Kocher to see how production looks with 321 Coffee’s increasing reach across the Triangle.
You can find Pacyna, Kocher, Hening and dozens more of 321’s employees behind the bar at cafes around Raleigh and Durham. In the meantime, flip over a bag of beans to see their smiling faces.
Where to visit a 321 Coffee location
Check out 321coffee.com to learn more about 321 Coffee’s products and mission, or visit them at one of their shop locations:
Downtown Raleigh at 615 Hillsborough St.
Downtown Durham at 300 Morris St. Suite 101.
State Farmers Market at 1209 Farmers Market Dr. in Raleigh
(Coming soon) NC State’s Centennial Campus on Oval Drive in Raleigh
321 Coffee is one of a few inclusive coffee shops in North Carolina. Wilmington-based Bitty & Beau’s started in 2016 and has grown to 19 locations across the country, including two others in Charlotte and Winston-Salem. Pop-up shop B3 Coffee serves drinks in the Chapel Hill Library’s main lobby every weekend.
This story was originally published June 28, 2024 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Raleigh’s 321 Coffee is expanding. Spend a shift with 2 roasters who make that possible."
