Gost Coffee Roasters partners with Berkot's in New Lenox, two other locations

What started simply as a regular customer who stopped in Gost Coffee every Friday for weeks has turned into a community partnership.

Gost Coffee opened its doors at the beginning of January and has found a way to stay afloat through the pandemic that began just months after opening.

The coffee shop, located at 1333 S. Schoolhouse Road, Suite 332, is owned by Daniel Bednarz, who also roasts the coffee. The shop has a new patio and entrance on the side of the building.

And the customer that regularly stopped in every Friday morning was Derrick Cannon, general manager of the area’s Berkot’s Super Foods. Cannon and his son work out in the morning together and get to the shop before it's open.

“He kept stopping in and said that they would love to carry the coffee,” Bednarz said. “I guess he enjoyed his coffee and the atmosphere. He has seen me go through this pandemic and be able to emerge from it. We worked on it for a while and now it’s here.”

Cannon said it is important to Berkot's to try and tie everything they do to the community.

"He takes pride in it," Cannon said of Bednarz's coffee. "I'm a big coffee drinker and for me, you can really taste the difference. I don't know if it's fresher, because I'm not an expert, but if I'm there I know it's because of him. The time he takes to make the coffee is worth it."

It was a long process for Bednarz to find the right coffee and also meet the grocery retail margin.

He finally landed on a single origin coffee from West Guji, Ethiopia. Purchasing single origin per pound for a specialty coffee is expensive, he said.

“With the price point, I had to buy quite a bit of it,” he said. “Usually, I buy two-to-three origins and a lot of it and do my rotation. But when I found this coffee, it took weeks of roasting because coffee is difficult to work with if it is a single origin. You want to make sure you get all of it out. You want to have the best profile of that coffee present itself.”

Coffee's that are not single origin are typically referred to as blends. Single origins are also only available at certain times of the year, which is also why Bednarz chose the Ethiopian coffee.

The coffee will be sold at the New Lenox, Mokena and Manhattan locations for $9.99 for 12 oz. whole bean bags. The cupping notes describe the coffee’s taste as “mild and savory with citric acidity, and coffee cherry and lemon with nutty aftertaste.”

“I roasted it light because it really brings out that smoothness rather than the bite,” he said. “It’s mild and appeals to a wider audience.”

Bednarz does not market or advertise the business as he uses his customer base as “his greatest advertisement," so he is grateful for the opportunity to have his coffee in a major grocery chain in New Lenox and neighboring towns, he said.

“People can check out our location, because they otherwise may not look for it, and Google us if they see it in Berkot’s,” he said.

The partnership is a trial base and the two businesses will see how it does, but Bednarz said he has plenty to sustain more orders if it comes.