Roasti Coffee Co: Specialty Coffee Roaster And Cafe ★9.7

Almost every roastery has an origin story about a trip abroad. Very few have one that begins with a goaltender who could not be in loud rooms. Roasti Coffee Co. was started in January 2017 by Andrew Hayes and his father Gerry, in a garage, with a five-kilo roaster shipped in from Montréal — and it started at the moment Andrew’s hockey career ended and post-concussion syndrome made ordinary work impossible. Roasting turned out to be the right kind of task: solitary, precise, repeatable, measured in degrees and seconds. What grew out of that is now a roastery with a coffee bar attached, on the eastern edge of the Edmonton region, and one of the more genuinely producer-connected operations in the area.

Highlights

• A working roastery, not a café that sells bags — the coffee bar sits alongside production, so what is in the grinder came off the drum a short walk from where you are standing.
• A real Brazilian relationship: the family’s connection to Brazil goes back to Gerry Hayes’s first trip in 2008, and the business began after he and Andrew met the grower Henrique Cambraia — Fazenda Samambaia still appears on the sourcing side of the operation.
• A stated position on transparency — the roasting team talks openly about sourcing and about representing a coffee the way its producer would want it represented, working from importers’ and farmers’ notes on the expected profile.
• Approachability as a deliberate goal, not a compromise: the house aim is very good coffee that does not require you to already be a coffee person.
• Beans, subscriptions, brewing gear and wholesale under one roof, which makes this a place to solve your home setup as well as your morning cup.
• Indoor and outdoor seating plus parking at the door — an underrated combination in a region where half the year is spent negotiating with the weather.

What’s in the cup

This is the category where a roastery-owned bar has an advantage that no multi-roaster café can match: freshness is not a claim here, it is a logistics fact. Coffee roasted on site and ground on site removes the entire window in which beans sit in a box, and it shows most obviously in filter, where a stale bean has nowhere to hide behind milk.

The house leans Brazilian, and that is a real stylistic signal rather than a detail. Brazil in the cup usually means body, chocolate, nuts and low acidity — the register that makes espresso comfortable and milk drinks generous, and the reason a Brazil-forward roaster tends to be an easy roaster to like. The stated philosophy backs that up: source coffee that is genuinely good but approachable for everyone, and roast it to show what the producer intended rather than to demonstrate what the roaster can do. That is a quieter ambition than the Nordic-influenced, acidity-forward school, and it is the correct one for a bar whose customers are as likely to be arriving from a suburban errand as from a cupping.

Beyond Brazil the sourcing reaches across origins, with ethical and organic sourcing named as a criterion. The practical advice for a first visit is the same as at any roaster-owned bar: order the filter, not only the latte. Espresso and milk tell you the house style; a brewed cup of the current single origin tells you whether the roasting is any good. Here, both answers tend to be reassuring.

Who’s behind it

Andrew Hayes was a hockey goaltender; his father Gerry had been roasting coffee at home for years after a 2008 trip to Brazil turned into a long attachment to the country and its farms. When Andrew’s playing career ended, he was dealing with post-concussion syndrome — migraines, dizziness, nausea, the daily unpredictability that makes conventional employment hard — and needed work he could control himself. Gerry passed him the roaster, and the two of them turned a household habit into a business in January 2017, starting on a five-kilo machine ordered from Montréal.

The athletic discipline is not decoration in this story. Roasting is a craft of repeatable curves: the same bean, the same charge temperature, the same development time, day after day, with the failure mode being drift rather than disaster. A goaltender’s training — attention, routine, tolerance for repetition — maps onto it almost exactly, and Andrew has described his approach in those terms as head roaster.

The other founding fact is the producer relationship. The business did not begin with a business plan; it began with meeting a Brazilian grower, and that link to the Cambraia family’s estate has stayed visible in what the company sources. In a market where “direct trade” is often a marketing phrase, a roastery that started because of one farm relationship is worth taking seriously.

Which visit it suits

The strongest use of this place is the coffee errand with an upgrade: you came for beans, and you stay for a cup at the bar while somebody explains what came off the roaster this week. If you are setting up at home — grinder, brewer, subscription — this is a room where those questions get proper answers rather than a shrug, because the people behind the counter are the people who roasted what you are buying.

As a sit-down café it works well for a conversation or a solo hour, with both indoor and outdoor seating. For laptop work, the café does not publish anything about Wi-Fi or power outlets, so treat the first session as reconnaissance; a roastery bar in a suburban plaza is usually calmer than a downtown café, which helps, but nothing here is advertised as a co-working substitute.

It is also, plainly, a good takeaway stop. This is a part of the region where most journeys happen by car, and a roastery with parking at the door and freshly roasted coffee in the hopper is exactly what a commute wants. In deep winter, that door-to-door convenience is not a small thing.

Space and atmosphere

The premises are a unit in a plaza in the established central part of Sherwood Park, which sets expectations correctly: this is not a heritage room or a design statement, it is a working roastery with a bar in front of it. The atmosphere comes from the equipment and the smell rather than from the fit-out — and if you have never been in a room where coffee is actually roasted, that smell alone justifies the trip.

There is seating inside and a spot to sit outside when the season allows, which in this part of Alberta is a genuinely limited window. The crowd is local and mixed: people from the surrounding neighbourhoods, wholesale customers picking up, and drivers who have made this a fixed point on their route. It tends toward calm rather than buzz, which suits a room where the point is what is in the cup.

What comes with the coffee

Food is deliberately a supporting act. The bar keeps light things to eat and a rotating pastry selection supplied by local bakers rather than baked on the premises — an honest arrangement, and the right one for a business whose kitchen is a roaster. If you want brunch, this is not the place; if you want something decent alongside a very fresh cup, it is covered.

The retail side is the more interesting companion. Alongside beans and subscriptions, the shop carries brewing gear, so the same visit can produce coffee for the week and the equipment to make it properly. For anyone who has been drinking supermarket coffee out of a machine that grinds badly, that combination is more useful than another pastry case.

When to come

The rhythm is suburban and predictable. Mornings carry commuters and takeaway; the middle of the day is the quietest and the best time to actually talk to someone about beans; weekends bring the neighbourhood in for a sit rather than a grab. If your visit has a purpose beyond caffeine — choosing a subscription, sorting out a grinder, understanding what you are drinking — avoid the morning rush and come when the counter has room to breathe.

Seasonally, the outdoor seats belong to the short warm stretch and nothing else; the rest of the year this is an indoor proposition, which is fine, because the interest here was never the patio. Roast schedules mean the freshest bags follow production, so it is always worth asking what came off the drum most recently rather than taking the first bag on the shelf.

Getting there

An important piece of orientation: Sherwood Park is not a district of Edmonton. It is a large urban community in Strathcona County, immediately east of the city, and it functions as part of the same metropolitan region while sitting outside the city limits. The roastery is in the older, central part of that community, in a plaza with parking directly outside.

Practically, this is car country. Edmonton’s LRT does not reach here, and the downtown pedway network — the covered indoor route that makes the city centre survivable in January — is entirely irrelevant on this side of the region. Transit is possible via the county’s own bus service plus a connection, but the honest description is that almost everyone arrives by car, parks at the door, and is inside in ten seconds. In February, that is a feature rather than a shortcoming.

Good to know

• It is outside Edmonton proper. Plan the trip as a drive east rather than as a stop on a city coffee crawl.
• Ask what was roasted most recently. The whole advantage of buying at a roastery is timing, and the counter can tell you exactly.
• Order filter as well as espresso if you want to judge the roasting rather than the milk technique.
• The pastry comes from local bakers, not from an oven on site — good, but not the reason to come.
• Wi-Fi and outlets are undocumented. Do not commit a working afternoon to it sight unseen.
• Reports mention a second café in Edmonton itself, but the roastery and coffee bar described here is the Sherwood Park operation — check before you drive to the wrong one.

Questions and answers

Do they roast their own coffee?

Yes. Roasti is a micro-roastery with a coffee bar attached, roasting on site, and it has done so since the founders moved on from a five-kilo machine in a garage.

Who founded it?

Andrew Hayes, a former hockey goaltender, together with his father Gerry Hayes, in January 2017. Gerry had roasted at home for years after a 2008 trip to Brazil; Andrew took over the roaster as his playing career ended and he was managing post-concussion syndrome.

What style of coffee should I expect?

A Brazil-leaning house style: body, chocolate and nut tones, low acidity, built to be approachable rather than challenging. Other origins rotate alongside it, with ethical and organic sourcing stated as a criterion.

Is there a direct link to a farm?

The business began after the founders met the Brazilian grower Henrique Cambraia, and Fazenda Samambaia appears on the sourcing side of the operation — an unusually concrete producer connection for a roastery this size.

Can I buy beans and equipment?

Yes — beans, subscriptions, brewing gear and wholesale supply are all part of the business, and the people selling them are the people roasting.

Is there food?

Light things to eat and a rotating pastry selection from local bakers. It is a coffee bar, not a kitchen.

Is it a good place to work?

Possibly, but unverified — neither Wi-Fi nor power is documented publicly. A suburban roastery bar is generally calmer than a downtown café, which helps, but scout it first.

Is it actually in Edmonton?

No. Sherwood Park is a separate urban community in Strathcona County directly east of the city, part of the same region but outside the city limits.

How do I get there without a car?

With difficulty. The LRT does not serve this area and the downtown covered walkway network is on the other side of the region, so transit means a county bus connection and a walk.

Opening hours