At the new 321 Coffee Roastery in Raleigh, North Carolina. All images courtesy of 321 Coffee.
Inclusivity-focused North Carolina roasting company 321 Coffee has shifted its roasting operations into a larger facility, adding equipment that more than triples production capacity.
Dedicated to providing opportunities for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities to succeed in specialty coffee and beyond, 321 Coffee’s production scale-up responds to rising demand from wholesale clients and the brand’s five coffee shops in the Raleigh-Durham area.
The new 5,000-square-foot production home in central Raleigh includes a Loring S35 roaster alongside the company’s existing Loring S15. While the original roastery was built around a suite of digital systems intended to provide guidance and guardrails to support staff, the company said the new facility is relying on a more traditional workflow.
“While that project led to a lot of good iteration on our systems, it ultimately proved difficult with some technical limitations, and we’ve since moved in a different direction,” 321 Coffee Co-Founder Michael Evans told Daily Coffee News. “In the past year, we’ve been focusing on making our roastery more accessible with new equipment, such as a green coffee system to minimize the movement of heavy burlap bags of coffee around our space.”
Evans said that in some ways, the tremendous skill growth by 321’s roasting team over the years — including roasters Sophie Pacyna and Paul Kocher — has reduced the need for tech “assists.” Meanwhile, low-tech tools such as physical checklists have proven just as effective, particularly for new hires learning the step-by-step roasting workflow.
“Wholesale is now one of the largest verticals of our business,” Evans said, noting that 321’s coffee sourcing has expanded to include greens from importers including De La Finca, Ally Coffee and Cafe Imports. Evans said the company roasted more than 100,000 pounds of coffee in 2025.
Evans and Lindsay Wrege co-founded 321 Coffee in 2017 as a farmers market stand serving drinks, then pivoted into roasting during the pandemic. Early in that transition, the company began making roasted coffee deliveries with a Ford E-Transit electric van purchased with funds awarded through an Oatly Big Idea Grant. The first brick-and-mortar cafes opened in 2021.
The company’s first Loring roaster went into service in May 2022 inside its original 2,000-square-foot warehouse facility, alongside production equipment and software accommodations designed from the start to support inclusivity.
Evans said a sixth 321 Coffee location is slated to open by the end of 2026.
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Howard Bryman
Howard Bryman is the associate editor of Daily Coffee News by Roast Magazine. He is based in Portland, Oregon.
