Aerial Resupply Coffee is an actual coffee roaster here on Dale Avenue in the middle of Charlottesville.

We came home

Mike’s family was born and raised here in Charlottesville. Twenty years of military service in the US Army moved them around the country and abroad. The whole time the plan never changed.

When the Army was done with them, they were coming back home to C’ville - in 2018, they did exactly that, returned here, created and built Aerial Resupply Coffee, and started roasting coffee only a few miles away from where they’d originally grown up.

Why coffee

The short answer is that Mike and his family saw another coffee company built around special operations and wondered why nobody was talking to and serving everybody else.

The longer answer is Mike’s Army job. He was a logistics officer. Twenty years of ensuring that people had what they needed before they needed it.

“Aerial resupply” is the part of that job where you get critical supplies to people who are already out there doing the work, in places where nobody else is coming. Mechanics. Fuel truck drivers. The crews who keep the whole thing running while somebody else gets the movie made about them.

That is who the coffee is named for. Firewatch. 15W40. Spectre. That’s the whole idea.

The part we could leave out

For the first couple of years, we didn’t roast our own coffee at ARC. Somebody else roasted it and we put our label on the bag. FYI, lots of brands do it that way, but just never say so.

However, the numbers never worked and neither did the standard. So, we bought our own roaster and learned how to run it and how to roast our own beans.

Nowadays, everything we sell is roasted at our Dale Avenue roastery solely by us. That was the real bet, and that’s still what we’re most proud of.

We also produce our own K-Cups at ARC. Most roasters our size don’t, because the equipment is a big headache and it’s easier to hand that job off to someone else. At ARC, we wanted to control what ends up in the cup, so we kept that in-house, too.

This town has more of us in it than people think

Above and beyond TJ, Charlottesville is probably best known as being the college town that’s home to UVA. However, did you know that C’ville also hosts the JAG school, NGIC, and DIA? Or that there are ROTC cadets running the roads before the sun comes up?

It’s county fire and rescue, city police, and medics working nights at the hospital. It’s the families who hold everything together while somebody is away from home serving others.

You don’t need to have served to drink ARC’s coffee, though. Plenty of the people who buy our coffee never did. They often do have somebody they love who did.

If that’s you, ARC’s probably for you, too.