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For being semi-retired, Lori Collins of Savannah Coffee Roasters keeps pretty busy these days.
Since the Australia-born Collins bought the 100-year-old coffee roaster in December of 2011, she’s been steadily revamping and reinventing the business to make her mark on Savannah’s coffee shop scene and beyond — and she’s getting results.
Her online mail-order business has grown three-fold to 3,800 subscribers and she employs a dozen people, mostly full time, up from three when she first took over. Most noticeably, she moved the business from its east Savannah location to a prominent block on west Liberty, across from the Civic Center, that’s been open for three and a half months.
And, yes, there’s parking.
She credits their success to being cautious in their expansion and nimble in how they operate.
“This is our mothership, if you like. From here we pivot,” said Collins. “We can pivot to other businesses, and we can add on interests and take them off.”
After buying the 12,000-square-foot warehouse space at 215 W. Liberty Street last year, she put in nearly $750,000 in renovations to update and modernize the space, which had sat empty for eight years.
The interior now is comfortable and modern, with an upstairs space and bathed with sunlight from skylights above.
Customers can even see where the coffee roasting takes place in the heart of the space.
Collins brought in executive chef Susan Goodman, who studied at both the California Culinary Academy and Culinary Institute of America at Greystone, to take command of their pastry program. Goodman makes all the pastries by hand, including their quiches and hand-laminated croissants to get those hundreds of flaky butter-flecked layers.
“We’re definitely not going to be a restaurant,” said Collins. “We’ll have tapas and small things people can eat — we’re a café with locally produced food.”
None of this was in the cards when Collins and her husband, John, came back to the United States in 2008 after having sold a large company in Australia. In fact, they were looking at places in Manhattan as the U.S. economy ground to a halt, quite literally — they were staying at a hotel across from financial giant Lehman Brothers the week it folded.
It only took a few trips to Savannah, where John Collins had done business before, for them to realize this would be a much happier pace of life. She said her background in the corporate world in Australia made the transition to running Savannah Coffee Roasters a natural one.
“It’s actually been fun, I guess this is what I’ve done in the past, just never for myself, but for other companies,” said Collins. “I’ve usually gone into a company and turned it around to create greater market share and greater growth, so it’s a recipe I’ve done before.”
In about two weeks, she said, they’ll be completely done with an expansion of the 1,000-square-foot kitchen — co-designed with the aid of interior designer Lynn Kegan of Food Network’s “Restaurant Impossible” — which will allow her to expand and round off her menu with even more items such as homemade organic ice cream, freshly baked bread and more to-go provisions such as whole quiches.
Her business also received a slight zoning change from the Metropolitan Planning Commission last week to allow for the sale of beer and wine, which she will next go to City Council for final approval.
“People come here on holiday, and I love a glass of wine with my quiche and salad,” said Collins. “We know that beer and wine will probably only add about 20 percent to our bottom line, but it will attract more people to us.”
They’re working with local microbrewer Coastal Empire Brewing Co. on a coffee stout using their own beans, following a similar collaboration between PERC coffee roasters and Southbound Brewing Co.
Collins said they work with three main suppliers for beans and are beginning to work directly with some coffee growers as they shift their focus to sustainable, organic products.
“We see that our move toward organic, almost entirely, is our next major charter,” said Collins. “And we can do that more easily from our retail store.”
Also in the works for 2015, according to Collins, is a new outpost and roasting facility in Pooler and another retail location in Savannah.
The Georgia Department of Economic Development has helped Collins deliver her beans to as far as Milan, Italy, and, in September, Canada. One better known fan of her product is Lt. Gen. Joseph Anderson, Fort Bragg’s top commander.
Collins sends a shipment of her beans to troops stationed in Afghanistan once a month, and Anderson sent her a note of thanks as well as an American flag that flew over the ISAF Joint Command headquarters in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Collins said she’s happy to join the mix of restaurants and pubs making Liberty Street a vibrant foodie corridor.
“You’ve got a really eclectic mix of well-established, well-run and well-recognized business, so we’re hoping to augment that and for Liberty Street to become a destination for all things gastronomic,” she said.