Gather ‘round the campfire at new outdoor-themed coffee shop in downtown Tacoma

After more than six months of construction at 1554 Market St. in downtown Tacoma, Campfire Coffee — run by a husband and wife with a penchant for the outdoors — will open its doors as soon as inspections restart.

For now, the creative couple is selling fire-roasted coffee beans and camp-themed merchandise through an online shop.

You read that right: fire-roasted coffee. Quincy and Whitni Henry roast their beans over an open flame, usually out in the woods.

“It’s more about controlling the heat than controlling the beans,” said Quincy of the process. “People would have had to previously roast over a flame. I dig the science part of it. This was the way people used to do it.”

On a 13-hour drive through the mountains of Utah and Idaho in 2018, the couple started toying with the idea of a small business that would provide an avenue to the outdoors, especially for those without easy access to our vast parks.

Camping was on the mind. Coffee was always part of it, brewed with a percolator or a hand-press extractor (like an AeroPress).

Quincy reached out to friend Brian Reynolds of Anthem Coffee, a popular chain with eight shops in Pierce County. Reynolds set him up to shadow the roasters at Dillanos Coffee Roasters in Sumner; he also worked at a Starbucks for six months to understand how to handle heavy traffic in a coffee shop with limited equipment.

In fact, the Henrys met on a first date at Anthem Coffee seven years ago. Now married, they have two daughters and a son, and they go camping. A lot.

“The seeds had kind of been planted,” said Quincy. “We camp a lot, we’re outdoorsy.”

Whitni’s sister suggested they explore the idea of fire-roasting. She lives in Austin, Texas, where a company called Summer Moon Coffee roasts over wood-fire, akin to the state’s famed barbecue.

“We started playing around blindly,” said Whitni. The resulting roasts highlighted the beauty of unknown variables.

“Different woods impart different kinds of flavor,” explained Quincy, a musician by trade. “I try to approach it like music: There are no rules. You get your own blend by roasting in this semi-unpredictable way.”

That mentality differs from the consistency mantra of craft roasters, but for what the Henrys want Campfire Coffee to be, it keeps with the theme.

“The whole coffee snob thing kinda turned me left,” said Quincy.

The shop doesn’t aim to be super-hip or ultra-trendy, but simply a comfortable place to order whatever kind of coffee suits your fancy — whether that’s a drip, a latte, an Americano and everything in between.

THERE’S COFFEE, AND GETTING KIDS OUTSIDE

Inclusiveness reaches beyond the coffee and into a deeper mission.

Anthem sold Quincy’s Dillanos roast in stores in 2018, which corresponded with his album release. The proceeds helped get kids outside.

“People bought them — that was proof of concept,” he said. The idea was to “extend the brand of the album to something you could do while listening, or not listening, to music.”

That year, the Henrys realized they needed to make their own lot in life. Whitni had worked as an Army medic, focused on mental health, but a series of injuries affected her own ability to stay on that taxing job. Her husband made music under the name of Q Dot, but he also worked for marketing agencies over the years.

During one product launch for an outdoor brand, he realized “the entire outdoor industry was just starting to become aware of just how bad diversity was in outdoor spaces, but they had no clue in how to really combat it,” as he explained in a GoFundMe video last year.

With Campfire Coffee, the couple hopes to connect with youth who might otherwise not experience the vast parks and outdoor resources of northwest Washington. The plan is to have a go-to blend that directly supports programming to take kids outside.

“Especially for the economically disadvantaged, it’s not cheap to camp or go to the mountains or buy a park pass,” said Quincy.

In the space itself, those camp themes will ring true, with raw wood surfaces and beams, and a floor-to-ceiling wallpaper of a forest scene. Eventually, they hope to host weekly roasting sessions in a fire pit on an outside patio, feature local outdoor photographers and host local musicians — to “give them that platform.”

Once the world turns right-side up again, they believe the location will have been worth the wait. The ground-floor retail space is down the street from the Greater Tacoma Convention Center and within blocks of several hotels, museums, offices and the University of Washington Tacoma.

Though the shop itself has yet to open, Campfire is selling its beans and a variety of merchandise online.

The theme also ties in nicely with a “virtual camp-in” hosted by the Washington State Parks Foundation tonight, April 17, at 6:30 p.m. Tune in for park ranger stories, sing-alongs, poetry readings and campfire recipes.

CAMPFIRE COFFEE

▪ 1554 W. Market St., Tacoma, welovecampfire.com

▪ Details: order beans online; email campfirecoffeellc@yahoo.com with questions

This story was originally published April 19, 2020 at 7:00 AM.