Hi, I’m CHELSEA FOUNTAIN.
Owner | Head Roaster | Q Grader
I am the business owner of Rise & Grind Coffees. Our business was born in 2023, after gaining experience taking courses through the Specialty Coffee Association and Bald Guy Brew, two formative influences who narrowed the path to making my coffee roasting dream a reality.
In the words of the late Walt Disney, “If you can dream it, you can do it.” As an undergraduate college student at NC State, I was exposed to an introductory food science course as part of the common core curriculum. Unsuspectingly, it inspired me to think outside the box about coffee. I also had the opportunity to study abroad in Spain for three months, enjoying cafe con leche daily, and came home reinvigorated to do ‘something.’ At the time, my focus was on campus ministry and college access, which led me to Bladen County. I worked at West Bladen High School for two years as a college adviser, and there learned about coffee roasting at home from some fellow enthusiasts. After traveling to Nicaragua for a mission trip in 2016, I met ex-pats who started a farm in a local community to create jobs and boost the economy; the fire for starting my own business was further stoked.
In 2017, I met my partner in the midst of his own entrepreneurial journey and supported his goal of owning a small business. Soon thereafter, I moved to Columbia, SC, to study higher education at the University of South Carolina. While studying and working in the Office of Sustainability, my path kept drawing me back to coffee. I didn’t know how or where, but I hoped to open my own coffee business someday. Fast-forward 5 years, and here we are. This is just the beginning, but we are focused on providing high-quality coffees to our community.
Hi, I’m Jaci Louis.
Co-Owner | Marketing Director
When Chelsea told me about her dream of starting Rise & Grind Coffees I immediately said YES. I hold a master’s in nonprofit management and lived abroad for most of my 20s. So, bringing sustainability and community development into something I love such as coffee seemed like a dream come true.
After years of working in education, nonprofit management, and marketing, I am excited to bring my love of product photography, storytelling, and social media to Rise and Grind Coffees as we engage our customers in person and online. As a lover of cold brew and lattes, I love meeting fellow coffee lovers at markets and asking the good old question “Do you like coffee?”.
our workshop
our inspiration
fayetteville, nc
As a North Carolina native, living in a community where service and self-sacrifice are the norm beckons us to ask ourselves, ‘What are we doing for others?’ Likewise, our “can do” city has inspired us to plant roots and build a business that is part of the community for years to come.
SPECIAL THANKS
This business could not be possible without, first and foremost, God and, second, my supporting husband. It is a dream that has been years in the making, with inspiration from places such as Elmo’s Diner (Durham, NC), Southern Season (Chapel Hill, NC), Global Cafe (Raleigh, NC), Coffee Haven (Raleigh, NC), West Bladen High School Ag department (Bladenboro, NC), Bean Traders (Durham, NC), Cool Beans Coffee Co (Columbia, SC), and Bald Guy Brew (Boone, NC) to name a few.
Our GREEN BEAN PARTNERS
At Rise & Grind Coffees, we value partnership. A crucial part of our community is made of our green coffee partners. As a core value of ours is transparency from tree to cup, we want to share with you, our community, who our green coffee partners are and what makes them unique. We believe that who you partner with in business, as well as in life, is an extension of you. If we succeed, our partners succeed, and vice versa.
We Rise By Lifting Others.
“AN IMPORTER OF FINE GREEN COFFEES FOR OVER 100 YEARS.”
Founded in 1917 by Richard and Ralph Balzac, Balzac Brothers is one of the country’s top importers of green coffee. Our family has been supplying sustainable, specialty coffee for four generations. This tradition of excellence and dedication to coffee roasters continues with unsurpassed attention to detail and top-quality green coffee.
Balzac Brothers & Co. is committed to providing our valued customers with only the finest green coffees available in the most timely and informed manner possible. We take pride in our commitment and service quality and look forward to serving your green coffee needs.
Yellow Rooster was founded in July of 2019 by a small team of passionate coffee professionals with years of combined experience — as baristas and roasters, to equipment specialists and shop owners ourselves — each co-founding partner shares the desire to further positively impact the industry and communities that have so greatly impacted us.
The company’s mission is to create faithful, dignified relationships between humans by trading specialty coffee. More than just a delicious drink, coffee is a culture that knows no borders. “Our model is in our name.” Just as the rooster fulfills its duty every morning to announce a new day, so do we at Yellow Rooster work to announce to the coffee industry at large that a new day is dawning. Our model depends highly on the values of integrity, honesty, transparency, and dignity. These values are foundational to creating long-term relationships with our producer partners across our origins, allowing us to access a greater range of green beans for our roaster partners to roast, enjoy, and share with their communities. We believe that through long-term relationships, we can produce the maximum positive result from tree to cup.
Contact us.
Want to work with us?
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marketing@riseandgrindcoffeesllc.com