BRUNSWICK — It’s been a year of expanding for Ashland’s Goldberry Roasting Co.
The coffee shop kicked off 2024 with a move to a larger location on Franklin Avenue. Co-owner Pete Cooper previously told Ashland Source the move was necessary thanks to the growth Goldberry has experienced since it first opened in 2018.
On Aug. 6, Goldberry announced via social media it would be expanding again, this time with a new location at Market 42 in Brunswick.
That new location, according to the Cooper and the developer of the Market 42 project, is set to open by the holidays.
“It’s a really cool concept,” Cooper said.
The details
Cooper and his father and Goldberry co-owner, Doug Cooper, said they didn’t plan for the new location.
The Coopers had just settled into the Franklin Avenue location when they received a call from Nick Kyriazis, a developer working on Brunswick’s Market 42 project.
The Brunswick project, according to Kyriazis, is a mixed-use market. It will be a 2,600 square-foot facility when complete. Kyriazis said it will feature 29 vendors, with 11 restaurants and several more retail vendors.
He said Market 42 aims to support local businesses, offer farm-to-table foods and offer a space to bring the community together.
Kyriazis said he had a few coffee vendors in mind, but Goldberry Roasting Co. was his top choice. He said Goldberry’s branding and mission aligned with the vision of Market 42.
Fast facts
The Coopers have signed a five-year lease at Market 42.
It will be located in a 450 square-foot space. They’ll also pay a monthly fee to Market 42 to cover utilities and other costs. Goldberry Roasting Co. will be the only coffee shop in the market.
Cooper said Goldberry looks forward to the new jobs the Brunswick location will generate. He estimates an additional 10 to 12 employees will be hired to operate that spot, bringing their total employee count to between 60 and 65 people.
Falling into place
Still, the Coopers planned to turn Kyriazis down at first.
“I think our first thought was, ‘nope,'” Pete said. “We just opened, we had just spent a year building this up, spent a ton of money …”
For the Coopers, Goldberry’s growth isn’t just for growth’s sake though. Instead, Doug said, the company’s growth has to be in line with its mission.
“Our mission is to make life better for people,” Doug said. “That’s our stated mission — for people who drink, serve and grow coffee.”
But after getting information on Market 42, having internal discussions, meeting with Kyriazis in-person and crunching the numbers, they decided the opportunity was too good to ignore. It aligned with their values and mission.
After they signed a letter of intent, it became a matter of finding the right person to run the Brunswick shop.
Julia Vanderzyden, an Ashland University accounting grad who interned at Goldberry Roasting Co., previously told the Coopers she would run a Goldberry location if they opened one outside of Ashland.
Our mission is to make life better for people. That’s our stated mission — for people who drink, serve and grow coffee.
Doug Cooper, Co-Owner of Goldberry Roasting Co.
But when Vanderzyden graduated from AU this spring, she had other plans.
“I fully had an accounting job lined up,” Vanderzyden said. “I was fully on track for that, but coffee really has my heart.”
The Coopers didn’t want to interrupt her plans, so it was Vanderzyden who came to them about the new opportunity. They interviewed her, and the job of running the new shop became hers.
“One of our things is we’ve got to preserve our values, and Julia (Vanderzyden) has grown up in this environment,” Doug said.
Vanderzyden said she looks forward to bringing Goldberry’s culture to Brunswick. She hopes to provide a sense of community and build relationships with customers there when it opens later this year.
