Episode 1: Where Global Meets Local - Frank Elias of Utica Coffee Roasting Company

Frank Elias is the founder of Utica Coffee roasting company, and for more than 20 years, he's been building one of the most dynamic beverage businesses in the Mohawk Valley.What began as a small Saturday only coffee shop has grown into a regional roaster shipping hundreds of thousands of pounds of coffee each year while staying deeply rooted in their community. So in this conversation we're gonna talk about growth, about staying inspired decades into a business's evolution and about what it means to operate locally in a global system.We dig into coffee culture in Europe, supply chains, climate change, talent and labor, and why consistency and curiosity still matter. This episode sets the tone for the hospitalitarian, thoughtful, grounded conversations about food Place and the people building what comes next. Here's my conversation with Frank Elias of Utica Coffee Roasting Company.