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Washington State coffee history, from Coupeville to Spokane

The dates behind the state's coffee name, each one with a source.

Washington State coffee history in short

Washington State's coffee history starts before Starbucks. In 1969 an ice cream and coffee shop called the Wet Whisker opened in Coupeville on Whidbey Island, and it grew into Seattle's Best Coffee. Starbucks followed at Pike Place Market in 1971, Seattle's first espresso bar in 1975, and the world's first espresso cart in 1980. The carts, the chains and the independent roasters of the 1990s did the rest.

The story is also wider than one city. Roasters in Spokane, Olympia, Port Townsend, Bellingham and the Skagit Valley have been at it for decades. Below is the whole run, oldest first, with every date tied to a source at the bottom of the page.

Before espresso: a market and an island shop

Pike Place Market opened on August 17, 1907, and it is one of the older continuously run public farmers' markets in the country. The market became a historic district on the National Register of Historic Places on March 13, 1970, a year before a small coffee bean shop opened near it.

The island shop came first. Jim Stewart started the Wet Whisker in Coupeville in 1969, buying green beans from local roasters. He and his brother Dave later opened Stewart Brothers Wet Whisker on Pier 70 on the Seattle waterfront. The business added espresso drinks in 1982, took the name Stewart Brothers Coffee in 1983, and in 1991 became Seattle's Best Coffee after winning a local competition. Starbucks bought it in July 2003, and Nestle bought the brand in October 2022.

Starbucks opened on March 30, 1971, selling whole bean coffee, tea and spices rather than drinks. The founders, the shop's two addresses and how it became a chain are in our post on the first Starbucks.

1975 to 1992: espresso moves in, then out onto the street

Dave Olsen opened Cafe Allegro in the University District in 1975, in an alley opposite the busiest entrance to the University of Washington campus. Wikipedia calls it Seattle's first espresso bar and its oldest coffeehouse. In August 1987 Olsen became head buyer and roaster at Starbucks, where he helped develop the espresso roast the chain still uses. Two longtime employees bought the cafe from him in 1990, and in 2014 it turned its second floor into a roastery.

On December 1, 1980, Chuck Beek set up Monorail Espresso at Westlake Mall under the monorail, on a permit that cost $10. Wikipedia notes it was founded as the first espresso cart in the world. The cart moved several times as downtown changed and became a walk-up window in 1997.

Carts were how many Washington coffee businesses began:

  • 1988: Espresso Vivace started as a cart at 5th and Union in downtown Seattle. Its founder, David Schomer, gets the credit for developing latte art in the United States and making it popular.
  • 1989: Dan Ollis bought an espresso cart and sold drinks at fairs on Whidbey Island. That was the start of Whidbey Coffee.
  • 1990: D&M Coffee in Ellensburg began in a small Scamp trailer turned into a mobile espresso bar.
  • 1992: David J. Morris opened a Dillanos espresso cart outside the Sunshine Mart in Buckley. It became a wholesale roaster in Sumner.

The 1990s: chains go public, independents dig in

In June 1992 Starbucks went public with 140 outlets. Three months later, in September 1992, Tom "Tully" O'Keefe opened the first Tully's in Kent to compete with it. Tully's cafes lasted in the United States until September 2018, when its US coffeehouse operations closed for good.

The independents that are still roasting today mostly date from the same stretch:

  • 1992: Fidalgo Coffee Roasters began as a small coffee house and grew into a roasting business in Burlington, in Skagit County.
  • 1993: Lighthouse Roasters started roasting at 43rd and Phinney in Fremont. Urban City Coffee began roasting blends in Seattle the same year, and in Spokane, Cravens Coffee and Thomas Hammer, born on the Gonzaga University campus, both date from 1993.
  • 1994: Jack Kelly and Bob Ohly founded Caffe Ladro in Queen Anne. In 2002 it became the first multiple-unit chain in the country to sell 100 percent fair trade coffee.
  • 1995: Mike McConnell founded Caffe Vita in Queen Anne. Leavenworth Coffee Roasters opened in downtown Leavenworth the same year.
  • 1996: Jeff Babcock roasted Zoka's first batch that fall, and the Green Lake coffeehouse opened on January 7, 1997.

Outside Seattle: Spokane, Olympia and the north

Spokane's roasting goes back to 1976, when 4 Seasons Coffee started roasting specialty coffee. Anvil took its current name in January 2000. Bobby Enslow opened Indaba's first cafe on West Broadway in the fall of 2009 and started roasting in house in 2014.

Olympia had Batdorf and Bronson, founded in 1986 by Dick Batdorf and Shannon Bronson. It became Dancing Goats Coffee in 2022, and after a merger with Dillanos announced in November 2024, the Batdorf and Bronson name came back. In 1991 a local coffee roaster backed the effort to protect the free-flowing artesian well on 4th Avenue downtown. Olympia Coffee started in 2005 as a wholesale roaster in an unmarked downtown warehouse.

On the Olympic Peninsula, Port Townsend Coffee Roasting has roasted since 1985 and has used five different Diedrich roasters. In Whatcom County, Woods Coffee opened near Bender Fields in Lynden in February 2002, the Black Drop Coffeehouse opened in downtown Bellingham the same year, and its owners started Maniac Roasting in 2006. Roast Magazine named Bellingham's Tony's Coffee its 2021 Macro Roaster of the Year.

Since 2000: small roasters and a world championship

YearWhat happenedWhere
2000Victrola opened its first cafe on 15th AvenueCapitol Hill, Seattle
2003Herkimer opened on Phinney RidgeSeattle
2006Seven started roasting and opened its first cafeGreenwood, Seattle
2007Coffee Equipment Company released the Clover single-cup brewer, later bought by StarbucksSeattle
2008Broadcast opened at Yesler Way and 20th Avenue; Kuma began in a garageSeattle
2011Bluebeard opened in April; Roast Magazine named Dillanos Roaster of the YearTacoma; Sumner
2012Silver Cup and Urban City merged as Fulcrum; Efrem Fesaha began Boon Boona by sourcing Ethiopian green coffeeSeattle; Seattle area
2013Roast Magazine named Olympia Coffee Micro Roaster of the YearOlympia
2015The World Barista Championship came to Seattle in April; Camber was foundedSeattle; Bellingham
2019Boon Boona opened its roastery cafeRenton
2024Indaba opened its flagship cafe and roastery on North MonroeSpokane

The 2015 championship went to Sasa Sestic. The same year Peet's, owned by JAB Holding since 2012, announced it would buy Stumptown, which had opened a Seattle roasting plant in 2010. The big names kept changing hands. Most of the roasters in the table above are still independent.

Where the history lives today

You can still drink much of this history. Cafe Allegro is still in its alley, the Green Lake Zoka is still pouring, and Lighthouse still roasts on its 1952 Gothot in Fremont. Indaba's West Broadway cafe is still open in Spokane, and Olympia Coffee still roasts downtown, now on 4th Avenue.

Most of that history was made by small businesses with local staff, and the independent ones still depend on people here buying the bag. That is the reason to buy from a Washington roaster, told roaster by roaster on why local roasters matter. Palouse Coffee Club sends a 12 oz bag from a different independent Washington roaster every 2 or 4 weeks, $16.99 a bag. First bag free, you pay $7.99 shipping. Build your box.

Sources

By Joe McRose, Palouse Coffee Club. Updated September 2026.