We were lucky to catch up with Dane Demchak recently and have shared our conversation below.
Dane, looking forward to learning from your journey. You’ve got an amazing story and before we dive into that, let’s start with an important building block. Where do you get your work ethic from?
Growing up with 4 other brothers, in addition to my mother’s full-time job at a power-plant, a job that was 99% male dominated, she would do many other side hustles to make sure we were provided for. I vividly remember her coming home from work many days covered in soot from head to toe after shoveling coal all day. During the holiday season, she would bake and sell cookies and pies and use that money to buy us our Christmas gifts. Witnessing that growing up as a kid and processing it even more as an adult with my own children, it’s hard to find an excuse or reason to cop out of any hard work when I compare it to that. Though I have a strong opinion on the hustle culture and how much of it comes from a survival mentality, the silver-lining growing up in it was the work-ethic it gave me. That and being raised in Pittsburgh, blue-collar grit and steel-mill work seeps through every part of the culture there.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
After working several years in non-profit and community social service work in our neighborhood of Sunset Park, Brooklyn, my wife and I set out to begin our own coffee company. I knew I always wanted to have our own brand/company/business. Something I can do with my family by my side along the way and build a community around it. After having our first child I had more motivation than ever to begin. I was diving into the specialty coffee world as a consumer and learning everything I could at the time. Different ways to brew coffee, how it is grown, and how different regions and terroir impact the flavor of the coffee, etc. I loved the ways coffee was such a central and often times ritualistic part of so many different cultures. It was this great connector of sorts. No matter where you go in the world, coffee is there. In all different variations. And most importantly, like food, it’s such an act of service and genuine form of hospitality.
I knew this is what I wanted to do and began dreaming of how to make it happen. So we began. My wife and I with or 1 year old son. From our tiny Brooklyn garage, and with very little in our savings. I started learning all that I could. How to build a website, sketching and jotting down notes on what I would want our brand to be and what I’d want it to represent, how I get connected with farmers and source coffee and how I would even begin to roast it.
I took all the skills I was semi-good at and started doing many side hustles. A little bit of photography and a little bit of landscaping. I used that money and bought our first coffee roaster and sack of raw coffee beans. I practiced a full year every single day until the coffee was tasting like something I would be happy to spend money on. We then launched City League Coffee Roasters in January 2019. We built a wonderful community of friends and support online and in our neighborhood and then opened our first shop in January 2023.
We keep the same mission at the forefront. My family by my side, an uncompromising level of quality to the coffee we roast and sell, and serving our neighborhood and the people in it to the best of our ability. I’m competitive enough to want the coffee I roast to be the absolute best in the city, but I also know 10 years from now what will matter and what will last is the people we serve and the relationships we built through the coffee. I always say we are a community hub that just pretends to be a really good specialty coffee shop.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
One thing I continually repeat to myself is “protect your vision.” Like you have to have a real deep belief in knowing why you are doing what you set out to do, and then you have to protect that vision with everything. Protect it from the imposter syndrome, the self-doubt, the obstacles, the slow days, the burn out feeling, the negative feedback or people questioning your dreams/goals. It is a daily struggle. I think social media has clouded everybody’s idea of success is that it happens quickly, or something is wrong if it’s not happening overnight. It’s this perfect combination and balance of knowing what you can do better at and what’s not working, and knowing what realistic growth looks like, and what just takes some good ol’ fashioned time and commitment. For me, coffee is only the surface of why we do what we do. It’s used as a vessel to meet people where they currently are in life, and on the other side it’s to build something impactful with my family by my side. Many more layers to those reasons, but when I protect that vision and what we are set out to do, I can fight against the obstacles and remind myself not to give up.
What is the number one obstacle or challenge you are currently facing and what are you doing to try to resolve or overcome this challenge?
Living and operating in NYC always presents a list of obstacles. One of them being the obvious, the price of rent and cost of living and the fast paced pressure to keep things moving. A slow growth doesn’t seem to be the norm anymore, or at least what’s not portrayed. We are constantly fed overnight success stories or see multi-million dollar corporations and companies open multiple locations overnight. We often feel like the underdogs, but that is also what makes us who we are. We thrive and strive to provide slow, intentional, meaningful relationships and an extremely thoughtful and detail obsessed approach with our product. We aim to be around 20, 30 years from now. I’m not after a quick fix and then disappear. We want something that’s meaningful and lasts forever. Brick by brick is what I say.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://cityleaguecoffee.com
- Instagram: @cityleaguecoffee
Image Credits
Some photos were by: Julian Bracero
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
