Father-son duo, both AU grads, have turned Goldberry coffee into an Ashland institution
If it weren’t for all the shelves of coffee bags, coffee roasters everywhere you look and baristas busy serving beverages, you might think you’re somewhere on the Ashland University campus and not at Goldberry Roasting Co. when you’re at the local coffee shop.
“I’ve seen a lot of my classmates here and people I’ve met on campus,” said AU student Ava Jaskulski, one of the baristas working during a typical afternoon. “A lot of students come here to study, so I will go sit with them. It’s a lot of fun working here. It’s a great way to make friends, just coming in here.”
Founder and co-owner Doug Cooper said about 90% of Goldberry’s crew at its 1262 Franklin Ave. location, just blocks from the university’s campus, are AU students, grads or high school students taking or have taken post-secondary classes through Ashland University.
“We don’t make that a criteria for hiring,” Cooper, a 1985 graduate of Ashland College (it became a university a few years later), said with a big smile. “We find the values of the people we hire with Ashland University connections align with our values.”
The other co-owner? You guessed it another AU grad and Doug’s son, Pete, a 2015 graduate.
All but one of the baristas working on this Tuesday afternoon has a connection to AU, and many of the customers who dropped in this day were students, faculty and staff of the university.
Not all the customers have Ashland University connections
Not to say the clientele all has Ashland University connections. Many members of the Coopers’ church, Park Street Brethren, also like Goldberry, as well as much of the Ashland community.
If it weren’t for the community, the father and son agree that Goldberry probably wouldn’t be as successful as it is today – it has two other locations, one inside the library at Oberlin College and the other in Brunswick managed by a former employee of the Ashland location and, not surprisingly, an AU grad.
About three months before the COVID pandemic hit, the Coopers opened their first store on Claremont Avenue a few blocks from their current location, which they moved to in early 2024.
“We had to get really creative at the time,” Doug said. “We built a lot of loyalty with our customers. We didn’t close and we delivered within a 5-mile radius. That loyalty helped us grow out of our first building and move here.
“Our goal was to have a coffee shop that could be located anywhere, not just a small town,” Doug added. “Now we have three locations with 75 employees among the three places. Retail-wise and with online sales we sell to 30 to 40 states. We have wholesale customers all over the world.”
Doug said they weren’t looking to add locations, but the food service company that wanted to contract with Oberlin College had researched Goldberry and wanted them to go into Oberlin with them.
“So, it dropped into our laps,” Doug said about opening that location just six months after opening its original Ashland store.
How Goldberry became so successful
Doug said his interest in starting Goldberry kind of dropped into his lap, too – over a much longer period of time, though, and with some “divine” circumstances.
After graduating from Ashland with degrees in business administration and religion, Doug worked in banking for a short time, was employed in manufacturing and materials management at Abbott Laboratories for a longer stretch and then did consulting to small businesses for many years.
Fifteen years ago, while he was consulting, Doug created a nonprofit organization to help a remote coffee-making community in Mexico.
“We’ve helped them with refining equipment and how they test, taste and inspect their coffee and now they have specialty grade coffee they can sell for much more than they could before,” Doug said. “This year, they sold out before we could buy any coffee from them.
“That’s our goal: for them to sell their coffee for as much as they can,” Doug added about his nonprofit, Coffee Growing Community. “We’ve helped with education there and helped them build facilities and health care with clinics and medical equipment partnering with Compassion International. We’ve put eight students through college with scholarships, so they can come back and help their community.”
In addition to helping a coffee community in Mexico, Doug said Coffee Growing Community has worked with farming communities in Cuba and Africa, and also has helped a coffee business in Romania.
Father-and-son partnership paying dividends
Probably the most “divine” intervention came about five years ago when Pete showed interest in becoming part of Doug’s coffee passion. That allowed Doug to open a store for Goldberry, which he started in 2010 as a hobby in his basement, with his son.
“I was at the point that I was so busy roasting and consulting that I was going to have to quit one,” Doug said. “When that happened, I was able to do both things while he worked full time to develop the business.
“We have learned since then, that he is really smart about business and marketing,” Doug added about Pete, who majored in business management and minored in sport management. “So, he’s been able to really run the nitty-gritty of the operation and I operate the big picture of the business: the finances, the values, the coffee sourcing and expertise in coffee.”
Pete said wanting to join his dad in business had been on his mind for a while. When he was laid off from a local home improvement business, Pete, who worked in admissions at AU before that, said it felt like a sign that he should do it.
How has it been working with Dad?
“It’s been good for the most part,” said Pete. “We have our differences for sure, but I think we are able to work through those easily.
“We are pretty aligned,” Pete added. “I think we balance each other nicely.”
Other than one of Pete’s sisters who was involved a little bit early on with the business, no other family members, which include another sister and brother, have become part of Goldberry.
“They all have their own careers,” Pete said.
“But they are all fans of our coffee and are here a lot,” Doug added. “Maybe some grandchildren will eventually get involved in it.”
Doug has 12 grandchildren, nine of which live in the Ashland area, including Pete’s three children. The other three grandkids only live an hour away.
Cooper family has a rich history with Ashland University
The Cooper family, which has been in Ashland County since 1822, also are fans of Ashland University.
“My grandfather went to Ashland College,” Doug said. “My parents met at Ashland College. My mom was a homecoming queen and my dad was a basketball star. I have a brother and sister who are Ashland grads and two of my children are Ashland grads (his son, Nate, is the other one).
“So, we have a rich history with Ashland,” continued Doug, who added that Goldberry has discussed doing collaborative learning experiences with the university. “We love the Ashland University community.”
And the AU community obviously loves the Coopers and Goldberry Roasting Co., too.
“We have a lot of students who come here for good coffee, but also for Bible studies, getting together to study, meeting with professors,” Doug said. “There seems to be a real traffic pattern between us and the university. We don’t do a ton to make that happen, it has just happened naturally.”
Doug said The Lyceum Café on campus “is awesome” and serves Goldberry coffee, but sometimes students, staff and faculty like to get off campus.
“So, we have made this a living-room community,” he said. “We don’t monitor whether people are drinking a lot of coffee. They might stay here for hours, and that’s fine.”
It appears Goldberry will stay in Ashland for a long time, too, and continue to be a campus away from the Ashland University campus for many.
“I have met so many people working here,” said Jaskulski, who will be a junior at AU this fall. “The staff and the bosses have become like family to me and I have never wanted to leave.”