SHARED MOMENTS Enriching lives from the ground up
Words by Randy Plavajka Photos by Randy Plavajka & Phillip Ndowu ive people efficiently maneuver through a small storefront at 3 o’clock on a Tuesday afternoon, shuffling about and working on their own assignments for the day; one designing a flyer for an upcoming event, another weighing out packages for distribution, and a third unleashing a flurry of freshly roasted coffee beans into a cooling tray. White walls and an exposed ceiling are connected by supporting beams as rays of natural light pour in through the windows, casting a subtle glow on the main room of the storefront. Posters bearing each employee’s weekly and monthly goals can be seen on the otherwise open wall space within the shop, a testament to their mutual grind. A playlist reflective of each person’s eclectic taste in music fills the rest of the space alongside a tall communal table, leather couches and small workstations dotted evenly through the store’s layout. The owners navigate the compact building with cellphones and laptops in hand, negotiating wholesale orders and other business dealings with rigid expressions on their faces. Stevie Hasemeyer and Shane Levario, coowners of Riverside's Arcade Coffee Roasters, operate their business with composure and a collective vision, apparent even on “off days” when their storefront fulfills and ships all of its
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large roasting orders. It is clear the duo complements each other well as Levario roasts another substantial batch of coffee beans and Hasemeyer efficiently types up necessary invoices for the wholesale orders in progress. They first came to know one another through a church youth group. Hasemeyer was able to mentor a then-teenaged Levario and provide guidance as questions of purpose, identity and faith arose. The two would meet at a local Starbucks and discuss books together — a forum that gave Levario time to voice his career aspirations and long-range goals. “I would always tell him, ‘I really want to work at Starbucks,’ and how it was my dream job; how badly I wanted to work there,” Levario says. His initial passion found a home with Hasemeyer’s first sizable coffee company, Torch Coffee Roasters. Torch was his entrance into the coffee industry and the byproduct of an overseas experience Hasemeyer had after graduating from California Baptist University in 2010. “I went to China as like a vision trip trying to understand what it would look like to be a missionary,” Hasemeyer says. “We ended up driving to the Tibetan countryside because (the workers) were using coffee as a way to stay connected with Tibetans in remote areas; it was