Phil Rogacki and his business partner Dennis Dumas have been tracking a trend in the workforce in the U.S. over the years. They have noticed that the number of workers in the trades is decreasing, and now, they are prepared to take action in a unique way: through opening a coffee business in Jacksonville.
Rogacki and Dumas will open Morning Oil Coffee as a coffee yard on Jan. 24 at the Union Terminal Warehouse at 700 East Union St., Unit 151.
“Our main focus is on the tradespeople of America. There’s been a lot of coffee that supports the fire department, first responders, police officers and military vets, but no coffee that really supports the blue-collar tradesperson — electricians, plumbers, carpenters,” Rogacki told What Now Jacksonville. “Because of all the renovations, there’s going to be thousands and thousands of tradespeople here for the next five to seven years rebuilding the riverfront and a lot of awesome places. So we wanted to build a coffee house for them and for the people who rely on the tradespeople as their superheroes when their toilet breaks and when a tree falls on the house and when they need a new remodel, and have a place designated just for them.”
Morning Oil Coffee will function in association with Rogacki and Dumas’s nonprofit, The New Boots Project. One dollar per pound of coffee will go toward supporting people entering the trades, assisting tradespeople with funding for training and essential equipment such as new boots.
The space was formerly a 1912 grocery depot that was later remodeled by development firm Columbia Ventures to include apartments and office space. Within the coffee yard, expect to see an industrial design, featuring quarter-inch steel countertops, concrete floors and the original walls. The spot is not designed to be calm and quiet — rather, it will focus on bringing people together to share coffee.
“It’s a place you come and the energy is filling [the space] up, so you can sit with your friends, have fun, laugh, tell stories and really bring that human connection back, rather than sitting there in front of your laptop to work while you drink a cup of coffee,” Rogacki said.
Rogacki and Dumas invite people to wear their dirty boots with pride to grab a cup of coffee after work. For the menu, they are simplifying the typical coffee offerings seen at modern coffee spots, returning to classics such as drip coffee, espressos, lattes and cappuccinos. On a weekly basis, they plan to offer rotating specialty-grade single-origin coffees from small farms in Guatemala and Costa Rica.
“Coffee has gotten away from us, and we follow this trend of: How many flavors can you put in it? How frothy can you get it? And it really took away from the coffee and what it stands for. Our coffee yard is going to be a place where you can get back to the roots of coffee and not have all the fluff that’s usually there,” Rogacki said. “There are not 1,000 different flavors that you pick from. We’re really going back to the flavor and the taste and the history of cafes in Italy and France, providing some of the best coffee beans that are out there.”
They also hope to include grab-and-go lunch options for workers on the go. Eventually, they plan to add beers on draft to the menu so they can bring in a happy-hour element. They are working with local brewers to produce a signature beer to serve at the coffee yard.
When it opens, Rogacki hopes that Morning Oil Coffee will become a hotbed for local events, ranging from a monthly event that gathers coffee shops from across downtown Jacksonville into one spot for a day to trades-focused events like contractor meetups and local trainings.
In all the events, there will be a consistent thread that circles back to their mission: to support tradespeople and provide them with a space dedicated to them.
“Coffee is just our tool. Our real focus is our mission of building the trades and bringing them back. In the next 10 years, we’re going to lose 30 to 40% of our workforce. They’re retiring. It’s a crisis right now in America that’s happening that nobody’s talking about here. We need more tradespeople,” Rogacki said. “We want to raise money and build to promote those trades so we can get more men and women into the different blue collar industries out there. That’s our main focus — coffee is just our tool for how we’re going to do that.”
