Just like your favorite pair of jeans, coffee is an everyday staple.
And just like durable denim fabric, Denim Coffee’s co-owners are hardworking, and they have a vision of becoming the Susquehanna Valley’s go-to choice of coffee.
“This is our North Star,” says co-owner Matt Ramsay, pointing to the front wall. “Make better coffee” is spelled out in capital letters against the backdrop of Harrisburg’s capitol dome.
While it sounds simple, it’s been a journey more than a dozen years in the making that began with a coffee roaster, a $65,000 loan and a dream.
Barista Beginnings
During his college days at Shippensburg, Ramsay—now 38—was a barista.
“I’d go to other shops, and while most of it was ho-hum coffee, every once in a while, you’d get this amazing cup of coffee,” Ramsay says. “Coffee is 98% water, so I started wondering, ‘What makes this cup so different?’”
It started with the beans, he realized, and how they’re roasted. He began experimenting—roasting coffee beans on a popcorn popper.
Following graduation, and married to his college sweetheart, Kristin, Ramsay moved to Huntingdon to train as a roaster and manage a café. The couple crafted a plan to launch a roasting company of their own back in Shippensburg—with humble beginnings.
“Denim Coffee started in 2011,” says Ramsay, 25 at the time. “My wife and I owned one car, we were living with friends, and we got a $65,000 loan for a coffee roaster.”
The couple grew the business by selling their coffee at farmers markets and coffee shops.
All the while, Ramsay worked in campus ministry. And life’s biggest questions—including faith—he says, often go “hand in hand with coffee.” After all, our nation’s Revolutionary War, he points out, was planned in taverns—public meeting spaces similar to coffeehouses. (He also obtained his degree in secondary history education.)
Speaking of public meeting spaces, Ramsay believes in the power of “third spaces” to create community. He explains, our “first spaces” are our homes and families, while our “second spaces” are workplaces. But third spaces—like coffee shops—are where we find community.
“Even if you go alone, with your laptop, it’s good to be around people,” Ramsay says, “especially those that don’t look like you or talk like you.”
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Building Community
A third space is where Ramsay connected with Tony Diehl, 42, who became Denim’s co-owner. Diehl was operating a Shippensburg arts and music hub when the Ramsays approached him about adding their specialty coffee roasts.
“We found out we liked working together,” Diehl says, “and I saw he had the willpower and the energy to make the business work.”
Denim Coffee’s first location opened in Carlisle seven years ago. The birth of the retail business came on the exact day that Diehl’s son was born.
It was also the creation of a new approach to Central Pennsylvania coffeehouses. Denim’s coffee starts with filtered water.
“We dial it in so that it’s not a variable at all the shops”—now five and growing, says Ramsay, with the sixth opening this summer in Lancaster.
Technology is brewed into the business. Denim was one of the first roasters in Pennsylvania to use digital controls. After two years of experimentation, Denim recently debuted flash-chilled coffee—also available to cafés and offices via 5-gallon “kegerators.”
One of the most unique aspects of Denim’s tiny Harrisburg coffee shop relies on basement-level ingenuity. A custom-built walk-in refrigerator in the basement holds the shop’s flash-chilled coffee, milk and kombucha—piped up to the baristas at the touch of a lever.
Baking, coffee roasting and chilling all take place in a former Chambersburg ice factory. Diehl’s partner, Danielle Bailey, is Denim’s head baker.
“She’s really a shining star in the baking industry,” Diehl says. “It’s a small but mighty menu—the best scone, best brownie. And as simple as a blueberry muffin is, it’s the best blueberry muffin there is.”
Carlisle’s menu also includes sandwiches.
Each location has a unique blend of customers. Carlisle’s shop, across from the courthouse, is often visited by newlymarried couples. In Harrisburg, aside Strawberry Square and in the shadow of the Capitol Complex, it’s a “business-forward” crowd, says Kade Surgenor, Denim’s regional manager.
Denim’s successes, she says, are thanks to the shops’ “attention to detail and focus on quality. But the biggest factors are Matt and Tony—when Matt talks about coffee, he has a sparkle in his eye. Honestly, he could do a TED Talk about it.”
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Common Threads
Ramsay and Diehl’s goal is to grow Denim Coffee to 10 shops by the end of 2025. At that point, Ramsay can start establishing relationships with coffee farmers.
“I’ve been moved by the inequity in the coffee trade since college,” he says. “While I can’t fix the whole industry, I can help independent farms.”
Denim’s house blend, Common Threads, includes coffee beans from three major coffee-growing continents: Africa, South America, and Central America.
“With roasting, every little detail matters. It’s a lifelong pursuit, and I love that,” Ramsay says. “When people think about Denim, I want them to think about this woven community across the planet—of farmers and all the logistics in between. It’s more than a product—it’s a community
Denim Coffee
401 Walnut St, Harrisburg
Additional locations in Carlisle, Chambersburg, Dickinson College, Mechanicsburg, Lancaster (coming soon)
denimcoffeecompany.com | @denimcoffeeharrisburg
So … How Many Cups of Coffee Do You Drink?
“I try to stay around three cups a day,” Denim co-owner Matt Ramsay says. “But when we’re cupping, I taste a lot more.”
“I know my limits,” says Tony Diehl, Denim co-owner. “I do one, maybe two cappuccinos a day.”
“I recently cut myself off, because I was up to eight,” says Kade Surgenor, Denim’s regional manager. “I’m down to one now.” Instead, she’s been drinking a lot more kombucha these days. Denim keeps Chambersburg’s Undone Kombucha on tap, including a sparkling red hibiscus flavor.
