For over a week now, the longtime owners of Juniors (and Guilder Cafe), Caryn and Mike Nelson, have released a multipart story about a major change coming the the business: There is new ownership at Junior’s Roasted Coffee—Ryan Wilbur and Laila Ghambari have purchased it and Guilder. Here’s a summary of what’s been going on.
Some History: Junior’s and Guilder
It started on Monday, April 15 with this opening statement: “Dear friends of Junior’s Roasted Coffee, We have some special news to share with you today! This post will be the first of many this week so bear with us as we have a lot to say.”
Caryn looked back on their early days with coffee in Brooklyn (Mike worked at Blue Bottle, Caryn worked as a barista and attended culinary school), and then their move to Tallahassee, Florida where Junior’s was conceived. And there’s this important detail, which would figure into their ethic at Junior’s: “We had experienced both the inspiring and the toxic side of the industry, and knew that if this project was going to be our own, it would have to be driven by strong ethics and include academic research that Mike had begun during his sustainability science program.”
They moved back to Portland, teamed up with Toby Roberts and Carrie Lind to launch Guilder on NE Fremont, created the Cost of Production Covered Project, opened two more cafes (Junior’s at Prescott/72nd and Guilder in Powell’s). As she says, it “has been our whole life up until now.”
Accolades for Their Community
Their final day as owners was April 22, 2024. Mike and Caryn wrote some accolades to their co-owners Toby and Carrie; past and current staff (half of which are staying on during this transition); the producers, exporters and importers of the coffee they use; the “village” they’ve built, including vendors, colleagues, friends, family, creatives, and service providers (Junior’s worked with 300 other businesses over the past decade).
And finally, the big community that has supported them. That includes fellow fans of The Princess Bride, farmers in Florida during their Tallahassee days, networking groups, Women Investing (in) Northwest Coffee Champs, Women in Science, gathering people for cuppings, poetry slams, live music, roasting competitions, their CSA community, fundraisers, and more.
What’s Next for Mike and Caryn
Mike and Caryn talked about the “what’s next” aspect of all this:
“Mike and I will return to being our non-business-owner selves and will be off of the grid aka social media. We intentionally don’t have permanent work plans for the summer as we intend to rest, travel, and reconnect with ourselves/friends/family and each other as a regular old married couple who doesn’t discuss the cafe while getting ready for bed each night.
“Mike will continue with some teaching and may try to do more coffee-related research or take the opportunity to document his 7-years long ‘thesis’ project that was COPC. Caryn hopes to return to community-centered work and dreams of joining a team of all Capricorns and Virgos some day (tell me this exists!?). Whatever we do for work in the future we hope that it involves ‘creating’ of some kind as that is what has been our favorite part of this business together.”
New owners Ryan and Laila have taken the helm and I am confident they will steer the business in a way that ensures success. Congrats to Caryn and Mike on the next part of their journey. Here’s to continued coffee excellence from Junior’s and Guilder!
Updated April 26, 2024.
Meg Cotner
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Wait, who are the new owners?
Good question. Names were released today, April 26. My guess was incorrect, so I am glad I kept it to myself. I’ve edited the post to reflect the names of the new owners.