ABOUT US
WHO WE ARE
In 2006, Bill and Ginger Sandweg brought great coffee to the Melrose District. At that time, there wasn’t any good coffee between their house and Phoenix College, where Bill was taking some Creative Writing classes.
This spirit of “I’ll do it myself,’ permeates all of Copper Star Coffee. We bake all of our pastries in-house, and have since Day 1. You can’t find that at corporate coffee. When we couldn’t find a chai we liked, our team started making our own chai from scratch. Our House-made Lavender syrup won us a Phoenix’s Best Herbal Latte.
Selling hummus was an early hit, but our supplier wasn’t consistent. So we started making hummus from scratch. When Bill couldn’t find a good BLT, he had to make one of his own. We sell thru about 150 pounds of bacon a week.
Finally, in 2019, when our bagel vendor sold his business, we started trying our own bagels. Three months later we started selling Central Phoenix’s Best Bagel. Made from scratch, we are averaging 212 bagels a day!
WHAT MAKES US DIFFERENT
We don’t cut corners. Things take time to prepare, and we honor the process.
We don’t waste your time. When business picked up, we added staff to keep the line moving faster.
We don’t overprice you. A breakfast sandwich is only $6 before tax. Our prices are reasonable, especially given the quality product you receive.
We respect you. Our staff and customers are a mirror of the neighborhoods that surround us. We are a CIty of Phoenix Green Business Leader at the Platinum level. We recycle, compost, and try to limit packaging as much as possible. We harvest the water from our ice machine, and try to use compostable packaging.
We respect ourselves. Our staff earn a living wage, and are treated like the individuals they are. During COVID, there were no cases of transmission between staff members at work. We also paid covid sick time to infected employees in addition to the state-mandated sick time.
We love our community. We support our customers, schools and neighborhoods. We use a local roaster for our coffee: Victor at Lost Dutchman Coffee Roasters. We also try to use local vendors as much as possible: Schreiner’s Sausage, J+R Graphics, Acme Printing, Brewers Connection, Tan Phat Oriental Market.
BAGELS HOT AND FRESH EVERY MORNING!
“Making bagels is the best thing I’ve done since opening Copper Star Coffee” -Bill
Bagels are another instance of doing something ourselves. We had to find a new local bagel vendor, and nobody made a bagel that we liked, or it wasn’t a genuine water-bagel, or they didn’t deliver, or they didn’t sell to other businesses. We decided to make our own.
This recipe took us about two months to perfect. There were other recipes that we used, but none scaled up like we needed, or they were too dry, too wet, too complicated. Finally, we started over and built the recipe that we use today. It’s very robust, so it survives little errors, and it’s versatile, so we can edit it to make all the varieties we offer. Our staff continues to come up with new varieties!
Like everything around Copper Star, it really is a team effort. We have 4 people that can boil the bagels, and 5 people that mix and roll the dough. Each bagel is rolled and shaped by hand after the morning rush, and then put to sleep for the night. The next morning, our team boils and bakes the bagels fresh. It’s a 24-hour process that we start again!
Our bagels only have 6 ingredients. We don’t add any preservatives, no dough conditioners, and there’s no dairy, so they’re vegan-friendly. (Except the cheese ones, of course!).
Drink local coffee.
In a Hurry?
Yes, we have a Car-hop drive through for faster service
Need to Connect?
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Writing a Review?
We are on our way to five stars on Yelp!