Ember & Oak is a specialty café and micro-roastery in Portland's Alberta Arts district — a warm, sunlit room where neighbors linger and every cup is poured from beans we roast in the back.
The concept is small on purpose. A 900-square-foot room, a tight espresso-and-pour-over menu, a 5-kilo roaster behind the bar, and a morning rush we know cold. We are not chasing a chain footprint; we are building the best forty feet of counter in the neighborhood, open seven mornings a week.
Portland drinks more specialty coffee per capita than almost any US city, yet Alberta Arts has lost two cafés to lease turnover since 2023. A walkable, residential pocket of 14,000 is under-served at exactly the moment foot traffic is recovering. We open into a gap, not a crowd.
Nora spent seven years as head roaster at a Stumptown-trained micro-roaster; Eli managed a three-bar café group through its busiest seasons. We hold the green-coffee relationships, the bar systems, and a signed letter of intent on the corner lease.
An SBA microloan covering build-out, the roaster, and a 90-day runway. Paired with $80,000 of owner equity, it funds a finished room, three months of working capital, and no high-interest debt on the founders.
A short, seasonal menu built around coffee we roast ourselves. Espresso pulled on a two-group machine, pour-overs to order, and a tight pastry case from a baker two blocks away. Everything is named plainly, priced fairly, and made to be the reason someone walks past three other cafés.
A typical order is a drink and a pastry — a $6.50 average ticket at a blended 22% cost of goods. Roasting our own beans is what holds that number: we buy green coffee at a third of wholesale roasted cost.
The 5-kilo roaster does double duty — it supplies the bar and fills a retail shelf and two wholesale accounts. Those bags carry a 70% margin and turn idle afternoon labor into revenue.
Portland is one of the deepest specialty-coffee markets in the country — a city where a neighborhood café is part of the morning, not just a stop on the way to work.
The neighbor who walks, not drives — 28 to 45, lives within six blocks, and visits four-plus times a week. They care where the beans come from, will pay $5.50 for an oat latte made right, and carry the whole model: regulars drive 60% of our weekday cups.
Recovering downtown occupancy and a residential pocket that keeps growing mean demand is rising into a market two cafés just vacated.
The neighborhood has coffee — a chain on the corner, a drive-thru kiosk, an aging café coasting on location. None roast their own, and none have made the room itself a reason to stay. That gap is our wedge.
The day runs on a fixed rhythm. The bar opens at 7, the roaster fires mid-morning once the rush clears, and afternoons turn into prep, bagging, and wholesale fulfilment. Sourcing is direct: two importer relationships, seasonal single-origins, transparent pricing on the menu board.
Full bar, two baristas; espresso-led tickets and the day's peak volume.
Roaster fires; pour-overs, laptop regulars, retail-bag pickups.
Afternoon trade plus bagging and two wholesale account fills.
Cupping table, green-coffee QC, and supplier check-ins.
Organic-first by design. We budget $500/month for local events and loyalty perks — well under $3 per new regular given a four-visit weekly cadence and word-of-mouth on a walkable block.
Two owner-operators plus three part-time baristas across dayparts. Labor scales with the rush, not the lease.
Conservative single-café assumptions — 7 days a week, 205 tickets a day at a $6.50 average check, 51 weeks. Every figure below holds even if we miss plan by 15%.
Funded by $80,000 owner equity + $55,000 SBA microloan.
~27% contribution margin per day covers fixed costs and reaches break-even in the eleventh month.
Year-2 growth comes from a maturing regular base and the bean subscription; Year 3 adds wholesale roasting volume — funded from operating cash, not new debt.
Ember & Oak is a focused, operator-led café opening into a neighborhood that just lost two of its own. The capital below is the only thing between a finished plan and a full room on Alberta Street.
Lease signed, room built out, roaster and espresso bar installed and permitted.
Bar live seven mornings; loyalty program and retail shelf launched.
Cash-flow positive; SBA repayment running on the standard schedule.
Roasting volume grows the wholesale book — expansion without new debt.
The plan reaches break-even in month eleven, repays the SBA microloan from contribution margin alone, and self-funds the wholesale build. The $55,000 doesn't buy a gamble — it buys the room a neighborhood is already missing.