http://archive.mailtribune.com/archive/2003/0601/local/stories/01local.htm Buckmaster's is our local/regional choice. Black Satin my choice.
When the coffee company where Steve Buckmaster worked was sold in the mid-1980s, he leased a space in the same building as the Good Bean operates in Jacksonville and installed a roaster.
For a while, he operated what he refers to as a low-key retail outlet. But within a few months, one of his vendors — Michael Baccellieri of Longbottom Coffee and Tea in Hillsboro — approached him about a partnership. With Buckmaster’s wholesale grocery background it was a natural fit.
"We started out with a local group of independent stores that I had originally serviced when I was working with Renzo’s and Santino’s and we were able to maintain the customer base," Buckmaster says.
Today, Ray’s Food Place and other C&K Market stores are the company’s primary customers.
"We’ve shown a steady growth of small percentages all the years we’ve been in business," says Buckmaster, whose company has offices in Central Point and Hillsboro.
Buckmaster says the company, which has 25 employees, has been tempted to push east into new markets.
"But it would take so long to get our product to those areas," he says. "And we’re all about freshness and the product would suffer. It would require another roasting facility and a shipping hub to operate out of. Maybe at some point we’ll go another state or so in each direction, but that would be about it."
Although restaurant and other accounts have been available from time to time, the company has stayed its original course.
"We have dabbled in restaurants a little, but the grocery trade is what we know and how to take care of," Buckmaster says. "It’s not that we couldn’t and wouldn’t do something else, but the opportunity hasn’t been there. We’ve been content to do the best job we can."
