Coffee Gold

JEFF ROBERTS ’07 grew an idea to sell coffee out of a trailer into a local enterprise with seven locations. “Fly High, Hammer Down” has become the company philosophy.

Jeff Roberts started serving coffee out of a trailer after earning a business degree from the University of South Alabama. Today, Yellowhammer Coffee has a loyal following and locations throughout Mobile and Semmes.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY SETH LAUBINGER

Branded Merchandise

James and Monique Roberts

Iconic Yellow cups

Sam Wyatt '15 manages all the stores

at the Cottage Hill and Schillinger roads store (a former PNC Bank) in Mobile, the vault is a popular hangout.

BEFORE HE EVER SERVED a single Americano, frappé or shot of espresso through the window of a trailer, Jeff Roberts ’07 made YouTube videos. Specifically, ones that took people behind the scenes of an idea for a new business venture. A paper cup — a bright yellow one with a black lid and sleeve that soon would become synonymous with the company he would create and grow — is featured prominently in the first episode of “Yellowhammer.” 

“Even if it completely flops and crashes and burns, that’ll be kind of cool, too,” Roberts told viewers in 2016. “Kind of a ‘here’s what not to do’ lesson.”  

Less than 10 years later, that idea that percolated in Roberts’ brain has produced endless lessons, seven locations and an eighth on the way. 

The videos are still up, but he had to stop recording. Things just got too busy.

EARLY TO RISE

Roberts was primed to be an entrepreneur. When he was a kid on school breaks, his dad woke him up around 3 a.m. to milk cows on the family’s farm near Mobile. They brewed coffee on-site and drank it the way he still does — black.

After high school, Roberts opted for a gap year and applied to a yearlong leadership program in Colorado that he describes as a boot camp. Some of the physical challenges resembled Navy SEAL training, including swimming endurance tests that made him throw up and abrupt awakenings in the middle 
of the night to perform drills. 

When he talks about the impact of that training and how it helped him survive Yellowhammer’s early years, somehow it doesn’t sound like bragging. “There’s no way I would have kept going. I wouldn’t have lasted six months.” 

After Colorado, Roberts enrolled at the University of South Alabama and earned a bachelor’s degree in business with an emphasis in entrepreneurship, leadership and management in 2007. One enduring lesson was that you could go bankrupt at any time, that failure could be abrupt. That you have to 
expect risk, and thrive on it. 

Therefore, don’t be impulsive. Don’t make rash decisions. Sleep on it. Yet when Robert and his wife, Monique, finally debuted Yellowhammer Coffee in a shiny black trailer with a bright yellow coffee-bean logo, he almost gave it all up after a disastrous opening. “Does anybody want to buy a food truck?” he asked half jokingly. 

BIG DREAMS AND HARD WORK

Better days followed, and the Yellowhammer Coffee truck soon had a cult following. That’s when Will Fusaiotti gave Roberts a call.From early on, the owner of the Foosackly’s chicken finger empire had watched Yellowhammer’s progress. In a part of the country with no shortage of chicken finger restaurants, Foosackly’s stands out as a local, independent success story with 16 locations in Alabama and Florida.

Roberts had no idea that Fusaiotti — a man he called his hero — even knew Yellowhammer existed. And Fusaiotti was now on the phone? Roberts immediately thought it was a prank. Instead, Fusaiotti offered sage advice: Get into the brick-and-mortar business. 

Roberts was reluctant, but he soon followed through with his customary all-in approach, setting up shop in a former Foosackly’s on Dauphin Street. 
 “Fly High, Hammer Down,” inspired by the company’s name, has also become its philosophy. To sum it up: Have spectacular dreams and work tirelessly to bring them to life. 
 
WOW MOMENTS AND MOTORING FRIENDS 

A big part of the business’s success is its emphasis on people. That includes customers, who are called friends, and employees, who are called team members. Team members are thoroughly vetted and meticulously trained under the watchful eyes of Sam Wyatt, a 2015 South business grad and Yellowhammer’s regional manager since 2018.

One of the precepts of Yellowhammer is, “The culture of our company should be just as important as the coffee.” Required reading for all staff is the 288-page book “Unreasonable Hospitality” by Will Guidara. It seems like a big ask — homework for employees at a coffee shop — but Yellowhammer has waiting lists of prospective employees while its industry peers are desperate to find workers. 

“Wow moments” are a takeaway from the book. A road trip pack that includes an energy drink, a pack of gum and a playlist is given to drive-thru customers whose cars are packed with suitcases and pillows. If floaties and towels are spotted, there’s a pack for that, too — the “beach trip pack,” complete with sunscreen and sand toys. 

THE COFFEE AND THE ROASTER 
The search for the perfect bean and roast was an early part of Jeff and Monique Roberts’ journey. They found Greg Jacobs, a 25-year roaster based in Jackson, Mississippi. Jacobs has an international “Q grader” on his roasting team — think sommelier, but for coffee — who has undergone years of training to master the art of bean selection. 

Roberts says he once handed a shot of espresso to a man from Italy. The man walked away, took a taste, then turned around. Roberts was sure he was coming to ask for his money back.

Instead, he said, “This is the first time since I have been in America that I have felt like I was in the streets of Italy.” 

THE FAMILY BUSINESS
 The Robertses have four young kids.  The two oldest have started “businesses” — pool cleaning and yard maintenance — and the third is planning a specialty hot chocolate shop. They’re learning about entrepreneurship and concepts like profit and loss and risk-taking. It’s not forced on them, but good lessons abound, and it may just create a legacy. 

Eventually the children may work in a Yellowhammer coffee shop, like that eighth one, already primed and in prelaunch near Government Boulevard and Azalea Road. There are other big plans: Roberts, a licensed pilot, plans to buy a Yellowhammer jet — for convenient business travel and, ultimately, as a perk for staff to fly anywhere they want.

“We try to keep ourselves in the position to always go to the next opportunity,” he says. 

Once, a barista suggested that he’d never get the jet idea off the ground.  

He asked her, “How much would you bet that we don’t?” 

Her reply: “Well, I wouldn’t bet against you.”

 “Yeah,” he told her. “Me neither.