107 Roasters & Cafe
It made sense to come here,” Elaine Krazer says, surrounded by walls full of classic rock ‘n’ roll regalia at 107 Roasters & Cafe, a newcomer to Amarillo’s coffee scene. “It wasn’t just us opening another location. It was coming home.”
Located in an industrial area near 46th Avenue and Washington Street, tucked behind an AutoZone and south of a roofing supply company, 107 Roasters & Cafe is slightly off the beaten path for Amarillo’s coffee community. With few espresso-based coffee shops on that side of the city, though, it won’t go unnoticed for long.
107 Roasters & Cafe opened in late May after owners Elaine and Dave Krazer moved their roastery and coffee shop to Amarillo from McKinney. It was a popular, established business in the Metroplex suburb, operating multiple locations and earning repeat “Best Coffee” honors.
Moving that success to Amarillo wasn’t guaranteed. “We had huge fans,” Elaine says. “It was a big risk.”
They saw opportunity on the southeast side of Amarillo, but moving wasn’t purely a business decision. Dave is the head roaster and Elaine’s son, Patrick Tate, creates and serves the shop’s 107 drinks named after musical hits. (“Sweet Chai of Mine” or “Livin’ La Vida Mocha” are especially noteworthy.) Elaine acts more as the entrepreneur and financial backer of the enterprise, and she had previously lived in Amarillo. When the opportunity arose to return to Pantex, where she works as an IT project manager, the family decided to uproot both their lives and their coffee business.
Amarillo has plenty of locally owned coffee shops, but it also has the kind of coffee culture the Krazers can appreciate. Elaine points out that, in the Dallas area, traffic usually dictates where customers stop for coffee. It’s location- and geography-based. Amarillo and Canyon coffee-drinkers, however, tend to value loyalty as they embrace local businesses.
“They will drive past six chains to come to a local [shop],” she says. That local support allowed 107 to quickly establish a growing base of regulars.
Those regulars have already shown the family what makes Amarillo unique. “Down there, we had to do polls and research,” Elaine says when describing how hard it was to figure out what drinks to serve at the McKinney shop. “People here will walk up and tell you what they want. This is one of the most friendly towns I’ve ever been in in my life.”
The shop may be new to Amarillo—and to the Texas Panhandle’s unpretentious, unfiltered approach to conversation—but Elaine isn’t new to coffee. It’s been part of her life since childhood. She spent seven years growing up on a coffee and tea plantation near Nairobi, Kenya, where her parents lived while working overseas for Raytheon during the 1970s. Elaine and her family moved from there to other coffee-centric locales like Tehran, Iran and Kuwait City before coming to America.
As an adult, she spent time in Hawaii, where she opened Pacific Tradewinds Coffee in 2015, a company which grew into 107 Roasters & Cafe.
Despite that deep connection to coffee and coffee culture—including Dave’s careful dedication to developing roast profiles for beans from countries around the world—the family is quick to point out that they want coffee to remain as accessible as possible. “We don’t judge if you’re drinking Folgers,” Elaine says, laughing. Patrick and other members of the team prefer to meet customers where they are, helping them discover better coffee without insisting they become immediate connoisseurs.
Besides, she points out, coffee is a comfort food for a lot of customers. People get attached to their daily lattes or matchas. “It’s your blankie, or your wubby,” she says, another smile emerging. “We call it ‘serving wubbies.’ We want to know what wubby you’re looking for.”
Meanwhile, comfortable seating in the cafe encourages conversation, surrounded by music decor, including monthly drink menus showcased within custom-printed CD cases by the door. “You want to come in, sit on a comfy couch with the two people you love most in your life, and really enjoy a great cup of coffee,” Elaine says. Religious conviction fuels that mindset. “We truly believe that Christ happens in community, and community happens over coffee.”
Having built the environment, her project manager’s perspective dictates paying attention to the data. 107 Roasters & Cafe, she says, has a 97% repurchase rate among customers. She adds: “Once you get a coffee, you’re probably coming back.”
Not all customers are from Amarillo. The roastery still sells made-to-order K-cups online, ships single-origin roasted coffee, and supplies white label and custom label coffees packaged for retail partners. In fact, Elaine says they operate what might be the largest coffee roaster in the Texas Panhandle, a massive, commercial-grade Loring S35 Kestrel roasting machine, which can process up to 300 pounds of coffee an hour.
That’s a lot of wubbies.
512 SW 47th Ave.
214.778.5662
107roasters.com
