10 Minutes With Justin Goodhart: Part One

The former coffee competitor reflects on his start in the industry and shares the latest on his coffee catering company Goodhart Coffee.

BY TANYA NANETTI
SENIOR ONLINE CORRESPONDENT

Photos courtesy of Justin Goodhart

Justin Goodhart is no stranger to coffee. Over the past decade, he has managed to build a name for himself both on the café side and in the competition world, getting his start at Denver’s Sweet Bloom Coffee and eventually going on to place second at the 2018 U.S. Brewers Cup. Most recently, he has branched out to launch his own coffee cart company, Goodhart Coffee—now the largest coffee catering company in the United States, operating 44 carts across three states and five cities.

Today, we’re catching up with Justin to hear how his latest venture is going, and to reflect on all of the specialty coffee-related things that brought him to where he is today.

Tanya Nanetti: Let’s start at the beginning—can you briefly tell us how you fell in love with coffee, and what your first steps into the world of specialty coffee were?

Justin Goodhart: I didn’t drink coffee at all until my early 20s, when I began out of necessity. I started like most people—choking down bitter, dark-roasted coffee because I needed the energy boost. Eventually, I became interested in the craft of it when I had a really amazing coffee from Four Barrel Coffee Roasters back in 2014. I had no idea coffee could taste like that! From there, I went down the rabbit hole of experimenting with different brew techniques and roast profiles and started taking my home coffee prep seriously.

That eventually led me to find Sweet Bloom Coffee Roasters six months after they first opened for business. I was in there three to five days per week and eventually got to know the owner—shoutout to Andy (Sprenger) and the whole crew at Sweet Bloom! It was only a few months before I was begging to volunteer bagging beans just so that I could get exposure to the coffee shop environment and scratch the itch of my new obsession.

In 2018, you placed second in the U.S. Brewers Cup while working for Sweet Bloom. Was your win an important step toward making your own Goodhart Coffee?

I worked my way up to a barista role at Sweet Bloom and really was looking for new and interesting ways to challenge myself. When Andy suggested I compete in Brewers Cup (on six weeks’ notice), I jumped in with both feet. The world of competitions helped me realize I wanted to dedicate myself to coffee for a long time.

Let’s talk about your coffee cart business! Why did you decide to open a coffee cart? How did you come up with the idea, and what was its purpose? How was the business structured at that time?

I feel like my coffee cart origin story is a pretty familiar one. I thought I wanted to open a coffee shop, but couldn’t afford it. I felt like a coffee cart could be a great way for me to start building up the capital I would need to eventually open a coffee shop. Starting a coffee cart wasn’t my original idea. I got inspired by another coffee cart owner in California named June (Haupts), from Welcome Coffee Cart. She’s one of the original coffee cart operators and inspired me and the entire next generation of coffee carts! 

How did Goodhart Coffee grow from a single cart to being the largest coffee catering company in the U.S.?

A big turning point for Goodhart Coffee was when we got approached to work a five-day off-grid event in a field in Idaho. This was in 2017 during the full solar eclipse. I was super nervous and didn’t know if I could pull it off, but said yes anyway and made it happen. I think I ended up charging around $12,000 for this five-day event serving 300 people round the clock, and I couldn’t believe that I was getting paid that much money to set up a mobile coffee shop.

From that point on, I knew that I was going to double down and really focus my energies on developing the catering side of my business. I ended up doing a great job and built some really strong industry contacts that would then hire us to drive out to California from Colorado every year and work these high-end off-grid events. Shoutout to the good people at Shelter Co.! It was at one of these events that I met who would become my future wife … that’s a whole ‘nother story!

How has Goodhart Coffee changed over the years?

Goodhart Coffee has completely transformed over the years. Just ask any barista who has been with me for three-plus years. We had extremely humble and scrappy beginnings. I can’t believe how far we’ve come. It used to just be me doing everything—all sales operations, equipment maintenance, and event service. Now, we have an incredible admin team of multiple event planners, operations people, facilities and equipment maintenance people, and, of course, a really incredible team of baristas that spans three states and five cities.

We served over 3,000 events in 2024 and are on track to grow that by 30% to 40% this year. Our favorite types of events are corporate, but we serve at every type of event you can imagine, from birthdays to weddings to offices and hospitals and much more. 

Next week, we’ll release part two of this article and hear more about how Justin found success with Goodhart Coffee.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tanya Nanetti (she/her) is a specialty-coffee barista, a traveler, and a dreamer. When she’s not behind the coffee machine (or visiting some hidden corner of the world), she’s busy writing for Coffee Insurrection, a website about specialty coffee that she’s creating along with her boyfriend.

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