Just before sunrise, a couple dozen red trucks roll away from Cherryland’s garage and spread out across northwest Michigan. While some head to bury wire and others to repair meters, each truck has the same thing resting in the cupholder: a travel mug filled with RoasterJack coffee.

Like Cherryland employees, working men and women trust a good cup of coffee to start their day off on the right foot. That is something that Traverse City native and local coffee roaster Jack Davis understands perfectly.

“There are two things that make the world go ‘round: wrenches and coffee,” says Davis, owner of RoasterJack Coffee Company in Traverse City.

Founded in his garage in 2001, Davis roasts, packages, and sells coffee to many of the area’s most prominent restaurants, cafes, grocery stores, and businesses, including Cherryland. A Cherryland member business, RoasterJack is also home to the area’s first coffee tasting room at the company’s East Silver Lake Road location.

But if you were to ask Davis about his 17-year career in coffee, he would downplay his success. “We are not doing anything special,” says Davis. “We’ve been focused on coming into work every day and getting the job done. I am proud of the fact that we are still here.”

Davis didn’t always imagine becoming northern Michigan’s coffee guy. As a matter of fact, he thought he would be using one of his original skills: welding.

In high school, Davis studied welding at the TBAISD Career-Tech Center. Loving the outdoors, he thought he would use his welding skills to craft mountain bikes, but his interests drew him elsewhere. “I kept turning down job offer after job offer in welding,” says Davis. “What I really wanted to do was go out west and be in the mountains.”

Davis followed his gut and moved to Montana. While attending college and enjoying the slopes, Davis gained experience roasting alongside a friend whose father was a coffee roaster. And that’s where his love for coffee began.

“One cup of coffee is never the same as another,” explains Davis. “If you give five people each a coffee pot and some coffee beans and ask them to brew you a cup, each cup is going to be different. That’s why coffee is so interesting.”

While the West has some of the more prominent coffee roasting areas, Davis chose to start his business in northern Michigan. “While Traverse City looks like just a great small town to retire in, it has all these people doing amazing and innovative work that reach far beyond the region,” says Davis. “It’s something that I am proud to be a part of.”

Today, Davis constantly looks for ways to make a better product; so much so that he has built self-improvement directly into RoasterJack’s culture. “We follow only a few simple rules; the most important being ‘make better coffee,’” explains Davis. “Coffee matters to people. Everything we do is built around the idea that people want better coffee.”