Breaking new coffee grounds

It wasn’t exactly classic coffee weather last Friday in Edgar, but that didn’t stop the owners of Redwood St. Roasters from celebrating the start of their new expansion project just outside village hall in an area that will one day provide a home for flowers, coffee beans and community chats.

Sipping iced coffees and other summerfriendly drinks, the friends, family and customers of Redwood St. Roasters, along with Stark’s Floral and The Back Room Ice Cream Shoppe, gathered near a fenced-off area just east of the building at 109 W. Redwood St.

With help from a $250,000 Community Development Investment Grant awarded by the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC), the trio of family-owned businesses will be constructing a 3,400 square foot addition that includes a yearround greenhouse, expanded roastery and a commons area with outdoor patio.

Village president Terry Lepak welcomed the new expansion in the village’s downtown, hailing it as an example of small-town “entrepreneurship, revitalization and opportunity.”

“What was once a quiet corner in our downtown will soon be filled with the smell of fresh coffee, friendly conversation and renewed local energy,” he said. “This project is the result of many hands and hearts work- ing together.”

Multiple people who had a hand in supporting the expansion spoke at Friday’s ground-breaking event, including Tim Weber, senior economic development director at WEDC; Kim Weber, executive director of Marathon County Economic Development Corporation; Dave Krause, commercial loan officer at Forward Bank, and Jeff Meyer, president of Meyer Buildings in Dorchester, which is constructing the addition.

“Small businesses really, truly are the heart of our small communities,” Krause said. “Without small businesses, we don’t have communities.”

The daughters of Karen (Stark) and Bruce Schmitt, along with their husbands, have carried on the family’s entrepreneurial tradition into the 21st century with a variety of ventures. The family of business owners includes Amber and Wyatt Haemer, Jennifer and Aarron Zaffke and Krystle and Fransisco Guerrero.

Krystle Guerrero-Schmitt, whose husband started Redwood St. Roasters in 2015, detailed the family’s deep history in Edgar, going back to their great-great grandfather, Ferdinand Louis Stark, who came to the area from the greater Germany area in the early 1900s.

Stark’s Floral was the first of the modern businesses to be started in 1951, when Greg Stark used his gardening skills as a member of the Wien Wildcats 4-H Club to go beyond showing veggies and flowers at the county fair. Working with his father, Harvey, they built a small greenhouse made from doublepane windows salvaged from an old schoolhouse.

Greg’s mother, Betty, started making corsages for Mothers Day in 1957, and it wasn’t long before the family business took off.

Greg Stark went to college for greenhouse design and greenhouse management, and his sister, Karen, graduated from the America Floral School in Chicago, where she took classes in art and interior design.

In 1970, the Starks became certified ceramics instructors for Duncan Ceramics, allowing them to diversify the products and services offered to their customers. Greg and Karen bought the old Edgar Locker Plant, the building located at 109 W. Redwood St., in 1980 and held a grand reopening the following year.

Guerrero-Schmitt said Stark’s was filled to the brim with ceramics, crafts, knitting supplies, leather products, stained glass, jewelry and garden supplies. A greenhouse was added in 1981, and in 1994, Greg and Karen purchased the 1946 soda fountain from the former Edgar Drug Store on Third Avenue. A wine cellar was added in the early 2000s.

The Back Room Ice Cream Shoppe opened in 1995 and, 10 years later, Guerrero opened what became Redwood St. Roasters. Krystle said she and her husband originally started their coffee-roasting company outside the area, but after initially deciding to close the business, they accepted an invitation to join the rest of the family in Edgar so they could serve their loyal customers.

“It was our family that had kept faith in us,” she said.

Krystle began her speech by giving credit to a higher power for her family’s success.

“I do want to thank our God and creator for putting it all together,” she said.