Millcreek Coffee Roasters

Address: 657 South Main Street

Telephone: 801-595-8646

Website: millcreekcoffee.com

District: Central City

 

“Coffee is our passion.” That belief has guided Millcreek Coffee Roasters since 1992, but the story behind the company is really the story of a family that found its way into coffee through curiosity, hard work, and a steadfast commitment to quality. Today, Stacey Maxwell leads the Salt Lake City business her parents started more than three decades ago, carrying forward her father’s early instinct that there was room in Utah for something different - coffee that was fresh, carefully sourced, and treated with respect from bean to cup.

Stacey grew up in Park City “when it was still a much smaller town,” with one elementary school, one middle school, and one high school. She loved biking, swimming, running, skiing, and later snowboarding, though she laughs now that she did not fully appreciate those hundred-dollar season passes when she had them. After high school, she came to Salt Lake to attend the University of Utah, later earning her MBA at Westminster, but coffee had already begun threading through her life.

Stacey’s father, Steve Brewster, had been working in accounting, and playing racquetball before work, when a friend introduced him to Salt Lake Roasting Company. At the time, coffee culture in Utah was still in its early stages. Starbucks had not yet arrived, and the idea of a small local roasting business still felt unusual. Then came a family trip to Hawaii around 1990, and on a rainy day everything shifted. Steve had already been thinking about coffee, and while the family was there, he and Stacey’s mother struck up a conversation with someone in the business. They came home energized and ready to build something of their own. Stacey still remembers them announcing that they were going to start a coffee company.

Stacey’s mother had the food background. She had trained in San Francisco and had run a catering business, so roasting felt like a natural extension of what she already understood about ingredients and flavor. Steve brought the business and financial side. The company first opened in a warehouse on Broadway, near what is now the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center. Stacey remembers roller skating through the warehouse while her parents worked. In those early days, her father kept another job while her mother ran the roasting business.

In 1994, Millcreek Coffee Roasters moved to its current Salt Lake City Main Street location. The name, though, goes back to an earlier plan. Stacey explained that her parents had originally found a lease in Millcreek and had already registered the business name before that deal fell through. The location changed, but the name stayed, and it ultimately became part of the company’s identity.

Over time, the business evolved in ways few families ever plan for neatly. There were retail shops, a period when the company partnered with a bagel business, then had to absorb that operation when the partner pulled out of Utah. There were several locations at one point, including Sugar House, where Stacey worked as a barista while she was in college. There were also family changes, including her parents’ divorce, ownership restructurings, and difficult years when family and business became tightly tangled. Still, the company endured.

Stacey left the business for stretches of time and built her own career in marketing and advertising. She worked for New Moon Media, helping bring custom stationery online at a time when that still felt novel. She later worked at the advertising giant, McCann Erickson, then spent years at C.R. England as director of marketing. That role gave her a close look at another family business and at succession planning done well, lessons that would matter when she eventually returned to Millcreek Coffee Roasters.

When the airport opportunity emerged, it changed everything again. Salt Lake City wanted local businesses represented there, and Millcreek Coffee Roasters was invited to operate airport shops. Stacey came back to help open and run them. Later, after more years away at C.R. England, she returned for good in 2016 when her father was preparing to step back. She did not come in lightly. The family history was complicated, and she knew exactly how strong her father’s personality was. She also knew she approached business differently, with a background rooted in marketing, organization, and operations rather than accounting and markets. But over time, she and her father found their rhythm.

Steve built the company with an accountant’s caution and a coffee lover’s obsession. He left the structured world of public accounting for something far less predictable, and he has never regretted the choice. “You know, I do not think that anyone has grasped the concept that we really are about great, fresh coffee. And it is not just a gimmick, it is odd. You know, people will come in here even now. They have never even heard of us because we are just not about trying to be the name out on the street. We are about the product in the cup, and that is what has kept us around here, and that is what will continue to keep us around a long time.”

That focus on freshness shapes nearly every decision the company makes. Millcreek roasts in small batches, Monday through Thursday, using two small roasters rather than relying on the kind of automation that now dominates much of the industry. There is still an old-school sensibility here - watching the beans, smelling them, tracking the roast by instinct and experience. The team roasts with the understanding that coffee is perishable, more like produce than a shelf-stable commodity. Their wholesale model depends on that. Coffee is roasted, delivered quickly, and reordered often so customers are always receiving it at its best.

The shop sells beans directly to customers, even offering twenty percent off on weekends for coffee roasted earlier in the week so they can begin each Monday with a clean slate for wholesale production. The discounted coffee is still only days old, but to Millcreek, that distinction matters.

The business remains heavily rooted in wholesale, which Stacey believes is where they are strongest. “Retail is a different animal entirely. It requires a different kind of visibility and energy.” Here, they prefer knowing their staff, knowing their customers, and keeping growth manageable enough that quality and culture do not slip away.

That philosophy extends to sourcing. Millcreek buys high-grade arabica coffee and pays close attention to crop quality, harvest cycles, and market timing. Stacey explained how they secure lots based on expected yearly usage, especially from South and Central America, then pull from temperature-controlled green warehouses in California and New Jersey as needed. Coffee, she says, is always a balance - buying enough to maintain continuity and freshness without carrying too much beyond the year.

The company also tries to make a meaningful impact in the countries where it buys the most coffee. In Costa Rica and Guatemala, Millcreek helps support pop-up daycares during harvest season so working parents have a safe place for their children, helping reduce child labor while providing meals, medical checks, and care. In Colombia, it supports programs that bring women growers together to learn about soil preservation, quality improvement, and sustainable farming.

Closer to home, the shop reflects that same sense of care. Millcreek offers more than coffee. There are bagels, breakfast sandwiches, toasts, pastries, hot chocolate, kombucha, tea from Chi Cha San Chen, products from other local makers, and a steady effort to support neighboring businesses whenever possible. Much of what they serve and stock connects back to the local community.

The airport has become another major chapter in that story. Millcreek Coffee Roasters operated airport locations years ago, lost one during COVID and the airport rebuild, and then returned with a new location at gate A44 that opened in October 2023. This time, they funded the operation themselves. As both Stacey and Steve explained, the airport is far more complicated than people realize. Salt Lake follows street pricing, so they cannot charge more even though the costs of operating there are significantly higher. Still, the visibility matters. The airport introduces travelers to a long-running Salt Lake business, travelers who might otherwise have never walked through the doors on Main Street.

That blend of pragmatism and optimism seems to define the father-daughter relationship now. Steve still watches the market, reviews the numbers, and notices details no one else notices. Stacey runs the business day to day, shapes its operations, and carries its future. They joke about their differences, but there is deep respect underneath it. He knows what she has taken on. She knows what he built.

Millcreek Coffee Roasters has weathered family changes, shifting markets, competition, and the difficult economics of running any food or beverage business. Through it all, they have kept roasting, sourcing, delivering, and believing that the cup itself still matters most. “We are small, and we know everyone that works here, and they care. I just do not think you can really achieve that if you get too much bigger.”