Campfire Coffee Co

Campfire opened on July 27, 2020 in 1,400 square feet on Market Street, and its reason for existing is visible the moment you walk in. Quincy and Whitni Henry are a Black family of recreational campers, and they built Campfire to make both specialty coffee and outdoor recreation feel like rooms anyone can walk into. Quincy puts it plainly: leading by example is the key, and the goal is for diversity to be normalized.

They roast their own almost daily, in five pound batches in a drum over an open flame. Campfire does not publish where the roasting happens, so treat it as their coffee rather than as a machine you will see here. Quincy learned the trade shadowing a roaster at Dillanos Coffee Roasters and brought the fire handling from nearly ten years working in a BBQ restaurant, which is not a background most roasters carry. The bar runs espresso, pour over and batch brew, and the old percolator still comes out for campfire style coffee.

The room does the rest of the work. Forest wallpaper runs floor to ceiling, the seating is camping chairs rather than cafe furniture, and there is an electric fire pit to sit beside. Whole bean Campfire coffee, apparel and drinkware are sold in the shop and through the online store, so the bag you liked on the way out is not a special order.

Hours are the thing to plan around. Campfire runs 7am to 2pm Monday through Saturday and 8am to 1pm on Sunday, so it is a morning and early afternoon stop and never an evening one. It sits on Market Street in downtown Tacoma.