Hoban Cards The Art and Craft of Letterpress Printing From the Heart of Chehalis Washington

In this episode we are joined by Evan Calkins, proprietor of Hoban Cards, in Chehalis, Washington.

Hoban Cards is a small letterpress company that specializes in thoughtfully designed printed business cards & stationery.

What started out as a hobby has grown into a business that has three antique  letter presses  and is selling beautiful and memorable business cards all across the U.S.

Evan shares stories about his journey as a printer and provides us with inspiration his company name.  Can you guess the inspiration? Take a look at the example cards on their website and see if you can find the pop culture references hidden in plane sight.

When Evan is not designing and printing cards he and his family enjoy exploring the region in their Westfalia.  He also has handmade wooden kayak that looks amazing.

In our busy digital age there is something warm, welcoming, and dare I say calming about a hand fed business or calling card that makes bold statement.  I cannot wait for my new cards to arrive. 

Evan Calkins of Hoban Cards Episode Transcript

Evan Calkins [00:00:00]:

Letterpress printing is is kind of the pinnacle, or at least that’s what I thought of it as. Like, if I could get something letterpress printed, that would be amazing, you know?

Scott Cowan [00:00:28]:

Welcome to the Exploring Washington State podcast. Here’s your host, Scott Cowan.

Scott Cowan [00:00:34]:

Alright, Evan. I hit that record button, so whatever we say now is gonna be recorded. Just kidding. But why don’t you so first off, what I know about you guys is you started a company called Ho Band Cards in about 02/2011, a letterpress company. I have questions, but I’d like to hear a little bit about you before we start picking your picking your part about letterpress.

Evan Calkins [00:00:54]:

Yeah. I grew up in yeah. I grew up in Centralia, Washington, and I’m still in the area here. But, yeah, my wife and I met, here. She also grew up here. And, we went to school here. We went to ministry school here, actually, as well and kind of met together at that time. And, we had a daughter, and, I kinda grew up with a background, being interested in, like, digital artwork and graphic design.

Evan Calkins [00:01:24]:

Eventually, kind of got interested into, software development and things like that and taught myself, a lot about that. And my first job was kind of making websites for people, for small businesses in the area. And then I eventually got a job, at the county here, Lewis County, doing software development. Okay. And that’s kind of what led me into sort of moonlighting, with letterpress printing.

Scott Cowan [00:01:53]:

Well, I think okay. There’s gotta be a connection. So here you

Evan Calkins [00:01:56]:

are. Yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:01:57]:

You’re a you’re a computer guy, if you will. Your your website, tech, and all this stuff. And now, what was the how did you connect to letterpress? I mean, that’s old school. There’s nothing modern about it. So what drew you to that?

Evan Calkins [00:02:11]:

Yeah. So when I first got into computers, I was sort of dinking around with Photoshop way back in the day when you could, like, pirate it, you know?

Scott Cowan [00:02:22]:

Oh. Which I think

Evan Calkins [00:02:24]:

so many people in my generation, my age group, that’s how they started being interested in things like that is they, you know, we were able to get our hands on these free copies, free and quotation copies. And so, yeah, I was always interested in graphic design, and I think in when you’re in that space, I also was exposed to, you know, software development and coding and kind of dipping my toes into that world. And I eventually did some some stuff in school, and learned a little bit more about it. Took some classes at Evergreen State College, and just most of it I taught myself. So, yeah, I think I got interested in letterpress printing because of that graphic design world. Within the graphic design world, print design is something that’s kind of special, at least it was to me because all of the graphic design work that I had been doing was all digital, right? It’s all web work, It’s all things that you’re making digitally for folks. But if you could get something printed that you had designed, it was kind of special because it was expensive, relative to getting something, you know, on the web or whatever. In that print world, letterpress printing is kind of the pinnacle, or at least that’s what I thought of it as.

Evan Calkins [00:03:45]:

If I could get something letterpress printed, that would be amazing, you know, because it’s very, like, a high quality, sort of hands on, and you can always tell if something’s letterpress printed by the impression it makes into the paper. So, that’s kind of how I got interested in it, and I actually wanted my own letterpress printed cards for my business. I didn’t know how they were produced. I didn’t know how to find a company that did that. So I basically just started nerding out like I do on everything. And, you know, just spending a lot of time figuring out how these things were made. And I found that, you know, there wasn’t a lot of businesses around the area that’s still letterpress printed. It wasn’t the nineteen fifties anymore, you know.

Evan Calkins [00:04:33]:

So I eventually just just got so interested that I wanted to purchase my own letterpress, and that’s that’s kinda how I got into it.

Scott Cowan [00:04:41]:

So letterpresses, they’re small, they’re portable, they’re light, you can carry them around. I mean, you have to have, you know, what’s what so you have three presses now, correct, on in the website? Your website says you have three presses. Is that still accurate?

Evan Calkins [00:04:56]:

Yeah. We have four now. We have four now. Yep.

Scott Cowan [00:04:59]:

So your original press that you bought, is it one of the presses that you still have?

Evan Calkins [00:05:03]:

Yeah. Yep.

Scott Cowan [00:05:04]:

Okay. How much did that thing weigh?

Evan Calkins [00:05:08]:

Yeah. So it it weighs about 1,500 pounds.

Scott Cowan [00:05:12]:

Yeah.

Evan Calkins [00:05:13]:

I see. It’s completely cast iron. Not a very mobile or practical piece of business equipment.

Scott Cowan [00:05:20]:

You didn’t lug it up the stairs to your apartment. No. I didn’t.

Evan Calkins [00:05:25]:

Yeah. The funny thing is, though, that there’s a kind of a kind of a fun story how I found it. Okay. You know, as you can imagine, tracking one of these things down after you’ve done all the research, it’s a little bit difficult. There’s not like a Kinko’s you can walk into and just purchase a purchase a nineteen o ‘2 letterpress. So there’s a lot of Craigslist searching, a lot of Internet searching, there’s forums specifically dedicated to letterpress printing online where you can find these machines. But what I decided to do was send an email out to all the print shops I could find on Google from Seattle to Portland because we’re right in the middle of the two cities. Basically saying, I didn’t mention the word letterpress because I didn’t want to tip tip my cap, but I was I was kinda saying, you know, hey.

Evan Calkins [00:06:11]:

I’m I’m getting into printing. If you have any old printing equipment laying around, I’d love to just, you know, you know, pay some money for it or come get it off your hands for free. I must have sent off probably more than a dozen emails, maybe up to 20 or so. The only place that got back to me was a little print shop in my hometown, Centralia. A woman named Linda was basically, Yeah. We’ve got we’ve got something down here. You should come take a look at it. I went down there, and it was exactly what I was looking for.

Evan Calkins [00:06:41]:

It was that there was this this press we’re talking about from nineteen o two. We’re just sitting there gathering dust. It probably hadn’t been used since the forties or fifties, and I was able to And you mentioned lugging it up the stairs. I actually had to get it up a ramp, a super steep ramp in order to get it out of the basement of this place. So that it was just wild. We had to take it apart. We had to use, like, a, engine hoist. We had to use, like, a come along to to to to get the engine hoist up the ramp, and, yeah, we almost killed ourselves getting it.

Evan Calkins [00:07:18]:

But, with the help of some friends, I I was able to get it, refurbish it, kind of clean it up, and put it back together.

Scott Cowan [00:07:26]:

Did they charge you for the press?

Evan Calkins [00:07:28]:

Yeah. I paid I paid her some money for it. Yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:07:31]:

It was

Evan Calkins [00:07:31]:

I think it was a good deal for both of us, I think.

Scott Cowan [00:07:34]:

I’m I’m sure. Awesome. So you’ve got your original press was from nineteen o two. So at the time of this, that’s 119 years old when you think about it. Right? And is it something you use regularly?

Evan Calkins [00:07:49]:

Yeah. Yeah. We still use that press regularly. We, yeah. Yeah. It’s a workhorse.

Scott Cowan [00:07:54]:

I mean, think about that. I mean, 19 years old and you’re still it’s still functioning.

Evan Calkins [00:07:59]:

Yeah. Yeah. It’s crazy. It’s crazy how they’re constructed because, you know, you hear the saying they don’t make things like they used to. It’s so true when you see one of these machines because they’re all they’re all cast iron. And they’re I mean, they’re relatively simple, but everything on them is heavy and just, you know, in in the the sound that it makes when it runs run is just so cool. You can tell it’s just, you know, hefty and well constructed. It’s really it’s really nice.

Scott Cowan [00:08:27]:

19 years old. Parts are abundant. You can just go on Amazon, have whatever part you need Prime delivered in two days. How does how does one maintain I mean, because there’s wear parts on these things. Right? I mean Yeah. There are. They require maintenance. Sure.

Scott Cowan [00:08:44]:

How do you how do you source supplies?

Evan Calkins [00:08:49]:

Yeah. It’s it’s very difficult. You if you break a part that you can’t find, you either have to find somebody to do to cast the part again for you, which is obviously not cheap. There are vendors throughout the country who specialize in sort of new old stock or just refurbished parts for these things, but they’re going away. I mean, it’s harder and harder to find these things. Sometimes you can get parts on Craigslist if you’re lucky. But for the most part, these things are so well made, if you just keep them oiled and just maintained well, pretty much the maintenance is oiling and keeping them kinda clean, then you’re good to go unless you drop them off a truck during moving them, which happens a lot. You’re you’re pretty much good to go.

Scott Cowan [00:09:38]:

Alright. So you have four presses now.

Evan Calkins [00:09:40]:

Mhmm.

Scott Cowan [00:09:41]:

Takes me to the question of you started this as a side hustle. How’s that? You know, let’s call it a side hustle. Yep. What was the first thing you printed with the with your press? What did you what did you start with?

Evan Calkins [00:09:55]:

Yeah. So I started with using some some old lead movable type, they call it. I don’t know if if folks are familiar with it, but they’re individual lead letters that, back in the day, that’s how they would compose newspapers or posters or anything that they’re printing with these presses, is that they had to use what’s called a composing stick to put all this lead type and set it all, you know? Then what they’d do, they’d send it through a proof press, which is sort of a flat press. They would just quickly ink it, and the proofers would go through and make the proof marks on the newspaper, whatever they’re proofing. Then somebody would go through tweezers and basically take out these tiny little letters that needed to be corrected or punctuation that needed to be added. Then they’d proof them again and send it back to the proof press, and then they’d finally go to the final printing process. But the first thing I I printed was with this lead type because I got some with the press, just to just to kind of start getting used to how to print. And that was a lot of fun because you got you not only learned how to print, but you learned how to how to sort of compose these letters.

Evan Calkins [00:11:10]:

And I think I ended up printing, like, a just kind of a makeshift business card for myself with my name on it and stuff. That was the first thing I printed.

Scott Cowan [00:11:18]:

I think I told you when we talked before the recording button on the phone that a buddy of mine has a letterpress down in California. Yeah. Every now and then I get these calls from, I just found some type. You know, he’s all he’s all geeked out about finding type, you know, and he just buys everything he can get his hands on and I’ll find a use for it, which I think is awesome. I’m not making fun of him. I just think it’s it’s awesome. And then he Yeah. He exposed me to the the hatch prints, the hatch show.

Evan Calkins [00:11:42]:

Yeah. Hatch show prints.

Scott Cowan [00:11:43]:

Those are those are cool. I mean, those are those are really, I think, pretty cool. And,

Evan Calkins [00:11:48]:

Yeah. Yeah. I got to go and tour Hat Show Print, which is, one of the oldest poster printing shops in the country. It’s in Nashville, Tennessee. It’s currently located in, like, the, country music sort of hall of fame building there in in Nashville, but, previously had its own sort of really cool building right on Broadway there in Nashville. And I got to go do kind of a a a tour because my, Claire, my one of my employees, had done some interning and schooling with the lady who runs Hatch Show Print. And Oh, wow. I got to name drop when I was there visiting, and she took me behind and gave me some tour of the place.

Evan Calkins [00:12:36]:

It was really cool.

Scott Cowan [00:12:36]:

That’s that’s cool. I I think that’s cool. And for those people who who don’t

Evan Calkins [00:12:41]:

know what Hatch Show Print is, it’s a it’s a they’ve they’ve printed show posters for concerts, you know, forever, you know, forever.

Scott Cowan [00:12:50]:

Famous names, you know, Elvis, cash, you know. Yeah.

Evan Calkins [00:12:53]:

Yep. Anything you can think of. Yep. Yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:12:57]:

So it started as a side hustle, and now you got three people working for you. And I’m just gonna just I’ve got questions about your two employees. K? Yeah. So, Ben, I’m reading his I’m reading his bio. So it’s public, so I’m reading what it says. Ben is a Washington state native. He lives in Centralia with his wife and four children, and this is the part I enjoy. Ben enjoys playing guitar, beer maintenance, drinking of the holy bean, and cooking for his family.

Scott Cowan [00:13:24]:

Yeah. I love this. And then when he’s not letterpress printed, he has an odd obsession watching StarCraft

Evan Calkins [00:13:31]:

two. Yeah. Yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:13:32]:

That sounds like an interesting human being.

Evan Calkins [00:13:34]:

Yeah. Ben’s awesome. Ben’s a Ben’s a great human being. Yeah. We we have a lot of history together. He’s been one of my best friends for years, and he happened to be able to come and work for me too. And we just have a ball a ball in the shop. And he yeah.

Evan Calkins [00:13:48]:

We we have little quirks and things that we kind of poke fun at each other about, and I was able to write that that bio form and

Scott Cowan [00:13:54]:

I love that. Okay. So so the beard maintenance was what I was cracking up. But Yeah. Did he have letterpress experience before he started working with you? He didn’t. No. He

Evan Calkins [00:14:05]:

no. He had some construction experience. He’s he’s kind of a meticulous person, so it kind of fell. It it was kind of right down his alley. And, yeah, we I kind of taught myself, and then I brought on, him on when I needed some help. And, yeah, he he he took to it really well.

Scott Cowan [00:14:23]:

So my other question is about your other, person, Claire.

Evan Calkins [00:14:26]:

Mhmm.

Scott Cowan [00:14:27]:

I’m assuming that it’s her hands that we see in the video loading business cards in because it’s got it’s a wedding ring, and it doesn’t look like it’d be yours. Yeah. Is that her okay. So the question I have then is, has anyone I’m watching her. You know, she’s got this

Evan Calkins [00:14:44]:

Mhmm.

Scott Cowan [00:14:44]:

She’s got this flow going. Right? Card in, card out, card in. You know? Cool. Yeah. Anyone had their hand has anyone ever, like, whoops, and got the hand kinda pressed?

Evan Calkins [00:14:55]:

Not not in our shop yet. There’s been many, many close calls, especially when you’re learning how to print, because your your tendency is to want to rescue a misfed sheep

Scott Cowan [00:15:06]:

Okay.

Evan Calkins [00:15:07]:

A car. Good. And, you know, when you start learning how to do it, yeah, it is very much a flow. It’s very much like this cadence that you have to get into because because what’s happening is this sort of like a clamshell that’s coming open. You have to grab the printed card with one hand and feed the new card with the other hand while it’s still open. Yeah. And we run the presses at a certain speed that they’re, you know, they’re printing quickly enough to where we can bust out enough orders to make money. But so you can’t it’s not like we can just slow them down to, like, this this super slow pace.

Evan Calkins [00:15:45]:

So you have to get you have to really learn that cadence. And then, you also have to learn when it’s okay to just toss a card on the ground. Right? So, you know, if we’re printing 500 cards, we might toss 25 or so on the ground during the print process. Yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:16:03]:

Alright. No. I was just watching and, you know, I was assuming it was her hand. I was just watching this and I was just I just kept going, wow, this is so synchronized. Yeah. And yeah, and it was so, anyway, that so

Evan Calkins [00:16:19]:

Yeah. It can be dangerous.

Scott Cowan [00:16:22]:

Yeah. We’ll come back to your bio when we wrap this up because I have questions. So Okay. Cool. What so you had a job with Lewis County, and you then ended up opening the shop up. That’s that’s very cool.

Evan Calkins [00:16:36]:

Yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:16:37]:

And I think I told you when we talked on the phone, some major mailing list, when I mean major, like like Morning Brew or something like that Mhmm. Or Wired or something mentioned you guys. And they they said, if you’re looking for these, you know, hand you know, letterpress cards, the best business cards, it was like they were glowing. They didn’t say who you were. Click here, basically. And so I go, oh, I’m actually thinking about business cards. And so I clicked on it, and I’m like, oh, this is cool. Wait a second.

Scott Cowan [00:17:05]:

They’re in Washington state. I wanna talk to them. So here we are today.

Evan Calkins [00:17:09]:

Yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:17:10]:

I so I think it’s awesome that a little shop in Chehalis is getting national exposure.

Evan Calkins [00:17:17]:

Yeah. Yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:17:20]:

So I’m gonna pause there because I wanted to go back. I didn’t ask you one question one question I wanna know.

Evan Calkins [00:17:24]:

Sure.

Scott Cowan [00:17:24]:

Why did you decide on doing business and calling cards? And, I mean, why didn’t you go posters? I mean, what was the what was your how did you develop the business plan?

Evan Calkins [00:17:35]:

Yeah. There was there wasn’t a lot of developing of a business plan. There there was a lot of just just, you know, it’s kind of how I do things. I just get interested in something. And then because this happened, people happen to to be interested in this when I started doing it and posting it on Twitter or Instagram. It was probably Twitter back in the day. That’s kind of the reason why I continued to do it and make money from it. Initially, it was just it was just a cool thing.

Evan Calkins [00:18:02]:

It was a hobby. It was something I wanted to do for myself. It’s something I wanted to to make pieces of art with or something like that. And then and then yeah. So, like, while I was working doing software development at the county, it’s one of those things where it’s like you you look at your job and you’re just like, am I it’s one of the those reckoning parts in your life where am I gonna do this the rest of my life? Like, am I just gonna sit here in a chair the rest of my even though I enjoy it. You know? Working for the government isn’t the most expiring work in the world. You know? So that’s kind of when I decided to, like, oh, this letterpress thing has some legs. People are interested.

Evan Calkins [00:18:45]:

They think it’s cool. I enjoy it. And, that’s kind of when it kind of went over into a business. But, yeah, no business plan. Things just started to kind of naturally and organically pick up as far as sales go. I had a kind of a community on Twitter. There’s I was involved in, like, a you know, I’ve always been in kind of like the Mac Mac community among people who who like Macs and, and software surrounding Macs and stuff like that. So I had I had kind of a built in community that kind of picked up what I was doing and spread the word.

Evan Calkins [00:19:22]:

So that’s kind of how it how it

Scott Cowan [00:19:24]:

started.

Evan Calkins [00:19:25]:

Yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:19:26]:

That’s that’s awesome. So calling cards, business cards, lettering stations, if you will.

Evan Calkins [00:19:34]:

Yeah. Yeah. Let me answer that question. I kind of got off track there. But Yeah. So there are certain types of letter presses that print certain materials. The type of letter presses that I have don’t print posters. They’re too small.

Evan Calkins [00:19:49]:

They’re called job presses, so they’re meant for a lot of quantity rather than a large surface area. There’s proof presses, which are what print the big posters and poster presses. And those take a big sheet and, they usually, you print with, like, wood type. If everybody when I was talking about that movable type, that lead type, there’s a version of movable type which is bigger type, and it’s usually made out of wood. And that’s the kind of letters that Hatch Show Print uses to print their big posters with. So basically, I got into what I calling cards and business cards, because it’s just the type of press that I had and the type of press I was interested in at the time. Also, the proof presses, the bigger poster presses are a lot harder to find, and they’re a lot more expensive. And, and, yeah, and then the business wise, you’re not gonna make a lot of money printing posters unless your unless your Hat Show Print, and even that, they are just a they’re not even a for profit business anymore.

Evan Calkins [00:21:02]:

They’re just a, yeah, they’re they’re a nonprofit. So, so, yeah, printing business cards is just more it’s more profitable as a business. So yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:21:13]:

Okay. Let’s talk about the cards. Yeah. So you’ve got calling cards, which I’m old enough to kinda remember what they are.

Evan Calkins [00:21:23]:

Mhmm. Yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:21:23]:

It might be something like my grandfather would have had. I mean, so so but calling cards and business cards. Go ahead and let’s I’ll ask you go ahead and explain those two differences.

Evan Calkins [00:21:33]:

Yeah. Yeah. This is kind of where my, like, passion lies the most is in calling cards because I love the idea of what a calling card represents historically. We’re all familiar with what business cards are. They they say the business we work for, they have our contact information. They have our name or title and a bunch of other junk we probably don’t need on there. So the the sort of the the idea of a calling card, at least to me, and kind of how we’ve we’ve sort of reintroduced the calling card into the modern times is a card that represents, like, who you are as a person rather than the business that you work for. So, usually, these are just very minimally designed cards.

Evan Calkins [00:22:19]:

We have a lot we have predesigns, so people don’t have to, you know, design their own. They can pick one of our predesigned cards. It’s a focus on typography, so really good type, really good historical typefaces that we use, you know, really well thought through kerning and tracking of the letters, and balance on the card. And you know, these cards are meant to to sort of when they’re presented to somebody, make a personal connection with that person rather than being being like a business front for that person. Mhmm. You’re introducing you as a person rather than the business. It’s a lot more inviting, it’s a lot more personal. It usually has maybe just one or two pieces of contact information on it, which makes it feel a little bit more exclusive to the person receiving it.

Evan Calkins [00:23:14]:

They also feel a little bit more like a little piece of artwork rather than just this piece of paper that you may throw away or something. We all get business cards, and they seem so antiquated now. Why would you exchange a business card where you just shoot an email? But these calling cards are something sort of completely different. They’re something that’s physical, that’s nice to touch, and that people want to keep forever, basically, to be reminded of this person. And that kind of hearkens back to the historical context of what a visiting card or a calling card is, which was a reminder of a visit to a house, right? You go to somebody’s house to visit them, they would have a plate set out maybe in their foyer, and before you leave, you just leave a card, and really, usually all it had was the person’s name or their signature on it, And it was just this nice little reminder that the person was there.

Scott Cowan [00:24:12]:

I think it’s really cool. I’m scrolling through these right now, and I’m looking at some of these. And, a, I’m chuckling because, you know, detective Lester Freeman, major crimes unit. That’d be like kind of I like the irreverent that you have here for your various cards. And I think it’s really cool. So, of the calling cards, which one is the most popular right now? Yeah. Or am I putting you on the spot?

Evan Calkins [00:24:42]:

No. You’re not putting me on the spot. No. I I know exactly which one’s most popular. It’s the Patrick Bateman, or the approved Paul Allen, templates that we’ve made. And if you know anything about the movie American Psycho, there’s a very famous business card scene in that movie where, they’re inspecting each other’s cards, and this just Haven’t

Scott Cowan [00:25:06]:

seen movies. I don’t know if

Evan Calkins [00:25:07]:

you can. Okay. Yeah. At some point, you can just look it up on YouTube. There’s kind of this this ongoing joke in the letterpress printing world where people always reference the scene in in American Psycho where they’re inspecting these cards because they’re like, you know, just just like, oh my gosh. Look at these amazing cards. And and they and and a couple of them happened to be letterpress printed in the film, and so, we had so many requests for us to sort of make those cards that we decided to make those one of the templates that’s available on hobancards.com. So they’re they’re wildly popular.

Evan Calkins [00:25:46]:

People love to swap out Patrick Bateman’s information for their own, and then have have one of these cards that look like they’re from American Psycho. So we we kind of begrudgingly brought these out because because as a letterpress printer, it’s like a joke that you hear too often. You hear hear about these American Psycho cards too often. But we’re but I but I couldn’t resist offering them for sale because we were selling so many of them. So

Scott Cowan [00:26:14]:

So I since not since I hadn’t seen the movie and I’ve never heard the story before, it’s a great story. So you might get tired of hearing it or telling it, but that’s a great story.

Evan Calkins [00:26:22]:

Yeah. Yeah. It is. It’s fun. It’s it’s fun for sure. And all the oh, go ahead. Go ahead.

Scott Cowan [00:26:29]:

What’s your favorite calling card for you? Like, if you’re gonna go print yourself some new calling cards today when we’re done, what design would you grab?

Evan Calkins [00:26:37]:

I really like the detective. I think that’s got got some nice typography, nice balance to it. There’s the trade card, which I really like.

Scott Cowan [00:26:49]:

Okay.

Evan Calkins [00:26:51]:

There is there’s a card called the field card, which is is ultra minimal. It’s basically it just has your name and your phone number in all lowercase divided by just like a just a pipe divider just centered on the card. It’s super minimal. And, yeah, those I like quite a bit. Yeah. One thing I was going to mention, going back to the American Psycho thing, one of the things that I did originally was I’ve designed all of my cards or most of them. I think a couple of them have my own name on them. But all of them have character are designed or templated cards are designed with characters of TV shows or movies that we like.

Evan Calkins [00:27:39]:

And there’s little there’s little Easter eggs on each of the cards as well. Okay. Okay. So it’s fun for people who recognize the characters from a show, to to see that character on them. So we we have fun with

Scott Cowan [00:27:55]:

that. That’s very cool. Yeah. Sorry. I’m having some microphone challenges here. My microphone is picking up. We’ll just do this. Well, since you said Easter egg and all of this, let’s go here.

Scott Cowan [00:28:10]:

And what would what I talked to you about beforehand was Hoban cards. How’d you come up with the name?

Evan Calkins [00:28:18]:

Yeah. Hoban was kind of a it was a hastily put together name because I needed to put something on my business license. And so and at the time, I wasn’t really thinking that this was gonna be a full time business. And so at the time, one of our favorite and still is. One of our favorite television shows is called Firefly. It was in, it was a show on Fox in, like, the early two thousands that got canceled. You know? One of those

Scott Cowan [00:28:45]:

shows He was outraged. Yeah. One of those

Evan Calkins [00:28:46]:

show amazing shows that gets canceled prematurely and is beloved and has a kind of a cult following. We are kind of in that camp, and one of the characters on the show is named Wash. They call him Wash in the show, but his real name is Hoban, which is which is, not mentioned too often. And so that’s kind of an Easter egg to that show, so I named it, Hoban Press.

Scott Cowan [00:29:12]:

So I think that’s cool. I I love the fact that you wrapped something that’s important to you and, you know, that means something to you. Yeah. Yeah. I think that’s very cool. So so I’m I’m on your blog, and you’re talking historical typefaces, and you you you’re talking you kinda have this reverence for historical stuff, it looks like. I mean, which and letterpress is looking backwards versus looking modern.

Evan Calkins [00:29:44]:

Sure.

Scott Cowan [00:29:46]:

But let’s ask you moving forward. What’s what do you think you’re gonna do with the company? What’s I mean

Evan Calkins [00:29:53]:

Yeah. Yeah. It’s Let

Scott Cowan [00:29:55]:

me ask you this. Let me put you on the spot. If you ever could find a a proof press, would you would you start doing poster type stuff, bigger format stuff? Would that be fun?

Evan Calkins [00:30:04]:

I think it would be fun. It’d be very fun for me to do. It would just be a matter of if I had the time to do it. It would probably end up being more of a I’ve always wanted to do something where I could bring in young kids and introduce them to this machinery. The the stuff that we have isn’t the safest stuff to be around because it’s got they have these big flywheels. You know, they’re like four you know, three and a half, four feet high flywheels that are just whipping around. So, you know, to have kids in the shop is isn’t super safe with the equipment we have. But if we ever got sign a big sign press or something, it’d be super fun to bring in, kids and show them how these things are printed because everybody loves it.

Evan Calkins [00:30:49]:

Everybody loves to to see the letters and to, you know, spell something out that they want printed and crank the crank the big, crank over and ink the press and then see their poster come out. I think that’d be super fun. So if I ever did that, it would it would sort of be in that that angle rather than sort of business angle, I think.

Scott Cowan [00:31:11]:

Okay. And then here, I’m reading, you know, you’re using photopolymer plates. Yeah. We just talked about using, you know, movable type.

Evan Calkins [00:31:20]:

That’s right.

Scott Cowan [00:31:21]:

But that’s not what you guys are doing then. Right? You’re using this photopolymer?

Evan Calkins [00:31:25]:

That’s right. Yeah. We use plates, so so we have unique plates created for every color that we print on a card. So if there’s one color on the card, it gets one plate for that order. Now some custom orders we print have multiple colors, so they might have two colors on a double sided card, so two colors on each side. That would require four separate plates to be made, and then it would also require the cards to be fed through the press four different times for each one of those impressions. And they’re all fed by hand, one at a time, so you can imagine the time that it would take to print an order of two over two double sided cards. Wow.

Evan Calkins [00:32:08]:

So and and

Scott Cowan [00:32:09]:

That’s a lot of labor.

Evan Calkins [00:32:10]:

It is. And It

Scott Cowan [00:32:11]:

is four times it’s it would be four times what a single color one-sided card would be, basically?

Evan Calkins [00:32:16]:

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Plus the paper, we print on really nice, like, a % cotton thick paper. For double sided cards, they have to have really, really thick paper, so the impression doesn’t show through to the other side of the card. And, yeah, so back to photopolymer plates, the reason why we don’t use lead type anymore is because you are relegated to the type that you own. Right? So you don’t have any font choices other than the type that you might own in your shop, and it’s hard to track down type. It’s hard to track down full sets of type to use.

Evan Calkins [00:32:55]:

It’s very time consuming and tedious to set the type for each order. So the cool thing about the plates is that we can typeset everything on the computer digitally, unlike Adobe Illustrator. So we can have access to anything, any amount of type we can imagine that’s digital. And we can also make plates for other types of artwork, like custom logos and things like that. So it’s just very flexible, and you wouldn’t even close to be able to make money or make a business if you’re setting tight for all of these orders that come in.

Scott Cowan [00:33:32]:

K. So I found my way on your site to the introduction of your current lineup of presses.

Evan Calkins [00:33:38]:

Yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:33:38]:

And and so you’ve got this ’19 o two. That was your original one.

Evan Calkins [00:33:42]:

That’s right. So you

Scott Cowan [00:33:43]:

got a 1945. Looks a little more modern to me.

Evan Calkins [00:33:48]:

Yeah. It’s got Pretty

Scott Cowan [00:33:49]:

darn similar.

Evan Calkins [00:33:50]:

Yeah. It’s got the the street spokes on the flywheel rather

Scott Cowan [00:33:53]:

than the

Evan Calkins [00:33:54]:

ornate curved spokes. Yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:33:55]:

Right. So saving some money in ‘forty five World War II. Right. Sure. Okay. But then I’m looking at this 1970 Heidelberg. Yeah. And man, it doesn’t look anything like the others.

Scott Cowan [00:34:07]:

It looks, I mean, it looks like, I don’t know, a really large lawnmower, honestly. Sure. Yeah. So Yeah. How what is and so you’ve got these channel enterprises, and then you’ve got this Heidelberg.

Evan Calkins [00:34:23]:

Yeah. Yeah. The Heidelberg windmill is I kind of refer to it as the Mercedes of letter presses. It’s the it’s the last letter type of letterpress that was ever made. They’re workhorse presses. They’re still used today to number, do numbering. If a conventional print shop has a bunch of conventional presses and they’re printing off normal things, if they need to send something that printed through a press to uniquely number them, one, two, three, four, they use one of these presses because they can put a numbering machine in them that basically increments for every impression that it takes. Every once in a while, you’ll still see one of these old letter presses at a conventional print shop, but these presses are awesome.

Evan Calkins [00:35:15]:

They print in the same way that Chandler and Prices do, with this sort of clamshell, platen impression method. But everything on them is better. The inking system’s better. It’s got an ink fountain, which can introduce ink into the print job at a consistent pattern. Because if you’re doing a big job, the ink will run out and you have to replenish it on the ink plate so it doesn’t fade, the ink doesn’t fade over the print job. It also sucks the paper up manually. You’re not hand feeding it. It has suckers on it that suck the paper up.

Evan Calkins [00:35:52]:

It’s called a windmill because it has these gripper arms that grip the paper, and it looks like a windmill as it goes around and operates. And it’s got the coolest, most therapeutic sound to it when it’s printing. On my Instagram, I have some video up there of it printing, and it’s just got this awesome sound that everybody loves. And it’s it’s just really cool to see while it’s while it’s in operation.

Scott Cowan [00:36:19]:

So this is those rabbit hole questions. So I’m looking at these presses, and and so Yep. On the channel and prices Mhmm. All three of them have this round disc.

Evan Calkins [00:36:28]:

Yep. Is

Scott Cowan [00:36:29]:

that is that the ink plate?

Evan Calkins [00:36:31]:

Yep. The round disc on top is the ink plate. Yep.

Scott Cowan [00:36:34]:

Okay. So if I were at your shop and I was you wouldn’t let me near machinery. But if you if you did, you wouldn’t let me. I’d be your I’d be your l and I claim. You know, I mean, that guy was, you know

Evan Calkins [00:36:47]:

Yeah. We don’t mention we don’t mention l and I. So just

Scott Cowan [00:36:50]:

Yeah. All stars.

Evan Calkins [00:36:51]:

Yeah. Yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:36:53]:

I meant letter and ink. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Letter and ink. There you go. There

Evan Calkins [00:36:56]:

you go.

Scott Cowan [00:36:56]:

So if I if if you said, Scott, we need you to print these calling cards. It’s a 250 card batch. How’s that? Yep. How often do I have to ink that to do 250 cards? And let’s make them simple, not double sided, just a middle of the road average amount of text.

Evan Calkins [00:37:14]:

Do you mean how often would we have to add ink into the whole system, add ink onto the ink plate? Yes. Probably for two fifty cards, probably just once depending on the the surface area of the ink. Okay. Of course, for every impression that’s happening, the ink the rollers are going up on top of the ink, grabbing ink off the ink plate, and striking the form, which is the plate. Mhmm. So every impression, it’s it’s re inking that plate. But, yeah, to replenish the ink probably just once for 250 cards. Just once.

Scott Cowan [00:37:47]:

Okay. Yeah. I was thinking about that. So and what about, like, say, on the Heidelberg then, it’s got different inking systems, so you don’t have I mean, it just

Evan Calkins [00:37:55]:

Exactly.

Scott Cowan [00:37:56]:

It can go in longer.

Evan Calkins [00:37:57]:

Yeah. And the the win the Heidelberg is I usually print, like, wedding invitations and things with larger items on that. Still not poster size, but things that are larger or require a big solid area of ink because it’s more efficient in how it distributes ink. So, yeah. So, you don’t have to replenish the ink system as long as you have enough ink in what’s called the ink fountain in the back that just introduces slowly the ink into the system. And you have to dial all that in. There’s knobs and things you have to work with. So

Scott Cowan [00:38:33]:

So how long does it take you to set up? Okay. So I’m gonna order some cards from you. Mhmm. Let’s because we’ve talked about that too. So I’m gonna send you kind of this is what I want it to look like. You’re gonna put together something for me. You’re gonna send it back to me. We’ll look at it electronically.

Scott Cowan [00:38:48]:

I’m gonna give you the thumbs up. Yep. You create the plate. Are you create do are these plates created in in house, or do you have to send them out somewhere?

Evan Calkins [00:38:58]:

We we have another company make our plates for us because it’s a whole different, whole different thing. I mean, we’d have to have a whole different setup in order to do that. But yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:39:08]:

You send the plate out to the vendor. They send the plate back. You’ve got the plate in hand. We’re going to go and print my cards. Yep. We print my cards. They’re great. You look at them.

Scott Cowan [00:39:21]:

You cut them. I’m over I’m probably way oversimplifying things. But if I order my cards on

Evan Calkins [00:39:27]:

Mhmm.

Scott Cowan [00:39:27]:

The first of the month, how long how long is the process before I get my little box of my shiny box of new letterpress cards?

Evan Calkins [00:39:36]:

Yeah. So so the the two main things we print are the calling cards, which we’ve talked about, this predesigned, simple cards that people can choose from. And then we have custom work. Custom work can be anything. I mean, it can be multicolored job, jobs and and and a bunch of other stuff. So, it really depends on what you order, but assuming that you order just one of these calling cards, our turnaround time hovers right around two weeks. So, you put That’s

Scott Cowan [00:40:03]:

not bad at all.

Evan Calkins [00:40:04]:

Yeah, you put in your order, we start the process, we start the plate making process, and then they go into a queue. And, yeah, people in The US usually get them right around two weeks.

Scott Cowan [00:40:15]:

That’s I think that’s awesome. Yeah. And, of of course, now I’m looking at the Heidelberg press again. There’s like a piece of metal on a rod hanging out in front of it and Yeah. Without really what is that?

Evan Calkins [00:40:33]:

Yeah. That’s it says original Heidelberg on it. That’s a it’s basically a safety guard.

Scott Cowan [00:40:39]:

Oh, okay.

Evan Calkins [00:40:40]:

So, you when that’s turned up, currently, as you’re looking at it, it’s down. While it’s down while it’s down, the press can run. But if you turn it up, it locks the press so it can’t pull an impression.

Scott Cowan [00:40:52]:

Oh.

Evan Calkins [00:40:53]:

So if you’re because what you’re a lot of times you’re leaning over and into that press because you’re doing you’re do you’re adjusting things, you’re adjusting registration, and you don’t want the obviously, you don’t want the press to actually engage and you’ll be in a world of hurt. So that’s just a safety mechanism. But that that plate on the front is is the iconic look of that Heidelberg windmill. It’s a very iconic iconic thing to that press.

Scott Cowan [00:41:21]:

Well, let’s go back and talk about your custom letterpress stuff because all of a sudden, I’m I you know, I’m looking at that, and I’m like, wow. This is kind of interesting. Yeah. Walk me through yeah, walk me through so, like, you don’t do foiling. You don’t do duplexing. Okay. Yeah. What is blind impressions? I mean, I know it says inkless.

Scott Cowan [00:41:46]:

So what is is that we’re just pressing, impacting on the paper to give it a

Evan Calkins [00:41:52]:

That’s right. Yeah. It’s a pretty popular it’s a pretty popular look with letterpress printing. And so, basically, you just don’t have any ink on the press. You you take your rollers off, so it’s not actually inking the the plate. And all the plate is doing is just making an impression into the paper. And usually, we make a very deep impression, for a blind impression. It just creates a really cool, cool look.

Evan Calkins [00:42:16]:

Usually, we use it for, like, a design flourish on the paper rather than, you know, something that needs to be legible. But there’s some good examples of that on my Instagram or if you go to hobanpress.com. There’s some some pretty cool examples

Scott Cowan [00:42:31]:

of how we’ve We’ll make yeah. I’ll make a link to to this because this is cool. Yeah. So what else about the company haven’t we what what else what haven’t I asked you that we should talk about with as far as the company?

Evan Calkins [00:42:46]:

Yeah. I think I think one of the things when I was, you know, we talked about developing the business before and having a business plan, and I said I didn’t have a business plan, but I’ve really enjoyed, like, over time, establishing that business plan. And the way I’ve done that is just by learning what I like to do, what I am passionate about, what my customers like. And so, you know, when you think about writing a business plan, you think about just sitting down and sort of hammering it out, right, looking at statistics, doing all that kind of stuff. Well, I kind of view that as I’ve been sort of developing my business plan and tweaking my business over the last eight years. And one of the things that I’ve become kind of passionate about is about helping sort of opening up the world of letterpress printing to a bigger audience, because it’s pretty expensive compared to conventional printing. Like, when people think of getting business cards, they think of maybe going to Vistaprint, where Vistaprint has, like, a as a deal, you can get a thousand cards for, like, $10 or something like that, something ridiculous, as long as you print their logo on the back of the cards or something something like that. And so so you would think I’m competing with EvincedoPrint, but I’m not but we’re not really competing with on that level.

Evan Calkins [00:44:13]:

We’re we’re kind of like a whole different we appeal to sort of a different crowd. But at the same time, I wanted letterpress printing to be available to more people because it seems a little old school and maybe a little esoteric and a little hard to come by, and so which is one of the reasons I I did Hogan cards, kind of that whole side of the business where we’re making these relatively cheap calling cards that are predesigned. You don’t have to pay a designer to design them. You just hand us the info that you want on them. We’ll take care of the kerning and the detail work. I love doing layout and design work, and I always have sort of this idea of designing for myself. So whenever I’m designing somebody’s card, I imagine that I’m designing these for myself and I wanna please myself. Usually, that works.

Evan Calkins [00:45:11]:

It makes them happy as well. So, that’s kind of like half of the business is this idea to get letterpress printing into more people’s hands, and that also works well as a business plan because you’re opening up your audience more, to a lot more people. So so, yeah, that’s something I’ve been kind of working at and and and whittling away at for the last eight years.

Scott Cowan [00:45:39]:

So is it still fun? After eight years of doing this, is it still fun to be on the spot?

Evan Calkins [00:45:44]:

Yeah. It it is. There’s some things that are monotonous about it just like there are for any when you run any business. Yeah. But it’s it’s amazing. I mean, I just I love it. And what I like about it is obviously the printing aspect and sort of the artistic aspect, but I also like to fiddle with my, like, this is my company. I get to fiddle with it kind of like you’re, you know, you have a set of Legos and you’re just building something, and you can you can tack on something and see if it works.

Evan Calkins [00:46:16]:

And if it doesn’t, you can remove it. I love, because I have a a software development background. I love that I can take something so old school as letterpress printing and mesh it with something, like, with with technology that’s happening, like, right now. Like, I I’ve been able to develop my own website. I’ve been able to, like, build, like, a little side app that I can communicate with my customers, and I can build my own little internal tools to manage our orders. And I love fiddling with stuff like that. And, yeah, so, yeah, I just love having my own thing and knowing that everything I do is investing into my own thing instead of maybe a government website. So this

Scott Cowan [00:47:10]:

is the part where we’re gonna switch over to when you’re not running your business, what do you do for fun? And I’m on your Instagram, so I have Yeah. Two questions just to start with.

Evan Calkins [00:47:22]:

Mhmm.

Scott Cowan [00:47:23]:

I’m confused because I’m looking at the pictures.

Evan Calkins [00:47:26]:

K.

Scott Cowan [00:47:27]:

I see a I see a picture of a woman on a subway wearing a red baseball cap.

Evan Calkins [00:47:32]:

Yes.

Scott Cowan [00:47:32]:

I’m gonna guess that that’s your wife.

Evan Calkins [00:47:34]:

Yep.

Scott Cowan [00:47:36]:

K. So I see a red New York Yankees cap.

Evan Calkins [00:47:40]:

Mhmm.

Scott Cowan [00:47:41]:

But a few pictures after that, I see Wrigley Field in an old Cubs cap. It’s really it’s really important that you don’t disappoint me. Where does your allegiance lie here?

Evan Calkins [00:47:55]:

Yeah. I don’t know if I’m gonna disappoint you or not, but our allegiance really doesn’t lie anywhere other than the fact

Scott Cowan [00:48:00]:

That’s okay.

Evan Calkins [00:48:01]:

Okay. Okay. Other than the fact that we we were in those cities, and we like to soak up as much of the, you know, the city culture as we can. And so we went we went to Wrigley Field where in Chicago, and we went to Fenway where when we were in Boston. And, and yeah. So we’ve we’ve kind of gathered little little mementos in all the cities.

Scott Cowan [00:48:27]:

Alright. So I’m gonna put you on the spot. Are you if you went if I said you gotta go back to one ballpark. Are you gonna go to Fenway, or are you gonna go to Wrigley?

Evan Calkins [00:48:36]:

Oh my gosh. I think, I think I’d probably go to Fenway. They were equally as cool, equally as old school. I mean, we’re talking about old school things and having that sort of nostalgia. And even though, I don’t know if you can have nostalgia for something when you were never alive for in the first place, but just going to those places and seeing how different they are from a modern ballpark, we have Safeco or yeah, it’s still called Safeco.

Scott Cowan [00:49:09]:

T Mobile or whatever. It’s safe.

Evan Calkins [00:49:11]:

Yeah. It’s safe. Mariners Stadium here in Seattle. And it’s awesome. It’s a it’s a great stadium. But going to see those stadiums are just it’s amazing. I love it.

Scott Cowan [00:49:20]:

Yeah. Safeco is a great modern spin on the iconic stadiums. I have not been to Fenway. Yeah. But I’ve been to Wrigley a couple of times, and Wrigley’s Wrigley’s cool. Yeah. As long as you don’t say the Yankees, we’re still okay. Yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:49:36]:

Alright. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Question number two, and this is something you say on your bio, so this is what I wanted to come back to. Sure. I see a Volkswagen Westfalia.

Evan Calkins [00:49:43]:

Yes.

Scott Cowan [00:49:44]:

I see a I see a Westie.

Evan Calkins [00:49:46]:

Yes.

Scott Cowan [00:49:48]:

You like to fiddle with things. You have a Westie. Yeah.

Evan Calkins [00:49:53]:

Now you have to wanna fiddle with things.

Scott Cowan [00:49:55]:

Where do you guys like to go in that around Washington? Where are some cool places that that thing’s been?

Evan Calkins [00:50:01]:

Well, I mean, apart from our year long trip across The United States, we’ve we’ve we’ve had more adventures in my older ’78 Westie. So before, I had a ’89 Vanagon, which we have now.

Scott Cowan [00:50:18]:

Uh-huh.

Evan Calkins [00:50:18]:

Before that, I had a I had a ’78 West Folio camper, and we, you know, we’ve going to the beach is always awesome. You know, Cape Disappointment is a place we love, and, you know, state parks is always great. I I like to kayak too, so taking it up, towards Mount Saint Helens, going to finding a lake, going to Rife Lake or Mayfield Lake, places like that.

Scott Cowan [00:50:50]:

So you’re 78. Was it kind of a cream color?

Evan Calkins [00:50:53]:

Yeah. It was a it was like a beige.

Scott Cowan [00:50:55]:

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And why’d you why did you retire that one?

Evan Calkins [00:51:02]:

So, yeah,

Scott Cowan [00:51:04]:

this is Hopefully, that’s not a it’s hopefully, that’s not a bad question to

Evan Calkins [00:51:07]:

ask you, but No.

Scott Cowan [00:51:08]:

It’s it’s

Evan Calkins [00:51:09]:

a sad quote. No. No. But there’s a story there’s a story behind it. So a few years ago, my wife and I and my daughter, who was in sixth grade at the time, we decided to sell our house, and live in our van for a year and travel The United States. So, sold the house, we started our trip in our ‘seventy eight Volkswagen Westfalia, and just a few weeks into, or probably just a couple of weeks into the trip, we realized, oh man, this is going to be a very difficult year in 1978. We’ve done a fair amount of camping in it, but to live in it is a whole different thing. So, while we were in Salt Lake City, we actually found a 1989 Vanagon, and we purchased it.

Evan Calkins [00:52:05]:

And my wife’s father flew out to Salt Lake City and drove back our ’78 to Washington with a friend of his for us, and we continued the trip in the ’89. When we got back from our trip about a year later, I ended up selling the ’78 just because we didn’t have room to keep two Volkswagens in the fleet. So I was sad, but it was time to to say goodbye to it.

Scott Cowan [00:52:31]:

Time to move on?

Evan Calkins [00:52:32]:

Yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:52:33]:

Alright. I’m looking is your is this a wood kayak that you have on top of the Westie?

Evan Calkins [00:52:41]:

Yeah. Yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:52:42]:

How is that?

Evan Calkins [00:52:42]:

It’s a it’s called a pygmy kayak. It’s a it’s a, it’s a company out of Port Townsend who has made wooden kayak kits for years. It’s a pretty iconic, well known place there in in Port Townsend. I think they have a lot of history in that city. And, my dad and I bought one of the kits and decided to build a kayak together, and it was it was incredible. It was great.

Scott Cowan [00:53:11]:

Oh, that’s so cool. So you you bought the kit, but you built you built the kayak.

Evan Calkins [00:53:15]:

Yeah. They they have they cut all the the the pieces of wood for you, like laser cut them, and they give you all the supplies, all the it’s a stitch and glue kayak, so you stitch it together. You drill holes in all the seams. You stitch it together with wire, and then you epoxy all the seams, and then you fiberglass it all, and it’s a whole thing. But it’s so much fun, and it’s a really, really fast, awesome kayak. Really light, strong kayak. It’s it’s fun. K.

Scott Cowan [00:53:51]:

Are you a fan of coffee?

Evan Calkins [00:53:54]:

Yes. I’m a I’m a I’m a big fan of coffee. I’ve got my Olympia Coffee Roasters mug here I’m drinking out of right now.

Scott Cowan [00:54:00]:

Is that is that is that gonna be the answer when I ask where’s a good place to get a cup of coffee?

Evan Calkins [00:54:04]:

Yeah. That’s the best place.

Scott Cowan [00:54:06]:

Okay.

Evan Calkins [00:54:06]:

Best place I’ve been to in Washington is Olympia Coffee Roasters. They’re they’ve won national awards for their roasts. They’re in they send their baristas to the competitions, and, they’ve got shops in Tacoma and Seattle now, I think, too, as well as Olympia. So

Scott Cowan [00:54:26]:

Which one of their coffees do you like?

Evan Calkins [00:54:28]:

I usually try, like, their their single origins that they rotate through.

Scott Cowan [00:54:33]:

Alright.

Evan Calkins [00:54:35]:

You know, when you go there, their big truck is, like, their their staple espresso roast. It’s I mean, it’s great if you’re gonna get a shot. Yep. But, yeah, I I always like to change it up and get whatever whatever new.

Scott Cowan [00:54:47]:

So what were you drinking? That cup you held up, what were you now you’ll say, I’m drinking water. But Yeah. What was what was in that cup?

Evan Calkins [00:54:53]:

This is actually Stumptown. I was drinking Stumptown.

Scott Cowan [00:54:57]:

That’s another that’s another solid one, though.

Evan Calkins [00:54:59]:

Yeah. Yeah. They make good they have good stuff. So and I used to roast coffee, so I haven’t roast in a couple years, but I had a I had a, like, a two k kilogram drum roaster in my garage. Okay. It’s like a kind of a sample roaster, they call it. Yep. And I was into roasting for quite a while, so I I love that.

Scott Cowan [00:55:20]:

And so so you really do like this hands on tech. I mean, you’re you’re Yeah. Coffee roasting is a yeah. And then letterpress, and then you built your kayak. Awesome. Last question for today. Mhmm. If I’m visiting Chehalis Centralia area and it’s lunchtime, where’s a place I need to go for lunch?

Evan Calkins [00:55:42]:

Yeah. If you’re in Australia, check out Boccata Deli.

Scott Cowan [00:55:47]:

Okay.

Evan Calkins [00:55:47]:

It’s a it’s a Greek inspired deli with a chef. His name is Darren. He’s one of the most talented chefs in the area. He also does special dinners and things. I don’t know. During the COVID days here, I’m not sure what all is operating. But if if Bokatta is open, check out Bocada in Centralia. In Chehalis, there’s an awesome, sort of a, a Scottish bakery called Shona’s in Chehalis that is amazing.

Evan Calkins [00:56:22]:

She makes traditional Scottish pies and pastries.

Scott Cowan [00:56:26]:

Mhmm.

Evan Calkins [00:56:27]:

So dip in there for for a pie and some coffee, and you’ll be good.

Scott Cowan [00:56:32]:

Come on. You have to understand that recommending a Scottish bakery in Chehalis doesn’t that’s not what I would have expected. You know what I mean? I that’s not what I that’s awesome. I love that. That’s cool.

Evan Calkins [00:56:43]:

Yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:56:45]:

So I’m gonna wrap this up, and I’m gonna say thank you. But what where can people find you? What should they be looking for? You get the last word.

Evan Calkins [00:56:54]:

Yeah. If you wanna check out our our calling cards we spoke about, hobencards.com, check that out. We have some custom work on hobenpress.com. And then just our Instagram would probably be the best way to to follow what we do. I’ve been posting some videos of the presses running and stuff, so Hoban Press on Instagram. Yeah, that’s probably the best three areas.

Scott Cowan [00:57:21]:

Great. Well, I really appreciate making the time to be here today. And I’m once I stop hitting once I push the record button and we stop recording, we’re gonna talk about me ordering some cards. So Okay. Have that conversation. But anyway, thank you so much for being on.

Evan Calkins [00:57:34]:

Thanks, Scott. Appreciate it.

Scott Cowan [00:57:48]:

Join us next time for another episode of the Exploring Washington State podcast.