SIGNET COFFEE ROASTERS
On a mission.
They never drank coffee. Didn’t like it.
Ew. No.
So you can imagine the family’s surprise when Dennis and Leah Posterick said they’re gonna be coffee roasters in Pittsburg, Kansas.
“The kids were so amazed,” Leah said. “We never had coffee in the house. We just never really enjoyed it. Anytime we’d try it, it always seemed like more sugar and cream than coffee.”
Shortly before moving to Pittsburg from central Minnesota in 2009, however, they saw the light. Or, rather, tasted it.
“There was a coffee roaster in Little Falls, and he showed us that coffee can actually taste really good,” Leah said. “He got us hooked on good coffee. But when we moved here, there was no roaster in town. So every time we’d go back to Minnesota, we had to stock up.”
Inspired by their newfound love of quality coffee and in search of a new venture in their new town, Leah and Dennis opened Signet Coffee Roasters.
In the beginning, it was just a roastery. The coffee shop we know today at 109 N. Broadway would come six years later.
“We just wanted to roast good coffee beans,” Leah said. “We wanted to share what we knew about how really good coffee should taste.”
The only problem was that many customers wanted to try it first … something more than a taste test. They wanted a good cup of coffee.
“We couldn’t give away a cup of coffee,” Dennis said, “but we could sell it. But to sell it, you needed a food license. If we’re going to do that, we thought we might as well open a coffee shop.”
So they found a new space, got the family together to fix it up, and in one weekend in 2018, created today’s Signet Coffee Roasters.
“That’s when business really grew,” Leah said.
Today, Signet creates about any coffee drink you can think of. They bake and sell a variety of yummy pastries, oatmeal, and other goodies. And of course, they sell the beans.
Oh, these magical beans.
“It took a couple of years of educating people about coffee beans,” Leah said. “They don’t automatically come the color brown. They’re green, and it takes a very special roasting process to create really good-tasting coffee.
“The blends we’ve created are really a response to what our customers want,” she said. “People here like a bold coffee, and those blends are some of our best sellers. But we also have natural, earthy, fruity options, as well.”
While coffee is their life now, it’s not exactly why the Posterick’s are here in Pittsburg. That story actually started with their son, Ryan, who met a group from Pittsburg during a missions trip to Mexico.
“He met this missions group from Pittsburg, spent some time with them, and within two weeks decided to move to Pittsburg, Kansas,” Leah said.
Mission work was something the family did often while living in Minnesota. They’d take frequent trips to Mexico to help however they could. Leah and Dennis told the kids that once they were all done with school, they were going to spend more time helping in places like Africa.
“When it came time to do that, our oldest came to us and said that it would nice for all of us to have somewhere to go together when we’re not in Africa,” Leah said. “They thought building a house together was a good plan, so we sold our house in Minnesota and moved to Pittsburg.”
The family shared that home for many years until Ryan’s family grew and needed more space. Leah and Dennis eventually moved into the loft above Signet, which was previously being rented out as an Airbnb.
The plan, however, would still be to work some and leave plenty of time for mission work.
“That’s actually part of the reason we were looking for something we could do ourselves,” Leah said. “When we moved to town, we knew no company would hire us and let us be gone for weeks at a time to do mission work. So we thought going into business for ourselves would help us be self-sustaining and allow us to be gone when we needed to be.”
Then the coffee thing just took off.
“Business doubled when we moved into this space,” Dennis said.
Being gone for weeks at a time didn’t seem feasible.
“We think the Lord was telling us that this is our mission,” Leah said. “Why do we have to go to a different country? We can be here and serve our community. We enjoy getting to know people, and it was clear what we provided made people happy.”
The success of Signet was somewhat surprising at first, they admitted. It was pretty quiet downtown when they moved to Pitt. Many people here even advised against opening the coffee roastery downtown.
“We were told that everyone avoids downtown because of the stoplights,” Leah said. “But I thought you could look at it as when people are stopped at a stoplight, they might look around and see what’s there.”
Of course, downtown today looks a little different than it did a decade ago.
“It’s just so fun now,” Leah said. “It’s so neat to walk downtown and see all the stores that are opening and talk to other business owners.”
Dennis said he believes the Pittsburg business community is much more collaborative and supportive than it was then they arrived.
“It’s definitely improved by leaps and bounds,” he said. “The businesses work together more. That’s important because when one thrives, others thrive.”
The Postericks see their business as a contract with Pittsburg, a promise to always be here to serve the highest quality coffee and experience.
Hence the name.
“In the Bible, the signet ring was used as a seal on contracts,” Leah said. “We wanted it to mean that we are people of our word. If we say we’ll do it, we’ll do it. We want to make a good impression no matter who comes in the door.”
Usually, they can see that they’ve fulfilled that promise as the customers are leaving.
“You never see someone not happy after they’ve had a good cup of coffee,” Dennis said.