In specialty coffee, few origin stories have as much character as the one behind SipWithMe's national preferred roaster, Metropolis Coffee Company.
It starts, fittingly, with too much espresso.
In 2002, father-son duo Jeff Dreyfuss and Tony Dreyfuss, a linguist and a philosopher, threw back a dozen or so espresso shots at a Coffee Fest trade show in Seattle, wandered past a roaster manufacturer's booth, and bought a 12 kg roaster on the spot.
No business plans.
No location in mind.
Just a long-standing interest in sourcing, roasting and cupping.
By December 2003, they opened their first café and started roasting. The pair brought their love of science fiction, fantasy, and lore with them into their new business venture, and that infusion of curiosity and craft quickly made Metropolis the coffee brand Chicago didn't know it needed (and now can't do without).
Three years later, on a whim, Metropolis entered Roast Magazine's 2007 Micro Roaster Roaster of the Year competition.
And they won.
The wholesale inquiries that followed forced a choice. They could keep opening cafés or they could serve wholesale partners properly. They chose wholesale and never looked back.
Today, Metropolis roasts about 1M pounds of coffee a year in their 18K-square-foot roastery, a repurposed riverfront tannery along the North Branch of the Chicago River.
Despite their focus on wholesaling, Metropolis still owns and operates the cozy Edgewater café where it all began, and they even opened a storefront inside O'Hare's Terminal 5 in 2024.
Today, Metropolis’ reach extends well beyond Chicagoland. You'll find their meticulously crafted coffee in hundreds of multifamily communities, partner cafés, restaurants, grocers, hotels, and offices across North America, Europe, and the Middle East. Yet, no matter where their coffee is served, the essence of Metropolis remains the same: an approachable, community-focused brand where everyone has a seat at the table.
Every batch is hand-roasted to order and nitrogen-flushed to lock in flavor. That's freshness treated as a standard, not a selling point. The same goes for sourcing. All of their coffee is purchased from transparent, sustainable brokers and farmers, so everyone in the supply chain benefits, starting with the growers.
They've taken on the industry's biggest waste problem, too. Metropolis produces North America's first commercially compostable espresso capsules, proving that single-serve convenience doesn't have to come at the planet's expense.
Metropolis believes great coffee should improve the lives of everyone who touches it. As such, they source quality coffees from producers and importers they know and trust, ensuring sustainability and fair prices for farmers. They work hard to create a diverse and supportive environment for their employees. They put an immense amount of love and care into roasting, packaging, and brewing for their customers.
They even help other coffee companies (competitors included) scale without compromising quality through their co-packing service, Metropolis Workshop. Sharing hard-won expertise with the people you compete against says a lot about a company. Not many businesses hand their playbook to the competition, but Metropolis thinks the whole industry gets better when they do.
When Metropolis boldly proclaims that "Great Coffee for Everyone" is their mission, believe them. It isn’t just a slogan. Every cup brewed can be traced back to a trusted farmer, a batch of coffee hand roasted to order, and a company that would rather raise the industry than corner it.
Metropolis and SipWithMe make such great partners because we're after the same thing: coffee that's worth the care it takes to make it.
To see what Metropolis is roasting right now, visit metropoliscoffee.com. And if you want your shared space to feature great coffee for everyone, let’s talk!
