Vertically Integrated Hub Coffee Rolls Into Its Biggest Cafe in Reno

Inside the new Hub Coffee Roasters location at the RED development in Reno. All images courtesy of Hub Coffee Roasters.

Highlighting partnerships involving three different coffee farms in Colombia, the third and largest Hub Coffee Roasters cafe recently rolled into Reno, Nevada. 

The newly opened 3,100-square-foot cafe at the Reno Experience District (RED) development offers plenty of guest seating on two floors, with ample space for meetings and small events.

The brightly lit combination of steel, stone, concrete and potted greenery is accented by light wooden shelves and tabletops throughout the multilevel cafe, where two separate bars cater to different needs. 

“We want our stores to exude our ‘Hub Means Nevada’ motto,” Hub Coffee Roasters Owner Mark Trujillo told Daily Coffee News. “We have Nevada mountainscapes on the walls, and [we] stuck to a desert-themed color palette for furniture and other decor.”

Decorative golden bike wheels adorn the walls of the shop, nodding to the Hub name as well as its enthusiastic support from the cycling community. 

“Gold accents can be seen throughout the store to reflect our ‘Good as Gold’ philosophy,” said Trujillo. “Since the Hub started, it was about coffee, community, and bikes.”

Mark Trujillo and his children, Joey and Jessica, launched Hub in a small garage in Midtown Reno in 2009, roasting on a San Franciscan SF1 machine. The company soon after grew into an SF6, and then its current SF25, which was joined in 2018 by a Loring S7.

Retail operations have fluctuated over the years, with multiple openings and closings. The oldest of Hub’s three current cafes is the Riverside location by the Truckee River, which opened in 2012. The second of the three cafes, at Meadowcreek in South Reno, opened two years ago.  

The year 2016 proved to be a turning point for Hub, when Vicente Mejia — soon-to-be co-founder of Colombia-based exporter Clearpath Coffee — came to Reno for a six-week mentorship program with Trujillo through the Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative. 

Trujillo later traveled to Colombia with Mejia and met with coffee producer Rodrigo Sanchez, whose coffees Hub had previously roasted. The relationship resulted in a business partnership between the three men, who now own three coffee farms in Colombia.

In 2020, the trio acquired the 33-hectare farm Finca Las Nubes in Huila. The following year, they bought the 66-hectare farm Finca Las Veraneras, and one year later they acquired Finca Monte Bonito, a 10-hectare certified-organic farm that uses regenerative agriculture practices. 

“We consistently carry a washed and natural process coffee from Finca Las Nubes, year-round,” said Trujillo. “The coffees that we receive from the other farms tend to be more specialty and seasonal. For example, we had a Gesha from Las Veraneras this time last year in 2024 that was scored a 95 by the Coffee Review.”

These and other carefully sourced coffees are roasted by Hub Coffee Head Roaster Harrison DeSio in a 2,500-square-foot dedicated roasting facility in Reno.

Some of those coffees now make their way to one of the two espresso bars at the RED location. At a higher-volume bar, an Eversys Enigma turns out espresso, while a rotating single-origin espresso program is executed at a second bar, where a La Marzocco Swan grinder sits alongside a Victoria Arduino Eagle Tempo espresso machine.

Cold brew and a daily rotating single-origin hot drip coffee are brewed on a Ground Control machine, while house drip and other options flow from a Wilber Curtis G4 Thermo Pro Twin.

All these coffees form the delicious center of Hub, which certainly appears to be on a roll. 

“Our upstairs area is also available for rent and can accommodate up to 76 guests, which makes it an ideal spot for hosting meetings, gatherings, classes, and community events,” said Trujillo. “It’s full circle for us as we started the Hub to be a hub for the community. We’re also excited to be introducing a beer and wine program to this location soon.”

Hub Coffee Roasters is located at 2020 Red Dr. #101 in Reno. Comments? Questions? News to share? Contact DCN’s editors here. For all the latest coffee industry news, subscribe to the DCN newsletter.