West Lou Coffee is Brewing a Future For Louisville’s West End

All images courtesy of West Lou Coffee.

Louisville, Kentucky-based small batch roasting company West Lou Coffee made its first big move in late 2024, relocating from a food business incubator kitchen into a dedicated roastery. 

From within the modest 700-square-foot new digs — where three Arc 800 roasting machines sit alongside packing equipment — West Lou Founder Sean Roberson set a goal of selling at least 10,000 bags of coffee by this September.

For Roberson, the 10,000 mark would be proof of concept — with the goal being additional jobs in the West End. 

West Lou Coffee Sean Roberson.

“The West End is an area where poverty is concentrated and has been for decades,” Roberson recently told DCN. “There is a lack of resources [such as] nice restaurants, shops, businesses, etc., when you compare it to other parts of Louisville. A lot of the businesses that are here are Black-owned. There’s just a lack of investment and love given to our area and you can see it in the housing and amenities.”

Roberson, who was born and raised in the Shawnee neighborhood of west Louisville, founded West Lou Coffee in 2021 as a supplier to local markets, bakeries, offices and cafes.

Roberson has also worked for the past 20 years in corporate finance, picking up coffee roasting as a hobby in 2016 while living in Atlanta. A corporate finance position with KFC brought Roberson back to his hometown Louisville five years later.

“My motivation in my art, my brand and my messaging is that good things can and do come from places that are often overlooked and misunderstood,” said Roberson. “I spoke a little about what the West End of Louisville is lacking. What we have, more than any other thing, is perseverance, hope and each other. We have lived in these conditions for a long time, and we are still here.”

Today, the company and its surrounding community are facing a crossroads. While Roberson continues at his job at KFC, the fast-food giant recently announced plans to relocate its headquarters to Dallas, representing a significant economic blow to Louisville. 

Meanwhile, Brown-Forman, owner of the Jack Daniel’s spirits brand, announced that it will shut down its Louisville barrel-making plant, laying off roughly 640 workers amid restructuring.

Roberson is now hoping West Lou coffee can play some small part in injecting new economic life into the community. With future growth in mind, Roberson in 2021 purchased a 5,000-square-foot abandoned warehouse in the West End, just up the road from where he’s roasting now. 

Should his coffee business take off, Roberson hopes to combine profits with loans to renovate the building and transform it into a larger production facility. 

“I literally dreamed a while back that I would develop West Lou Coffee Roastery in the West End of Louisville, and we would hire people from the ‘hood to help us roast, fill orders and deliver to customers throughout the tri-state area of Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio,” said Roberson. “It all comes back to thinking bigger than what we have become accustomed to seeing, and creating the example and foundation for future generations. I don’t have kids, but I plan to keep working on West Lou Coffee so we can finally have an institution that can provide jobs, give hope and purpose to a community that I love and has given so much to me.”

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