With a humble quest for better coffee in John Clark's Maryville kitchen, the evolution of Vienna Coffee Company started with just a popcorn popper, a few speciality grade green beans, and the budding coffee enthusiast's determination.
Determination for a better cup of coffee inspired Maryville, Tennessee native, John N. Clark, to take his first steps towards ensuring his hometown knows that “Great Coffee is an Adventure.”
Upon his return to East Tennessee from Bay Area, California in 1996 John found the availability of specialty coffee in the East Tennessee area lacking. He promptly researched roasting green coffee beans and ordered his first bag of the best specialty-grade coffee beans available. In no time, he was roasting his own craft coffee with a popcorn popper in his home kitchen.
Fast forward and 2022 finds the Clark family celebrating the 20th anniversary of Vienna Coffee Company and John’s 20th year as full time self-titled Roastmaster. Through the success of the Roastery, John prides himself as a Roastmaster of sustainably sourced, quality coffees for customers and retailers well beyond his hometown.
History: From a coffee roasting hobbyist to a Coffee Roastery owner
When John’s early coffee roasting hobby grew, he quickly relocated from his kitchen to his garage. Although he initially retained his full-time day job as a chemical engineer, John’s choice of coffee roaster grew with his passion. He stretched from a regular popcorn popper to an air-pop popper to a roaster designed explicitly for those roasting green coffee beans at home.
John roasting on the original Red Roaster
He soon purchased his first commercial scale roaster on eBay, now affectionately nicknamed the Red Roaster. With the Red Roaster John started roasting 17-pound batches in his garage. This significant increase of craft roasted coffees allowed John to generously shared his fresh-roasted coffee with family and friends, a bag at a time.
The persistence for a superior cup of coffee led John from a home roasting hobbyist to the owner of Vienna Coffee Company, Blount County’s first local coffee roastery, in 2002.
To support his growing and increasingly expensive hobby, Clark officially launched the Vienna Coffee Company in the fall of 2002. The historical reputation of the infamous Viennese coffee houses of Austria inspired the name of Maryville’s first coffee roastery. As the community discovered the superior quality and distinct difference of John’s artisan roasted coffees the demand for VCC’s coffee grew.
“Every time I put a bag in someone’s kitchen, I had a customer,” John quips. “Once they tried to go back to their previous favorites, they would immediately recognize the quality difference and request more Vienna Coffee.”
An out-of-Tennessee move requested by his then-full-time employer cemented the Clark family’s decision to officially establish Vienna Coffee Company, LLC (VCC) and for John to embrace craft coffee roasting as his full-time career. Within a few short years, VCC found itself roasting a variety of coffees for coffee enthusiasts, coffee shops, and retailers across East Tennessee. Maryville’s local coffee roastery found itself consistently consulting small coffee shops in addition to supplying superior roasted coffees without a coffee shop of its own.
Vienna Coffee House opens its doors
After eight years as a wholesale coffee roaster, John seized the opportunity to secure a downtown Maryville coffee shop location in 2010. The picturesque older home previously housed another coffee shop already serving VCC coffees, making the decision to expand his business and open Vienna Coffee House a natural progression. Serving freshly baked pastries along with its artisan coffees, the Coffee House evolved into a favored gathering place for people across the Blount County community.
Growth into Maryville’s Living Room
The growing demand for VCC’s specialty coffees influenced two separate moves for the roastery until its present location in downtown Maryville became available in 2013. The building offers 18,000 square feet of usable space to accommodate VCC’s coffee roastery and Vienna Coffee House within the same building. In addition the property includes picturesque outdoor patio overlooking Pistol Creek and adjoins Blount County’s greenway trail system. In addition to being steps away from Maryville’s historic downtown shopping district and Maryville College, an adjacent parking lot houses Maryville’s seasonal weekly Farmer’s Market.
Vienna Coffee House offers a welcoming space open to individuals and groups community-wide. On any day of the week, the coffee house hosts business meetings, non-profit boards, study groups, and a variety of individuals enjoying delicious homemade food along with award-winning artisan coffees.
One of Blount County’s local pastors who frequents the coffee house refers to it as “Maryville’s Living Room.” A title Clark is proud to claim.
“A lot of sermons have been written here,” John laughs, “fueled by coffee.”
In addition to the Vienna Coffee House in Maryville, VCC offers retail locations at the Hardin Valley campus of Pellissippi Community College, on the Oak Ridge National Labs campus in Oak Ridge, and the VCC-branded Maples Coffeehouse on the campus of Carson-Newman University.
Its freshly roasted specialty coffees sell at several regional Kroger locations in addition to many small coffee shops and markets across the area.
Vienna Coffee Company acquires Fleetwood Coffee
In November of 2019, Vienna Coffee Company announced its acquisition of the physical and brand assets of Fleetwood Coffee Company. Fleetwood coffee is a heritage brand of coffees founded in 1925 and originally based out of Chattanooga, TN.
In the 1940s and 1950s, Fleetwood was a widely distributed major coffee brand and could be found on grocery shelves and in offices throughout the Southeast. After being off the market since the early 1970s, it was re-introduced in 2015.
Today you can enjoy a freshly brewed cup of Fleetwood coffee at EZ Stop Food Marts across East Tennessee.
In addition to the entire line of Fleetwood coffees, the acquisition brought licensed MoonPie® coffee into the Vienna Coffee Company family of coffees. This specialty grade flavored coffee features the classic chocolatey graham + marshmallow taste profile of the classic MoonPie® treat.
At Vienna Coffee Company,
We continuously strive to be a market leader by offering you excellent specialty coffees from across the globe. But we remain steadfast in our vision to pursue and provide craft coffees that are sourced sustainably and provide a living wage for coffee workers regardless of gender.
We offer coffee enthusiasts a wide variety of coffees from our special Foothills Series to a wide selection of Fair Trade Certified, Organic, and single-origin coffees in addition to our delicious flavored coffee selection. Try one or several to ensure you capture your favorite flavor notes in your coffee and help us ensure responsible sourcing from seed to cup.