Bon Appétit Management Company

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“There are a million coffee companies in Denver,” says Anthony Cutajar, executive chef at Conga, a B&I account in the Mile High City, and a forager for the region. “But when I came across Wagon, the story attracted me to the brand,” he says. “This one stuck out to me more than the rest.” 

Wagon Coffee was started in 2020 by Tami Canaday, a former barista who moved up the corporate ladder in the coffee industry over 20 years before striking out on her own. She started her company as a way to support the recovery community that she and her husband Ryan help nurture in the Denver area through their non-profit, called FREE Recovery Community. 

FREE is a spiritual community focused on recovery from addiction that started in Tami and Ryan’s backyard in 2018. Ryan, a pastor, has been sober since January 2013 and felt a calling to help others in the Denver area who needed support in reaching and maintaining sobriety. Knowing the importance of coffee in the recovery community, Tami roasted coffee beans on a home roaster and served fresh-brewed coffee to attendees for the first gathering in their suburban backyard. 

As the backyard gatherings grew, they established a non-profit and found a space for people to gather for meetings, activities, and socializing. Tami continued roasting beans on three home roasters and supplying FREE with coffee, plus selling beans via the Colorado Cottage Foods Act, which allows foods that don’t require refrigeration to be sold directly to consumers without licensing. 

For a couple of years, Wagon (as in, on the wagon) was an informal business whose revenues went directly to FREE’s bottom line. But Tami noticed a couple of things that moved her closer to setting up shop commercially. One was that women attending meetings at FREE were looking for a safe environment and ways to give back, whether by cleaning bathrooms or taking out trash after meetings. The other was the data on women and alcohol abuse, says Tami. Alcohol use disorder among women has been on the rise in the past decade, with the pandemic accelerating this trend, and Tami felt moved to help the women she was meeting at FREE. “I’m a mother of four,” she says. “There’s something about women, especially as moms, that really spoke to me.” 

Those home roasters could only take her so far. Tami set up a roastery, renting space from FREE, and defined her enterprise as one that empowers women in recovery by offering employment, skills development, volunteer opportunities, and a safe space to heal in community. 

 Sustainability is important for Tami and Wagon, as well. All the beans are roasted on a Bellwether Coffee roaster, which provides zero-emissions roasting and built-in roasting profiles that make it easy for employees to use the equipment. Moreover, since Wagon’s roasting happens in the back room at FREE, the women can set up a batch for roasting and step away to attend a meeting — a win-win in Tami’s eyes. 

Wagon sources their beans through their network of trusted importers and friends of Tami’s from her years in the business. “I look for people behind the beans, I know their names and how our purchases are impacting them in their country of origin,” Tami says. 

In addition to the social impact heart of Wagon’s business, the zero-emissions roasting and responsible sourcing also drew Chef Anthony to Wagon. “Tami checks all the boxes for being green and sustainable,” he says. And the partnership with Bon Appetit at Conga has been fruitful for Wagon. “Conga was one of the first wholesale accounts, it helped move us forward,” says Tami. “They do hefty orders and are supportive, it was a really big affirmation that we were doing something right.” 

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