Growth of Peaceful Valley Coffee roaster is ‘slow and steady,’ like a good cup of brew

Bryn Garrehy, who grew up in the Peaceful Valley Neighborhood, took the long road home to offer his own hyperlocal coffee, Peaceful Valley Coffee. The roaster has been offering coffee officially since February, and has been in the works for the year leading up to that. The coffee boasts freshness – Garrehy is using a fluid bed coffee roaster, roasting on demand. If customers describe the type of coffee they want, he’ll do a custom roast.

Patera, Spokane’s temperance lounge, is the roaster’s first wholesale account.

“We get all our coffee from him,” Patera owner Annie McGuinness said. “Right now, we have the Maple Street Bridge blend.”

Garrehy said the roaster is setting an “intentional slow and steady” growth, and he is in the process of looking for his next business account. He would be interested in a bookstore or even hospitality space but would also be interested in a recovery café sphere, which made Patera such a great fit.

“The power of a cup of coffee I think is really humble and almost humiliating,” Garrehy said. “It’s so basic, and it can just be something to provide you warmth, but for so many, it really gives you the strength and the will to face whatever the day has coming.”

Garrehy wasn’t always in coffee. His first job was working at the same restaurant as his mom, Tony Roma’s, in the building currently occupied by Old European Breakfast House. As time progressed, he continued to work dining jobs, but while attending University of Washington, Garrehy “fell in love with the romance of the barista,” he said, and took a pay cut to dive into coffee.

From there, he moved to North California where his dad’s side of the family lived. While there, he started working for Equator Coffees while attending Saint Mary’s College of California to earn his master’s in Creative Writing for poetry. Garrehy said his poetry still comes out when he’s doing something like naming a new roast.

“I was sitting in front of my front yard, and the bumblebees were all over the place. And I was like … We might call it Pollinator blend,” Garrehy said. “That sounds great. And then I was like, or … Tree Line Symposium, I don’t know, because I’m thinking like, I want aspects of being in Peaceful Valley, you know?”

From working for Equator Coffees, Garrehy worked for a few different cafes before landing at Blue Bottle Coffee, a company he appreciated for its values, such as providing employees with health insurance, which is uncommon for baristas. When Garrehy left the company six years later, he was a corporate trainer.

“I was really lucky to have the right skill set and be in the right place to learn from some of the absolute best professionals in the industry,” Garrehy said.

In 2019, Garrehy moved back to Seattle, this time working for Seattle Coffee Works. He worked for them through the pandemic. Both Garrehy and his fiancée had ties to Peaceful Valley, and “we had the opportunity to move back to Spokane and live in Peaceful – I gave my two weeks at this great company I was at immediately.”

Garrehy was working for a local coffee company, but ultimately decided “it was almost like an awakening,” Garrehy said. “You’re back in the town that you grew up in, you’ve made all of this positive impact. Maybe it’s time to stop working for other people and essentially giving away or selling away the best parts of your labor out of your control.”

Garrehy said he also saw a lack of local branding for coffee.

“What does the brand, its ethos and its values and its projected vision…how does that actually place you in Spokane?” Garrehy said. “And I feel like there’s opportunity.”

Beyond being from the neighborhood, Peaceful Valley was an intentional choice for Garrehy.

“It’s also classically been one of the most underrepresented and humble neighborhoods in the whole city,” Garrehy said. “Before there was a city, there were tribes that would meet down by the river. But then all of the immigrant labor that came here in the 19th century and built Browne’s Addition in downtown, they were all made to live down there in ‘Poverty Flats,’ as it was known at the time.

“Peaceful Valley has always been a really great counterpoint and a vital organ to the town.”

Those interested in trying Peaceful Valley Coffee can either get a cup at Patera, order from the roaster’s website at peacefulvalleycoffee.com, or communicate with Garrehy directly. Garrehy will either arrange for a Peaceful Valley pickup or a delivery.