Serina Roy started Dublin Roasters as a passion project.
It’s not a classic success story, where a business owner has a long time desire to open a storefront and bring their business dreams to life.
Instead, Serina was enjoying a happy and fulfilling career in law enforcement. Though she’d gone to college for accounting and was working successfully in that industry. A ride along with the city police encouraged her to pursue her interest in policing. She joined the Frederick City police as a bike officer and fell in love with the community and the job.
To unwind following her shifts, Serina would brew coffee. Grinding the beans and creating a delicious cup of coffee was her way of relaxing and, as she got more involved in the hobby, she started brewing for friends, family and neighbors. Eventually she was delivering coffee to people’s doorsteps each morning following her shifts.
What started as a hobby eventually ballooned into a full time business that now lives at Dublin Roasters Coffee shop, a 4,000 square foot café and meeting space on Market Street in Frederick.
Last March, Dublin Roasters was thriving like so many other local small businesses, “…we had just won Best of Frederick and we were just so proud about that. Business was absolutely booming and the café was packed,” described Serina.
And it was then that she did something that few others had the forethought to do: she closed her doors before the state and county required it of her.
“We closed like a week early because I was really concerned that I saw it coming down the pike… one night after one of the busiest nights we had, it was such a sad feeling that I had to say there’s too many people gathering right now and I’m going to close the doors for your sake. That was such a hard decision,” shared Serina.
It was just a step for their business, but it was a step that put them on a path that they had little time or experience preparing for. One that so many others would soon also find themselves on.
As the mandated COVID related closures and lockdowns began, Serina did what many others were doing at that time – investing in things that had gotten swept aside in the name of managing the business – painting, organizing, putting time and effort into social media while not really believing that this thing would go on for long.
And then days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months and eventually, as the bank account started to dwindle, decisions had to be made.
Sarah, Serina’s partner, came back to an idea that she’d had for years – let’s start a coffee club subscription!
And it was this idea, the one that they never had time or space or energy to bring to life before, that really turned things around for them.
With the support and ingenuity of several others, Dublin’s was able to very quickly offer online ordering through their website. They implemented local delivery, and launched a coffee club subscription with nationwide mail order fulfillment.
As Serina shared, “It was a series of coincidences and great ideas,” that led to things happening the way they did for them. And, thanks to a great idea and a lot of support, the Java Luv Coffee Club was born, an element of their business that continues to thrive and grow in unanticipated ways today.
“So many other people just really helped in all of this. Like I said, Sarah came up with the idea for the coffee club. And we turned our room reservation platform that we had before, Arachnid Works, Monica, she jumped in and, within a week her and her crew made it so that it was you could order online and have it delivered,” explained Serina.
From regular customers and fellow business owners to community members and neighborhood Facebook groups, Dublin’s got support from the people of Frederick in unexpected ways.
“People that I never even reached out to, they reached out to me. And it was the business owners, and it was a lot of the developing pages online… these are folks that are not in the same industry and they just have huge hearts and they wanted to do that. And countless, countless times, they saved our butts,” shared Serina.
Serina summed it up best when she said, “We’ve all pulled together with this and that’s amazing.”
Watch the full interview here: Surviving and Thriving Through Pandemic with Serina Roy
Frederick Chamber Insights is a news outlet of the Frederick County Chamber of Commerce. For more information about membership, programs and initiatives, please visit our website.