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StoneFruit thrives on personal atmosphere
Couple parlays love of coffee into thriving business
By ROBERT CONNELLY
CANFIELD
It began as a simple idea.
Josh Langenheim wanted to get a coffee roaster and asked his friend Ben Ilich to work on the machine’s ventilation.
From there, Langenheim could roast enough coffee beans for himself and his friends.
When he had bigger needs, he needed a bigger machine.
That expanded into StoneFruit Coffee Co., Langenheim’s coffee shop that thrives on the customer experience.
“We want you to understand what you’re drinking,” said Jennifer Rodway, co-owner. “We want it to be personal. We love knowing our customers and knowing about them.”
Rodway, 25, is married to Langenheim, 30, both of Liberty, who opened StoneFruit at 410 W. Main St. in April 2014.
Langenheim had been in marketing after graduating from Youngstown State University, while Ilich, 31, of Austintown had been in the heating and cooling business since high school. All three graduated from Boardman High School, and Rodway also graduated from YSU.
Langenheim called running a business with his wife rewarding.
“It’s absolutely astonishing to see this entire thing come to fruition,” Langenheim said. “Talk about feeling blessed. This is an idea and a whole lot of sweat equity.”
Rodway handles the social media and public relations while Langenheim and Ilich roast the beans. Ilich also is the utility man, who is able to work on the roasters’ venting in the back or serve coffee in the front.
The machines that dot StoneFruit are imported. The Golden Coffee Roasters are handmade and imported from Turkey.
StoneFruit also is a wholesaler for the roasters and will install them in homes or businesses. Ilich said he has gone to Uniontown, Pa., and New Hampshire to install them for customers, and they recently shipped one to Puerto Rico.
The espresso machines are Conti machines imported from Monaco.
Every few weeks since the business opened, the shop seems to undergo another renovation. Tables and chairs are outside the shop now. Soon, the store feature a pour-over bar that allows hot water to mix with ground beans and slowly drip in a coffee cup to capture all possible flavor.
“We keep responding to demand,” Rodway said.
StoneFruit also will have an espresso bar in the Canfield branch of the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County later this year.
StoneFruit also emphasizes giving back to the community. A portion of all coffee sales goes to The Mission of Love organization, which “gives back to children from areas we source our beans from,” Rodway said.
There also are coffee bags sporting the Friends of the Library logo, and $1 of each bag sold goes to the new Canfield library.
“The end result is to just try to get good coffee in people’s hands,” Ilich said.
“Doing it like this,” he said, “we’re able to bring a better product to the consumer rather than say, ‘Here, this is what we have. Here you go. See you later.’”
In 13 months, Langenheim said his business has seen a lot of support.
“We are appreciative of people that are pushing StoneFruit,” Langenheim said.