A Positive Feedback Loop
- Laura Wayte
- 1 day ago
- 4 min read
Ten years in and the symbiotic relationship with this former employee continues
We enjoy staying in touch with our former employees and students to hear all about their successes and professional growth. Alex Newton is definitely taking us with him into his future, and we love it!
This former farmers market manager started his own coffee roasting business, has become a Eugene coffeehouse owner, and is now expanding to include a sandwich booth at the Saturday farmers market in Eugene — using eggs, bacon, and sausage from Deck Family Farm!
"After having worked [at Deck] for years and being involved with the business, the production, and selling the products, it's really cool to get to use them in my own application," said Alex from his Glass House coffee shop on Blair Boulevard in the Whiteaker.
As we sat outside in the sunshine, happy customers came and went from Glass House. Alex and his team make all the baked goods they sell, and he takes great pride in running a small business that creates community and supports other local businesses. This is a continuation, he says, of what he enjoyed about working at Deck Family Farm.
Alex moved to Oregon from Houston, where he was not satisfied working a tech job. Oregon looked like a good place to start fresh.
"I started working at Deck because I really felt positive about and connected to people who were trying to run small local businesses. Another reason is the environmental and social impact of not treating animals poorly. And also, you know, just being aware of how we're interconnected and how actions and intentions affect the people and other systems around us," he said.
He elaborated on what that means to him personally: "I mean, you know, I care a lot about how the animals are treated that I eat. As a person who eats animals, I care a lot about how they're treated."
Local businesses using local ingredients are wonderful, but there are cost differences for customers. If you use commodity ingredients or bring them in pre-made, the products will be less expensive, but Alex thinks that is less meaningful for people. He believes people are willing to buy into that social value.
"A big thing people come here [to Glass House] for is community," he said. He acknowledges that his coffee costs more than twice as much as coffee at the nearby 7-Eleven, but that it carries more social value — created by choosing to bake with Camas Country Mill flour and serve in locally hand-made mugs.
"You don't get any social value over there, whereas here you might get a ton of social value. You might be able to share your feelings with someone in the coffee shop or with the barista that day. And maybe you would have paid ten dollars for that social connection if someone had offered it, but you got it and your coffee for three dollars — so that's a really good value!"
It’s the coffee that has always been the consistent connection — between Alex, Deck Family Farm, and the Full Farm CSA. That story starts back in 2015 when he began roasting coffee using a consumer-style popcorn popper! He made it for himself and a few friends for the first couple of years. You may already be familiar with Alex's Radiant Roast Coffee because we carry it in the online store.
He then got a job as farmers market manager for Deck Family Farm, so we were an obvious first outlet when he started selling the beans in 2018. Eventually, he started selling through the Deck market booth at Montavilla, which led to stand-alone booths at a few Portland markets.
He switched from the popcorn popper just before it burned out from overuse, and moved to a one-pound coffee roaster — but that couldn't last. By then he was spending 20 hours a week to roast 60 pounds of coffee.
"I transitioned to using a shared facility in Portland, which allowed me to roast about 60 pounds an hour in a 15-pound capacity roaster. This significantly improved efficiency, reducing the roasting time to an hour per week. My weekly schedule involved waking up at 2 AM on Saturday to load the farm truck, driving to Portland, working at the market until 4 PM, and then heading to the shared roastery to roast coffee," he said.
He continues to roast in Portland on a much more sane schedule and has Portland locals working his market booths. For the first time in years, he is living full-time in Eugene.
But he likes to keep growing, so he took over Glass House Coffee and developed a menu of baked goods and breakfast sandwiches. And now he's growing again by running the market booth at Lane County Farmers Market every Saturday. You can find coffee, various egg sandwiches, and biscuits & gravy. He plans to expand the menu with seasonal offerings after gaining his footing.
At the coffee shop, the same breakfast recipes are made using conventional ingredients. At the market, he is happy to take things up a level — and the prices reflect that.
"But obviously we're buying local ingredients and all that, and it's just such a better product. It tastes better. It tastes way better," he said with a serious expression.
Glass House employee Mary Honiotes agrees. I watched her cook and eat her first market sandwich as she was training to run the booth.
"Wow, that's so much better!" she said through a full mouth, with a big smile. "Worth having the fresh egg and the Deck sausage. Wow!"
Alex said the customers are very happy.
"For example, this past Saturday I had probably 75% double-yolk eggs. People love the big, huge egg. And when I tell them it's taking an extra couple of minutes because the egg was huge, they're like, 'Oh yeah, I'm not gonna be complaining!' It's been really enjoyable to do this collaboration!"
We are grateful for our products being served to more customers, because we want more and more people to value knowing where their food comes from. As Alex said, we are all connected, and our everyday decisions ripple out into the world, creating systems. Wouldn't it be great if those systems reflected our best values?
