Bike-Powered Coffee Roaster Kainos Opens Brick and Mortar

“I wanted to start a business that would make a difference, after living with gypsies in Bulgaria and people in the WaWa garbage dump in the Philippines,” says Marten Boyden, who co-founded Kainos Coffee with Austin Roberts. “Now, we donate twenty-one percent of profits to supporting kids in the Philippines.” Kainos Coffee launched as a bicycle-powered coffee roaster, and this November, it quietly opened at 6633 NE Sandy Blvd., a veritable coffee desert.

Kainos had to ditch its signature bike-powered wood-fired roaster to continue its mission. “We’re here to help people, and we found bike-powered roasting wasn’t sustainable with scaling up,” Marten tells Eater. He’s now roasting everything at the Buckman Coffee Factory.

Kainos Coffee seats 14, and Boyden says he hopes Kainos will be “a nice neighborhood spot for hanging out.” The coffee menu includes Kainos’s house blend, designed to work with most brewing methods, from espresso drinks made on the fancy Rocket R9 to drip coffee. The shop is built for speed, catering toward those on the go, but coffee-nerd techniques like pour overs are also available.

Kainos also serves VilleVelo Bake Shop pastries and Henry Higgins bagels, and a sandwich menu is in the works. It also holds private events on Fridays and Saturdays and serves as a space for pop-ups.

Marten says one experience in particular was the catalyst for founding Kainos. “While helping to build houses for people living in the WaWa garbage dump, an older woman came up to me with a little girl and asked me, ‘Can you take this baby?’ The girl was maybe a year old and covered in dirt. Today, she lives in one of the houses we built. I have to two girls of my own. That is the entirety behind this.”

• Kainos Coffee [Official Site]