Q&A with Andy Pickle, a 2008 CAC graduate and co-owner of Blue Sail Coffee Roasters.
1. Tell us a little bit about you and your family.
I moved from Portland to Little Rock and started at CAC my 10th grade year. I met my wife in AP English – that’s one gift CAC gave me that I will always be thankful for. We’ve been married for five years, and now we have a daughter who is 13 months old. She’s just taking her first steps...it’s amazing. I get to see life happen for the first time all of the time because of her.
2. What was the journey like as you worked to open Blue Sail Coffee Roasters in Little Rock?
I moved from Nashville back to Little Rock to work as a youth minister at a church here. I felt like my calling to youth ministry was for a season and not a lifetime, which was kind of hard to grapple with. I saw myself as a youth minister, and that was a lot of my personhood. I had to kind of unwrap that and realize I was a human being outside of my job, and it was around that time I started to fall in love coffee.
I drank coffee my whole life, but I really just drank whatever was around with milk and creamer from the grocery store. One day I was on a particularly strong health kick, and I started to notice all of the chemicals they put in creamers. I weaned myself off of creamer and sugar and I realized that my coffee still tasted bad. I was pretty sure it was supposed to taste good, so I bought a French press and went down this rabbit hole and fell in love with what is called “specialty coffee.”
I had a dream to open my own shop, and at my wife’s encouragement, I started looking around for a job to gain experience. I applied at a bunch of different coffee places around town and got hired at Blue Sail in Conway.
My desire was to open my own shop, so I worked as hard as I could to set myself a part and make sure that I could learn as much as possible. Over time, I found out that the founder of Blue Sail and myself have similar goals and values. Our vision for what coffee can do for Central Arkansas aligned really well, so instead of starting my own company I decided to become a partner in this company, and opened the shop that we are sitting in now.
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