Who We Are

Woman Owned

Big Shoulders Coffee is a woman-owned hospitality company. At our foundation, we work to create a hospitality experience for both our employees and our guests. Our core tenant is service to each other. If we cannot care for each other, we certainly won’t be successful in caring for our guests and others.

We emphasize care in:

The way we act

2. The way we react

3. The way we look (body language)

4. The way we sound and how we say it

5. The way we think

Patricia Coonan, Owner & Co-Founder

A Commitment to Making Mistakes

Success is easy. Having no obstacles is easy. Always being on the winning team is easy. The opportunity to grow happens when we make mistakes or fail. The beauty is in the struggle. Taking responsibility is as important as saying “I’m sorry” when we hurt others. Unfortunately, this is how we in our human deficiencies, learn. As crazy as it sounds, we must hold an awareness of and commitment to making mistakes. When people are secure enough to raise their hand and say “it’s my fault” or “I need help” or the super powerful, “I’m sorry” that is a huge victory. Failing forward means growth both personal and professional if we are paying attention. We embrace building leaders, which means as they learn, they make mistakes, and they grow.

Divergent Thinking in Supply Chain

It is a mistake to look at supply chain diversity as just some sort of a social justice program and another box to check or a pat on the back. During the darkest days of COVID everyone encountered supply chain problems. It taught us that developing relationships with like-minded, often scrappy and creative businesses (sometimes in our own backyard) makes us smarter and more competitive in measurable ways that we can share with our customers. It’s not always about price or cost. More often than not, it’s about pride in craftsmanship, and speed on turnaround. Diverse suppliers can offer differentiated solutions that help our brand and your bottom line.

Putting Our Money Where Our Mouth Is

In a world where everyone is shouting into a megaphone, we choose to go another course. We support all sorts of initiatives, but we've chosen to remain modest and humble in carefully considering how we communicate this: We do so quietly because it's in our DNA.

The following incredible organizations we support:

The Night Ministry is a Chicago-based organization whose mission is to provide human connection, housing support, and health care to those who are unhoused or experiencing poverty. We support them financially and provide coffee donations for brewing on cold Chicago nights.
We help Black Creativity reach their goals to inspire and motivate children to consider the fields of science, technology, engineering and medicine. This program celebrates these achievements of young African Americans.
For the last six years, we have participated in the Taste of Hope. This is the annual American Cancer Society fundraiser. Cancer will affect all of us at some point. It has taken people that we loved way too soon. The fight against and research for a cure has been one of our long-time commitments at Big Shoulders. We do it to remember Amy, our sister.
Over the years we have supported Farmers Project. Their mission of doing things with integrity and grace strikes us, well, as just awesome. Most recently we contributed in their cause to buy proper clothing for harvesters during the wet, muddy season in Costa Rica.
Working Bikes is another organization that we admire and support. Working Bikes strengthens local and global communities by giving donated bicycles new life and redistributing globally them as tools for self-determination.

Sustainability as a Guide

We are believers in energy efficiency, ecology, leaving things better than we found them, but mostly we believe in impacting people in a way that they grow as humans. We think we’re on the right track but we’re far from done. Pre-Covid our North star was sustainability. Indeed, we’ve had, and continue to invest in, earth-friendly packaging, sustainable cups and lids, lighting, composting, up-cycling. We were having robust conversations and building relationships with vendors that were making a positive impact on our eco-system. When Covid hit us, the conversation was hijacked, and survival became sustainability. Now we are re-building and re-thinking everything. The circumstances of the way we thought about and performed our work has changed but the work itself hasn’t. We are performing our work more intentionally but our ambitions to make impact on our communities hasn’t waivered.

We roast all our coffee on Loring Smart Roasters. The most energy efficient roasters on the planet. We love our Loring Kestrel and Falcon. We produce low smoke roasts without the use of an energy-sucking external afterburner. Energy efficient Loring roasters allow us to save money on fuel while also producing low carbon emissions and low environmental impact. Super-heated air that usually goes straight up the stack is recirculated into the roast chamber so maintaining the target roast temperature can be managed more effectively with less energy usage. Loring’s have been utilized where some of the world’s most rigorous air compliance standards exist. We are also able to consistently produce sweet, balanced and tasty cups of coffee that have garnered us quite a bit of quality recognition.

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

We all have blind spots. We seek to be better at what we do and how we see and serve our co-workers. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion means a lot of different things to different people. It’s not a one-dimensional thing or box to check and it definitely isn’t static. In order to be the best version of ourselves for each other we must be open and seek to understand those around us. We must confront mistakes and be generous, and humble, with apology when we fail. We also must commit to finding and hiring the best candidate that helps us execute this goal.

Let’s define what these words mean to us.

1. Diversity is variety. It is a different perspective and experience than our own. It’s not just black and white. It’s young and old, rich and poor, its various genders, skin tones, even regional values and upbringing, but certainly cultural variety. Often, diversity is about trying to understand and accept our differences while listening at the same time.

2. Equity is about establishing fair access and opportunity to grow. Sometimes this means being flexible to negotiate the structure around how we accomplish our work based on, for example, childcare or transportation that can make it difficult for some to get to work at the same time as everybody else.

3. Inclusion is about feeling valued, heard, respected and connection to co-workers. We won’t support working on an island. We all must be participants on this journey.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion work together hand in hand. Just because we claim to have a diverse workplace (and we do) doesn’t automatically mean we’re successful at equity and inclusion. Does everyone feel a sense of community? Does everyone feel safe or that they are able to contribute and thrive? Sometimes work stinks. But as it comprises a big part of our lives, shouldn’t it be as frictionless as possible? Shouldn’t it have some saving grace? Shouldn’t it provide dignity? We think so. We shouldn’t have to do degrading work or weasel our way to the top. We should seek positive solutions and have a shared sense of purpose and pride. Knowing fully well that we will fail every day but remain focused on the North star of engagement, vulnerability, and openness to the “other.” In the end, communication is the key to the lock of helping us all hear and understand one another. That fills us up.