Luke Mrozek
From the moment Reid Finnegan graduated from the University of Georgia in May 2022, he dreamed of opening a coffee shop with his friend Nick Alliston. Just over a month after they opened Sunroof Coffee on the edge of Athens’ Tracy Street arts district, Finnegan reflects on his journey and the foundations of his business.
Q: How did you meet your co-owner Nick?
A: Freshman year at UGA, we lived in the same hall in Russell. We ended up in the same small group. And then we ended up in the same campus organization, Phi Slam, and then that led to us living together for the next four years.
Q: What role does he play in this journey?
A: It’s kind of funny, he didn’t drink a lot of coffee at all before coming to college, and I barely did. When COVID hit, and we were both home all the time, we both were bored, and wanted a hobby and wanted to learn about something. He’s a huge researcher, he will find out anything there is to know about that thing. So I took him to a couple of coffee shops, and he’s like, “This is awesome.” From that point on, he and I would just, like, dream about owning a coffee shop.
Q: What gets you out of bed every morning?
A: This is a really fulfilling job, we both feel that a lot of our skills and talents are being used here. Knowing that this is something we’ve created. If we want to see it get anywhere, we have to put in the work to do it, and we trust ourselves, we trust each other a lot with it.
Q: You mentioned trust, what are some other foundations that Sunroof Coffee is built on?
A: We want a strong emphasis on bringing people into good coffee and good speciality coffee that maybe wouldn’t normally try it. We saw an opportunity in the market where there’s a lot of really awesome coffee shops, especially in Athens, but almost feel a little unapproachable to the average consumer. And so if someone has like a really big, or like, likes coffee, and they get their Starbucks or their Dunkin’ every morning, or like make it at home, but then want to go get kind of step up from that, and get a nicer coffee at a shop, that kind of feels like a disconnect. So we kind of feel like a welcoming space that brings those people in.
Q: What is something people assume about this job that’s just not true?
A: There’s nothing, in my opinion, that makes Nick or I more capable than anyone else to start this. I think a lot of people see starting your own business as an intangible thing that was not practical, would cost too much money or would be too risky. Those things are true, but honestly, it’s a lot simpler than people think. It just takes work and effort and research.
Why I Wrote the Story:
I wrote this story to highlight one of my favorite qualities of Athens. Many alumni from UGA will stay in Athens after graduation and contribute to the community. That is exactly what Reid Finnegan did when he started Sunroof Coffee.
