HGR Industrial Surplus hosts Euclid Chamber of Commerce Coffee Connections, Oct. 3, 2017

coffee at Six Shooter Cafe

On Oct. 3, the Euclid Chamber of Commerce will be hosting its  next “Coffee Connections” at HGR Industrial Surplus, 20001 Euclid Ave., Euclid, Ohio, from 8:30-9:30 a.m. Chamber members and members of the community are welcomed to attend for complimentary coffee, pastry and a tour of HGR’s 500,000-square-foot showroom and newly renovated sales and administrative offices that are furnished with one-of-a-kind furniture, fixtures and accessories made by HGR customers Jason Wein of Cleveland Art, Aaron Cunningham of 3 Barn Doors, Larry Fielder of Rust, Dust & Other 4-Letter Words and Industrial Design Student Brenna Truax.

Registration is encouraged but not required on euclidchamber.com/events.

This is a great opportunity to network with other local business leaders and learn about a Euclid business and what it does. HGR’s showroom always is open to the public during HGR’s business hours and includes new and used manufacturing equipment, industrial surplus, tools, machinery, construction supplies, and office equipment and supplies. HGR buys and sells, literally, anything and serves as a conduit between customers looking for affordable, used machinery, equipment and supplies and manufacturers hoping to recoup some portion of their initial capital investments.

Three furniture designers to do live build at Ingenuity; HGR to auction pieces for hurricane relief

Ingenuity Fest 2017

From Sept. 22-24, some folks from HGR Industrial Surplus and Jason Radcliffe of 44 Steel, Aaron Cunningham of Three Barn Doors and Larry Fielder of Rust, Dust and Other 4-Letter Words will be onsite on the second floor of Ingenuity Fest, Cleveland, finishing the live build of three pieces of contemporary, industrial-designed furniture that were started after the F*SHO, a contemporary furniture show, which was held on Sept. 15 in HGR’s 500,000-square-feet showroom.

The designers selected industrial-surplus equipment from HGR’s showroom to use in the build of the furniture. We’ll all be there Friday and Saturday evenings and Sunday afternoon. Then, the finished furniture will be displayed the week of Sept. 25 in HGR’s lobby. We will host an auction, and the highest bidders will be proud new owners of one-of-a-kind pieces. All proceeds will be donated to hurricane relief in the Houston area.

Stop by our area on the second floor at Ingenuity to learn more about HGR, if you’ve never strolled through our showroom of anything and everything that you could imagine, and watch Jason, Aaron and Larry in action. They’ll be happy to share tips and tricks with aspiring makers and designers.

We can’t wait to see the finished products!! Make sure to check HGR’s Facebook, Twitter or website, or grab a card at Ingenuity to learn how you can bid on these one-of-a-kind pieces of furniture.

There’s nothing better than a good cup of coffee with friends

coffee at Six Shooter Cafe

Euclid, Ohio, and the Collinwood neighborhood are both full of businesses that support one another. Six degrees of separation. Jerry Schmidt, welding artist of Waterloo 7 Studio, is a customer of HGR. After interviewing him for a blog post, he introduced me to Larry Fielder of Rust, Dust and Other Four Letter Words who also is an HGR customer. I did a blog post about Larry then commissioned him to create a two pieces of industrial art for HGR’s new offices. Larry took me over to Six Shooter Coffee Cafe to see the bars and lamps he had made for the space and introduced me to Pete Brown, Six Shooter’s owner, and to some of the best coffee I’ve had.

Pete moved to Cleveland in 2013 and started roasting coffee in the basement of the place in which he lived for his personal use. Since he was 16, he had worked as a barista in a variety of coffee shops in Columbus, including a roasting company, where he learned a lot about the process. His friends started asking for coffee, and in 2014 he formed a limited liability corporation, and the business took off. His first client was The Grocery on Lorain Ave. In 2016, he opened his first coffee bar on Waterloo Road in Cleveland’s Collinwood neighborhood.

Six Shooter Cafe signIn case you’re wondering where the name Six Shooter came from, President Lyndon B. Johnson used to serve coffee on his ranch in Texas. His coffee was said to be so strong that it could float a revolver. Pete likes strong, smooth, flavorful coffee!

Currently, he uses importers from which he buys his beans. Each country produces beans with different flavor profiles, just like wines from different regions. Six Shooter carries beans from Papua New Guinea, Columbia, Brazil, Peru, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Sumatra. Pete roasts them in-house at the company’s roastery located in the Tenk Machine & Tool Company’s building on the West Bank of Cleveland’s Flats. Pete hopes to get to the size where he can buy directly from the producers.

Six Shooter roasts 250-300 pounds of beans per week, 52 weeks per year. He has a 5 kg roaster and can roast seven pounds of coffee in 11 to 13 minutes. These beans are used in the coffee bar and sold wholesale to grocery stores, cafes and hotels. On May 20, Six Shooter’s second coffee bar is opening at the roastery’s location in The Flats, and the location in Collinwood will be extending its hours from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday to 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on weekdays and 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.

When asked about his life prior to coffee roasting, Pete says that he went to school for education and was substitute teaching and working in a bar, “I was exhausted and broke; so, I decided to work for myself and be exhausted but not broke.” He decided to open shop in Collinwood, where he also lives, because, “I believe in furthering a community, which is why I went into education. I also am on the board of directors for Northeast Shores Development Corporation. It’s about collaboration and being part of a community. BRICK Ceramic makes our mugs. The Beachland Ballroom is a client. Larry Fielder made our furnishings. We use each other’s products.”

Six Shooters provides a unique beverage experience, including monthly specials, such as the lavender honey latte. It serves its own bourbon barrel-roasted cold-brewed coffee, as well as a toddy brewed with hops on nitro. It’s a cold coffee that pours creamy like a Guinness ale. Both of those coffees are nonalcoholic and have higher caffeine content. The coffee bar also has kombucha on draft. He says, “I have a passion for making coffee accessible to people and giving people a good experience and good customer service.”

He works fulltime out of the roastery location, while his wife, Tara, and store manager, Sarah, run the café. Pete and Tara were married in 2016, two months before the shop opened. When they’re not working Pete and Tara of Six Shooter Coffeerunning the coffee business 60 hours per week, they enjoy camping, working out and rugby. Pete played rugby in high school, at Ohio University and on three men’s teams after college. He coaches the Shaker Heights High School rugby team.