For Robert Zollinger, the past 15 years have been shaped by the vision of his late son, Jason. In 2010, Jason founded Cardinal Coffee Co. with a dream of running his own coffee roastery. He invited his father to join him, and together they spent nearly a decade roasting coffee and selling it wholesale from their garage in Greensburg.
“I got to like it,” said Robert, a Jeannette native now living in Greensburg. “I ended up retiring from the construction business. You can’t just sit around.”
Tragedy struck in October 2019 when Jason was killed by a car while riding his bike along Route 30 near Laurel Mountain. But Robert refused to let his son’s legacy fade. Now, with the help of his nephew, Charles Zollinger, Robert has expanded Cardinal Coffee by opening the company’s first cafe at the start of the new year.
Located on Jeannette’s Lowry Avenue, near DeNunzio’s Italian Restaurant, the cafe serves a variety of specialty coffee drinks, including lattes, frappuccinos, chai, matcha, and kombucha, along with regular drip coffee. Pastries like bear claws, cinnamon rolls, and cookies are provided by Happy Camper Cakes, a local bakery.
Charles, who works full-time as an airline pilot, said opening the cafe felt like the “next logical step” in expanding the business. With Robert overseeing the company, they’ve hired two baristas to run the cafe.
The Zollingers had already honed their skills through a four-day private coffee roasting class in 2020 and had been selling their coffee to local restaurants and bakeries. They also purchased and converted a trailer into a mobile cafe to serve at farmers markets, community events, and private catering jobs.
The Zollingers plan to continue selling their products to local businesses while running the new cafe, ensuring Jason’s dream lives on.
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