Former prisoner John Krause started Big House Beans in Antioch, CA, as a way to share his passion for java and his own testimony of hope with fellow inmates looking for a good word (and a hot cup of Joe) after time spent. Catholic Business Journal finds out how Krause grew Big House from a small venture with a big heart to a robust business with a bold mission.
Big house to Big House
When he was 4 years old, Krause was alone in the world. After his mother left the family before he could remember, his father died in a motorcycle accident. Even though his grandmother had raised the boy as her own child, by his early teens, soon after his grandmother died, Krause says, he began serving his first of many stints behind bars.
“I was very angry with God, and I couldn’t understand how all this could happen to me,” he says. “I started out with alcohol at 12 and started doing drugs at 13 and then even heavier drugs at 14. My first incarceration was at 14 and it was definitely drug-related. Then I got caught in this vicious cycle that lasted 15 years.”
The last time he went to prison, Krause decided enough was enough.
“The last date I got incarcerated was Dec. 21, 2009,” he says, “and that was the last day I drank, used drugs, or committed adultery. So I did one year at that point, I was released a year later, and I’ve been out ever since.”
After leaving San Quentin State Prison in 2010, Krause decided that he would reclaim his life—and those of his three children, born of three different mothers—and go to work making up for lost time.
“I knew I wanted to change and I didn’t know how,” he says. “So I literally would lay on the floor praying very intentionally every day several times a day that God would break me from the cycle and show me a different way.”
Then, Krause says, he was given a special grace.
“I was given the gift of desperation,” he says. “I decided that nothing was going to stop me from going down this other path—I didn’t know it was going to mean becoming a Christian believer at that point; I just didn’t want to do drugs again.”
Waking up
While participating in a rehabilitation program, Krause met some Christians who mentored him, helped him take business courses at a local college and steered him toward his love for coffee bean roasting.
“I was invited to live in the house of a pastor, Ben Joyce, who is a very dear friend,” he says, “and he asked me to join him while he put his kids to bed so I could see how he interacted with them. That was the first time I saw a father interact with his children. It was very tender and loving. That was the beginning of my learning how to be this new man, and making sure everything in my life was Christ-centered.”
According to Krause, Joyce invited Krause to take part in his basement hobby of roasting coffee beans.
“So instead of drinking beer and smoking cigars like other guys did, we roasted coffee,” he says. “I tasted coffee differently than I ever had in my life. I fell in love with it and really wanted to learn how to roast.”
But along with the beans came a sense of mission, Krause says, one that could help his fellow inmates.
“Through deep prayer and discernment, I felt the Lord was saying, ‘John, I want you to use the coffee business as a platform for telling your story and glorifying me in what you’re doing.’ It was one of those ‘A-ha!’ moments, so I set out to develop a business model to raise the capital needed to start this coffee business.”
Instead of being ashamed of his past, Krause now roasts beans and shares his faith and testimony with other inmates who come into his shop for a kind word of counsel and a helping hand through employment.
“My goal is to break the stigma that society has against former addicts or inmates,” he says, “and give them opportunities to interact with the community. Coffee is a great vessel to do that.
“My heart is really broken for people who are broken. Just like me, they need a second chance, someone who will pull them in and say, ‘I know you have no experience with this, but I’m willing to train you, mentor you and disciple you—and not only in work related stuff, but I want to take an interest in you and develop your personal skills, and help you to thrive and grow and teach someone else.’”
Glorifying work
For Catholic businessman Ed McGrath, Krause’s coffee and compassion are equally eye-opening.
About two years ago, McGrath, a member of Notre Dame des Victoires (Our Lady of Success) parish in San Francisco, came to Krause’s Big House Beans with his wife, Pam McGrath, volunteer coordinator at The Creek Covenant Church, Pleasant Hill, CA.
“Damn good coffee!” he says, remembering his first impression of the product that occupies Krause’s time, energy and talents.
After discovering how Krause’s coffee was helping former prisoners, the McGraths saw that Krause’s professional love for coffee was also personal. Having been in business for the past 35 years—including owning their own yacht brokerage in San Francisco—the McGraths sought to help Krause any way they could.
“We do a lot of work with the poor and we really want to support people who change their lives,” Ed McGrath says. “We all make mistakes, and God turns us around. Look at St. Paul, for crying out loud! We believe in transformation and John is the epitome of that.”
Prior to taking on his current work in sales for an area microbrewery, McGrath put his expertise to work for Big House.
“I spent a month with John as a salesman of sorts,” he says. “It was just a volunteer position but I spent the month knocking on doors and seeing what’s going on. It’s a very competitive business and it doesn’t happen as fast as you want it to happen, but it will happen if you’re patient.
“In the beer business, you go to a bar and there are 30 taps and as a salesman I just want one tap handle to pour my beer. In coffee, there’s usually only one coffee spout [that coffee companies are competing for], so takes a lot longer time—but John believes in what he’s doing—he’s going to make it.”
Full of beans
As important as patience is, McGrath adds, John Krause is also succeeding because he knows his proper role in the business.
“My advice to John was that he should hire someone else to do the roasting and go out and sell,” McGrath says. “But he said he loved doing the roasting. I saw that he’s not just burning beans—he’s practicing an art. I respect that. The craft itself is so important to him. So I’d say he’s a craftsman first and he’s offering this craft to others.”
The same passion seems to be infecting Krause’s employees, McGrath says, recalling a recent fundraiser at which some of Big House’s prisoners-turned-baristas were manning the espresso machine.
“These men showed poise and respect when talking to the customers,” McGrath says. “They also showed pride in the cups of coffee they were serving. It was all very positive. When I saw that, I knew—that’s what it takes to be a professional. You have to give people what they want and they do a great job at that.”
As a Catholic businessman, McGrath sees in Krause’s work the perfect model for business, Catholic or otherwise.
“You’re using your gifts to create wealth—and by having your own business you participate in a biblical and Catholic method of economics,” he says. “You’re a small businessman, creating jobs and personal wealth and you have security and you have responsibility, and you’re not dependent on some corporation or buy-out. It’s a lot of work but it’s true freedom, and the rewards are beyond money, knowing that every single day you’re making a difference for yourself, your family and your community.”
Big House rebound
While the number of employees working at Big House varies, Krause says, the work is steady, and includes grunt work, such as carrying 150-pound burlap bags of raw coffee beans into the company’s warehouse, and more refined tasks, such as roasting beans in Krause’s carefully calibrated roasters. There’s even work for men to serve as taste-testers of the finished product, Krause says.
“We also process orders as we do a lot of shipping from our Internet sales, e-commerce,” he says.
“We do farmers markets in the community which is a great way for guys to interact with the community, and the next step is to open a café which will have a focus on retail and community engagement.”
The men he hires respond, too, Krause says, as he relates the story of Gary, who first came to Big House, socially awkward but grateful for a hand up.
“He started working the farmer’s market, and I saw him come alive,” Krause says. “Now, he works at a restaurant and manages one of the recovery homes and is doing very well.
Another fellow prisoner and childhood friend named Jeff came to Krause who he helped with housing and raised money through Big House’s profits to send his friend to roasting school.
“Now he’s applying to a larger company as a roaster,” Krause says. “If he gets this job it was worth all the sacrifices we had to make. Sometimes I put helping people in front of myself, so it’s nice to be patient, trust the process and trust what God is doing in other peoples’ lives through what I’m doing with coffee.”
Bean counting
His own work in the business isn’t easy, Krause admits, and keeping one eye on business while the other is tracking the company’s mission to his fellow ex-prisoners is Big House’s biggest challenge.
“The best way to keep on balance is to stay focused on growing the business,” he says. “It’s something I constantly struggle with—my heart wants to do more mission, but the reality is that if you take your eyes off the business, it’s going to fail. So I think it comes in seasons, where there is a season where we can really focus on mission and stay busy, and then there are times when we really need to grow the business, and pull back. So it’s intuitive where you know what you need to do and you do whatever you have to, to make it work.”
And Krause makes it work because he knows his beans. Each new day, as he sees it, is an opportunity to tour the world of coffee—cup by cup.
“If I want something bright or sweet which tastes literally like berries, I’ll go for a African coffee like a Kenya or Ethiopia, or if I want something smooth or nutty, a Guatemalan,” he says. “If I want to take a break from the lighter roast, I’ll go to a darker French roast. As far as roasting goes, I’ve learned that there is an art in coffee, and my goal is to taste the coffee and not the roast.”
Perhaps by studying his Big House beans, Krause has learned something about each soul that passes through his doors from the other big house.
“Everywhere coffee is grown,” he says, “the bean has a different taste—and so we try to bring out the beauty in each bean.”
Coffee anyone?
For John Krause, business and Christian mission dwell under the same roof in one Big House. If you find Krause’s business model an eye-opening way to balance Christian compassion and business acumen, feel free to let us know in the Comments section (you must register first to prevent spam), or on our FaceBook page.
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Joseph O’Brien writes for the Catholic Business Journal and may be reached at jobrien@CatholicBusinessJournal.biz