Pittsfield — For those locals addicted to inhaling a deep breath of roasting coffee beans when entering the Allendale Underground, 5 Cheshire Road, well, you will soon need to find your fix elsewhere. Owner George Shoemaker announced via social media on February 1 that Currency Coffee will be moving from its mall basement to Sarasota, Fla., with the last day for the café slated for February 18, and closing to wholesale customers a few weeks later.
Since the announcement, Shoemaker has reminisced with longstanding customers surprised by the relocation but who wished him well while thanking the entrepreneur for all he has done for the community. “Bummer,” Alana Hudock said when she heard the news. For the nearby Pittsfield resident, the closure was especially upsetting given Currency is “an individual, independent coffee place,” warranting her support locally as opposed to large conglomerates. “And, they just make better coffee honestly; this actually wakes me up,” Hudock said.
After Lanesborough resident Joslynn Cancel learned of the impending move, she was motivated to buy up all her favorite Currency items. With arms wrapped around bottles of Torani syrup, flavors she said she couldn’t find elsewhere, she struggled to get to the counter to order a banana nut latte to go. “I usually get the lattes here; their special lattes are amazing,” Cancel said.
Although the Schenectady-native admits to not being “a native son” of the Berkshires, George Shoemaker’s wife Brenda grew up in Dalton, where the couple ultimately made their home, enjoying a successful career as vice principal at Herberg Middle School before taking a position as dean of students at Allendale Elementary School.
With a 54-year family history in the restaurant business, Shoemaker boasted more than two decades of experience in the industry before turning his interests to coffee production. With an “in” at roaster/supplier Chris’ Coffee in Albany, he took a position in 2010 in sales and management, learning the trade and forming a bond that continues to exist today.
Three years later, in February 2013, Shoemaker opened The Biz of Coffee in Dalton’s The Stationery Factory, eventually giving the business its “Currency Coffee” title, a nod to Dalton-headquartered Crane Currency Company’s currency printing services. He called the move “a total leap of faith.” While most businesses of Currency’s type begin with buying a small roaster, making coffee, and then offering the commodity up for sale, Shoemaker’s company began in reverse, specializing first in designing and equipping coffee shops, including training their staff. This process enabled him to gain more experience in the industry.
In 2018, the company morphed into a robust wholesale coffee bean business, with customers up and down the East Coast. Pekarski’s Sausage owner Mike Pekarski, who holds the title of being Currency’s first and still current customer, said he took a chance on selling the roastery’s goods in his South Deerfield shop after Shoemaker handed him a bag of coffee beans to try. At the time, he wasn’t much of a coffee connoisseur, grabbing a cup of generic Joe when he could, but said he was taken aback by the taste of Shoemaker’s brand. “Boy, it opened my eyes,” Pekarski said, and his shop has carried the beans ever since.
However, Shoemaker’s timing to stake a claim in his current 3,400-plus-square-foot Pittsfield digs could have been better. He signed a five-year lease just prior to March 13, 2020, with that date not only signaling the start of the pandemic shutdown but the loss of 80 percent of his customers within 24 hours.
Shoemaker didn’t give up.
With the help of being designated an “essential business” due to supplying grocery stores with coffee, Currency was allowed to remain open at its new space, a saving grace for the company. In July 2020, Shoemaker added a café open to the public, and a year later, the wholesale segment expanded to include private labels—custom-graphic-designed coffee bean bags for specific customers and containing Currency coffee—with those customers including local retailers as well as a Las Vegas entity.
With a refocus of the retail side of the business in 2022, the café and online sales boomed. “We are in a basement, in an average shopping mall in Pittsfield, Massachusetts,” Shoemaker said. “I can’t think of three more difficult things to be in.”
By early June 2022, sales from the popular café had whipped the company’s sales total from all of 2021, he said. With his handpicked staff, Shoemaker said he values an employee applicant’s disposition over know-how, an attribute responsible for the company’s longevity, especially given attitudes harbored by some baristas. Free Coffee Tuesdays—gratis cups of Joe for locals—along with hosting well-attended Santa and Easter Bunny events made Currency a standout in the community.
As for the coffee? Shoemaker said he buys the beans and develops the roast profiles, activities he will continue in Sarasota. Locally, the majority of the roasting has been performed in Currency’s East Greenbush facility. However, the smell wafting throughout the mall on certain days emanates from a small outfit on site, a sample roaster that roasts 16 ounces of beans at a time for samples and specialty coffees, including a high-end Panamanian coffee that sells for $100 per pound.
In March, Shoemaker partnered with DD Roasters out of Sarasota, the outfit that will blend with Currency Coffee after its relocation. The new complex will offer an on-site roastery, café, and offices. Although he initially attempted to make running the two business sites work, Shoemaker made the decision in October to shut down the local retail operation.
With no physical presence in the area, shipping to wholesalers and online customers will continue, with caffeine diehards able to find Currency on site at Wild Oats, Jiminy Peak Country Store, Loeb’s, Shire Donuts, as well as Atkin Farms and Pekarski’s in Pioneer Valley.
Shoemaker said he doesn’t reflect on the Pittsfield shop and area roastery as an ending but “a transition.” “Am I upset, am I sad that we took it from, literally, nothing to this?” he said. “Yeah, I guess you could say I’m sad. I’m excited for the journey. I’m sad because we built a nice community, a nice following, and we have to say goodbye to those people. This is where we planted the flag.”
By the numbers: Currency Coffee
According to owner George Shoemaker, in 2023, Currency Coffee:
- Roasted 45,000 pounds of coffee beans;
- Sold 20,000 cups of coffee;
- Peaked at seven employees; and
- Posted its most expensive coffee bean, Panama Gesha, at $100 per pound.
