By Delainey Muscato
St. Bonaventure University
Small businesses are so important. They hold communities together and provide a break from chain restaurants and corporations. RocketCup Coffee is looking to help small businesses thrive. Mackenzie Bush, the head of marketing and sales, shared the company’s mission and how they are expanding their business ventures. After graduating from St. Bonaventure University in 2023, Bush became the first employee of RocketCup. She, along with the owners, is so excited for the future of the company and what they have coming soon.
“We really are trying to focus on business-to-business sales,” Bush said about the company’s current venture. They are also excited to open their first physical location in the Village of Cattaraugus. Bush said the café will be opening next to the Bank of Cattaraugus. She also commented on what a cute building it is. The building has a brick exterior and a unique inside, featuring an Airbnb upstairs from the café that can be rented out. For the grand opening on October 21st, they will have a local author come in to read her children’s books to the children that attend the event. They will also have food and drinks from local providers. Bush said they are planning some other fun things for the event.
RocketCup Coffee was started by Tom Cullen and Steve McClain. RocketCup’s mission is to revitalize the world by supporting great projects. “We empower people by fueling communities and giving $1,000 grants to community projects,” Bush said. The empty building next to the bank was a perfect opportunity to open their headquarters. Bush said that Tom Cullen had been wanting to do something like this in Cattaraugus County for a long time. As a Cattaraugus native, he’s been looking to revitalize the community and area as a whole. This café is a big step towards that mission. Of Cullen, Bush said, “He loves community and coffee and that’s what made us want to open the café in Cattaraugus”. Bush, Cullen, and McClain are all super excited for their first physical location. All their operations were online before this.
They have a unique blend of coffee that makes their coffee what is called a specialty drink. It scores over an 85 on a scale from 1-100, and their coffee has won several tastings and awards. They roast each of their three types of beans in Lockport, New York. They source their beans from Brazil, Colombia, and Honduras. The beans are craft roasted to bring out the best flavor and then combined.
Besides revitalizing communities, RocketCup’s main goal is to become a nationwide brand held in offices. Bush shared they were working on getting into some big offices now. And while their first café is having its grand opening soon, they are not too worried about opening more cafés in the near future. They are focused on creating and providing high quality coffee for businesses to serve in their office buildings. They are excited to have the headquarters in Cattaraugus so they can test their new products, train their employees, and educate customers. Bush also said that the headquarters will provide them with a space for research and development. Because community is so important to them, Cullen and Bush have traveled all over the world to different communities to learn more about how they function and are different from communities they have visited before. Their company values are entirely based on helping and understanding communities, so these worldwide experiences of different communities are vital to their business.
Another aspect of their company that helps to change the world comes from their environmental consciousness. “We’re always striving to get the best and most environmentally friendly beans no matter where we are,” Bush said. RocketCup Coffee wants to change and revitalize the world, one cup of coffee at a time. Bush finished by saying, “We craft incredible coffee that supports everyone’s efforts to make the world a better place environmentally, emotionally, and economically”.
Rocketcupcoffee.com