Website: crimsoncup.com
Location: Columbus, Ohio
County: Franklin County
Lending Partner: Heartland Bank
Loan Programs: SBA 504 (2015, 2016) · Ohio 166 (2023)
Built on Coffee, Driven by Independence
Crimson Cup Coffee & Tea has been roasting specialty coffee in Columbus since 1991. Founded by Greg Ubert, the company started with a simple but demanding mission: source the finest coffee beans from around the world, roast them carefully by hand, and deliver something worth drinking to people who care about what’s in their cup.
More than 35 years later, Crimson Cup has grown into one of the Midwest’s most recognized specialty coffee roasters, distributing coffee and related products to independent coffee houses, specialty retailers, and institutional customers across 30 states. They have helped more than 300 independent coffee shop owners launch and grow their own businesses through their nationally recognized 7 Steps to Success consulting program, a testament to a company that believes in the independent entrepreneurial spirit as much as it believes in great coffee.
Behind that growth is a series of smart, strategic decisions, including financing moves with OSDC and Heartland Bank that gave Crimson Cup the space, the infrastructure, and the capacity to keep growing on their own terms.
2015: Buying Room to Roast
SBA 504 Loan · OSDC & Heartland Bank
By 2015, Crimson Cup had outgrown their original home at 700 Alum Creek Drive. What started as a workable space for production, warehousing, and training had become cramped and inefficient. The business had grown faster than the building could keep up with, and something had to give.
OSDC partnered with Heartland Bank to structure an SBA 504 loan for the purchase and improvement of a 20,000 square foot property at 1925 Alum Creek Drive in Columbus. The SBA 504 is a government-backed loan program that helps small businesses purchase commercial real estate and make improvements with a low fixed interest rate and a smaller down payment than a conventional bank loan.
The new facility became Crimson Cup’s dedicated roasting and warehouse operation. Moving production out of 700 Alum Creek Drive freed up that building entirely and set the stage for what would come next.
2016: Turning a Roastery Into an Innovation Lab
SBA 504 Loan · OSDC & Heartland Bank
With production relocated to 1925 Alum Creek Drive, Crimson Cup turned its attention back to 700 Alum Creek Drive. The original space had served multiple purposes over the years, including production, manufacturing, and training, but never with the focus or infrastructure any of those functions truly deserved.
Now, with production in its own dedicated building, 700 Alum Creek Drive could become something entirely different.
OSDC and Heartland Bank structured a second SBA 504 loan to refinance existing debt and fund an extensive interior renovation of the property. The result was Crimson Cup’s Innovation Lab, a state-of-the-art facility featuring dedicated training rooms, a test kitchen, and modern office headquarters. The space became the nerve center for Crimson Cup’s consulting program, product development, and company operations, giving their team a professional, concentrated environment to push the boundaries of specialty coffee.
The Innovation Lab today is where Crimson Cup develops new blends, trains the next generation of independent coffee shop owners, and keeps the kind of creative energy alive that has always defined the brand.
2023: Making Space for the Next Chapter
Ohio 166 Loan · OSDC & Heartland Bank
Growth has a way of creating familiar problems. By 2023, the roasting and warehouse facility at 1925 Alum Creek Drive, purchased in 2015, had become cramped again. The business had doubled in size and the facility simply could not keep up with the demands of a company that had scaled that significantly.
OSDC and Heartland Bank structured an Ohio 166 loan, a state-backed financing program for Ohio businesses that creates or retains jobs, to support the purchase and renovation of a 37,460 square foot commercial building at 108 N. High Street in Canal Winchester. The vacant property was upgraded and repurposed to house Crimson Cup’s warehouse and shipping operations, moving them out of the cramped Alum Creek facility and into a space built for the company’s current scale and future ambitions.
Separating roasting and warehousing into distinct facilities improved efficiency across both operations and gave Crimson Cup the room it needed to keep growing without sacrificing the quality and care that has defined every cup they have roasted for more than 35 years.
One Long Game.
What makes Crimson Cup’s story worth telling isn’t just the growth. It’s the strategy behind it. Each financing move built on the last. The 2015 purchase created space for production. The 2016 renovation unlocked the Innovation Lab. The 2023 acquisition gave warehousing room to breathe. None of those moves would have been possible without the right financing structure at the right time.
OSDC and Heartland Bank have been partners in that story for nearly a decade, providing the tools that let a Columbus coffee roaster grow into a brand serving customers all over the country without losing what made it great to begin with: the belief that independent businesses, given the right support, can do something remarkable.