Brewing a Legacy of Community in the Heart of Hopewell.
Editor's note: Legacy Roasting Company is among the small-batch manufacturers that will be featured during the first Made in Hopewell, a conference and trade show that celebrates the city’s industrial heritage and the role of manufacturers of all scopes in its future.
Larry Hancock dreamed he’d run a hot dog stand when he grew up, taking the idea from a children’s book he read on repeat. Years later, as a Virginia Commonwealth University entrepreneurship student, he updated his dream to open a coffee shop instead.
"During my capstone project, I won a business plan competition for an idea called 'Connect Cup.' It was all about coffee cup advertising," Hancock said. "That's when I realized coffee was going to be a big part of my life, even if I didn't know it yet."
Turns out, he didn’t know a thing about coffee, though he’d visited countless area shops when meeting classmates to work on team projects. He launched a blog and offered positive reviews to local shops if their roasters and baristas would teach him their craft. The quick learning was that opening a coffee shop would require significant upfront investments, then he discovered his sweet spot for getting his foot into the industry.
Today, Hancock produces hand-crafted roasted coffee beans in Downtown Hopewell, where he opened Legacy Roasting Company in 2018.
A start-up in his own backyard
Picking up from his VCU experience, that journey had started in his parents’ garage in 2014 with more than a little help from his father, Lawrence, a metal fabricator by trade.
Together, they engineered – or MacGyvered, like the genius TV character who saved the world every week by inventing a solution from duct tape and anything else he could grab – a coffee roaster using a grill and a Chevy wiper motor. Soon, Hancock was taking bags of those first Legacy Roasting Company beans to local farmers markets and building a loyal local following. Legacy’s bean blend names honor a street important to his journey, including the road in front of his parents’ house.
“We boot-strapped it and really fell in love with the process,” he said, noting the family business includes his mother keeping the books and his sister managing social media. Hancock oversees sales and business growth, while his father earned a promotion to master roaster.
But growing the business would require an investment in production space, since “cottage laws” prohibited him from wholesale sales of home-produced goods. His search brought him to Hopewell.
"I'll never forget the day we saw this building," he says, referring to Legacy's current home, a historic brick structure dating back to the 1920s. "It was rough, but I saw the potential. I knew this was where we needed to be."
Hancock also recognized that the city’s blue-collar heritage meant that locals were likely drinking coffee from supermarket brands like Folgers or Maxwell House and would need to be introduced to the flavor profiles and nuances of freshly roasted beans. "We knew we had to change that," he said.
Working closely with the Hopewell Downtown Partnership, Hancock set out to create a blend that would truly represent the city, offering tastings of two blends at its grand opening. The community selected a three-bean blend he dubbed "Wonder City Blend," a name based on an unofficial city nickname.
"It was so important to us that this wasn't just about our business, but about uplifting Hopewell as a whole," Hancock said. "We wanted to create a legacy that would outlast us, one that would showcase the best of this community."
Serving up what the community needs
As Legacy Roasting Company has grown, Hancock is looking to expand his commitment to Hopewell, since the current facility is nearly at 80% capacity.
As he plans to expand his online sales beyond Virginia, he needs a larger facility both for bean production and to support the distribution side. Legacy also recently unveiled a new, elevated brand, with fresh packaging featuring the line “roasted in the heart of Hopewell.”
"There's something special about this place," he said. "The community support we've received has been invaluable. We're not just a coffee company; we're a part of Hopewell's story, and we're honored to be able to tell that story through our work. I never thought I'd be here, running a coffee roasting business, but I wouldn't have it any other way."
