Rescued Roasters brings coffee and a good cause to Jackson Park neighborhood

While pursuing their passion to help animals, Brittany and Ben Essig adopted two rescue pups: Pabst and Bourbon. Then they decided to dream bigger.

First, Ben turned his coffee roasting hobby into a side hustle. The couple founded Rescued Roasters, donating 10% of profits to local animal rescue organizations.

Ben always dreamed of owning a coffee shop. He didn’t expect to have a popcorn shop as part of the deal, but that’s just how it happened.

In December 2022, the couple became owners of Knights Gourmet Popcorn, 4435 W. Forest Home Ave. The popcorn company has been in the Milwaukee area since 1952, and in the Jackson Park neighborhood for decades. Now the space is also home to the Essigs' other business: Rescued Roasters.

After months of renovations, this month they will officially open the Rescued Roasters coffee shop. It will share space with the Knights Gourmet Popcorn, which continues with retail sales in the revamped space.

Over the last seven decades, Knights Gourmet Popcorn has had generations of fans for its popcorns and popcorn balls. The Essigs still hand make the flavored popcorns with the same recipes. Brittany works in the shop daily and heard from numerous customers who loved the popcorn balls. When they found the recipe last year, they brought those back as well. Now the former teacher works to ensure they’re available in the shop every week.

For now, Ben retains an outside job in the medical field, roasting coffee for the Rescued Roasters label weekly.

Customers can recommend a local rescue to receive donations by going to rescuedroasters.com and clicking the “Rescue of the Month” link. Knights Gourmet Popcorn and Rescued Roasters are open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday, and 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday. Hours will be extended, with doors opening earlier, when the coffee bar officially opens later this month.

Ben and Brittany recently talked with the Journal Sentinel about their businesses.

This barista had a brewing dream

Ben: While in high school and college, I was a barista. It was my first job, and I loved everything about coffee. It was always my dream to have a coffee shop. Fast forward to just before the pandemic. My wife bought me a home coffee roaster. I started roasting at home and got pretty good at it. ... Fast forward to late 2021. We live in the Jackson Park neighborhood, where we live to this day. We always wished there was a coffee shop in our neighborhood. There was nothing. Well, a Starbucks up the road, and a Dunkin, but...

Brittany: We wanted a neighborhood coffee shop.

How popcorn and coffee became their perfect pairing

Ben: I started getting good at roasting coffee. "Let’s do a shop ourselves." We got serious about it and started to look for buildings in the area. There was nothing. Then we were talking with the alderman, who would hear that people wanted a coffee shop in the area. ... Our real estate agent showed us a building that didn’t work, but he also happened to be the owner of Knights Popcorn. He said ,“You could lease space in the building to roast coffee.” This was summer 2022. Eventually it was, "Do you want to buy the business?" ... We started roasting in September.

Brittany: In December 2022 we bought the (popcorn) business.

Ben: I’m originally from Oak Creek, went to Oak Creek High School and was a Knight. But Knights Gourmet Popcorn started in 1952, over on 9th and Mitchell, I believe. The Knight family started the business. From what we were told, they had a walk-up window at a house that was converted to a business. The business grew and changed hands over the years. Our understanding is it moved to this location about 30 years ago.

The secret to success includes popping daily (and real cheese)

Brittany: Knights started with the classics. We’re really well known for our gourmet white, but we do have 25 other flavors. Our big sellers include our double cheddar cheese. We do melt real cheese and mix it in small batches, and some we mix with caramel corn to make Chicago mix. We do our white popcorn for the Milwaukee mix. Then we have crazy kettle corns like cherry, blue raspberry, churro, and fun flavors like dill pickle, cajun, bacon cheddar, white cheddar cheese. All of our popcorns are popped daily, and our cheese is all hand mixed with melted cheese and butter.

Ben: It was important to keep the flavors and style of popping the same. Everything that was being done, we continue. We are hand popping every day. Then our popcorn gets put through a de-seeder to pull out the unpopped kernels. Then we hand bag, hand label. This is a very old-school, mom-and-pop business we strive to keep going.

They brought back this customer favorite

Brittany: We brought back the old popcorn ball recipe. They’d gotten rid of them for a while. We found the old recipe, so we brought it back before the holidays. That has been booming. We actually get calls to see how many are on the shelf at a time. There is usually one day of the week where I am forming popcorn balls.

They can never run out of this popcorn

Brittany: The one flavor we have to keep on the shelves is the double cheddar cheese. It is the No. 1 seller. Personally one of my favorites is the churro kettle corn. It tastes like Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

How animal rescue became part of their business

Brittany: When we got our house, the first thing we did was rescue a dog. We put it an an application through Woof Gang Rescue. We wanted to give her a very Milwaukee name, so we called her Pabst. As soon as we got her, we started to learn more about what rescues do. We wanted to do what we could to help.

Rescued Roasters, we donate 10% of the sales every month. We had a local artist do a portrait of Pabst. She is the model for our Good Girl. That is Guatemalan single-origin beans, female-owned.

Ben: We thought we were doing such a good job being dog parents, we thought we’d get another dog we saw on Facebook for months, a blue heeler stray from Texas. That’s Bourbon. To honor Bourbon, we have our Dingo Blend — smokey, black and caramel notes. That's how we incorporated our animals, using them as inspiration and naming.

Brittany: Our other roast is Tuxedo Cat, in honor of a cat I had for 20 years, Boots. We have worked with cat rescues as well. Tuxedo is our medium dark roast.

The basics behind the brew

Brittany: Right now we have whole bean and ground. If you need to have it ground for an espresso machine, we can do that. We are also at the Menomonee Falls winter market. This summer we will be at the VA Farmers Market, the Jackson Park Farmers Market (which opens June 13) and we’re hoping to be at South Shore as well. Those are the three we were at last year. You can also order our product online. You can find the popcorn there, too.

Ben: I roast all the coffee myself. We only source coffee through ethical and fair trade practices, and we only select coffee that is high grade on a coffee grading scale. It is all small batch, roasting for what we can sell that week, so the coffee is the freshest you can get.

This is about more than coffee and popcorn

Ben: This was my dream, making a coffee shop a reality. To just be a coffee shop, that’s great, but what else can we do? That’s how we got into the animal rescue world.

We’re obviously for profit, but the money we make, it is important we give back to those rescues who can do great things. We have two dogs. We learned that is our maximum, even though we want to rescue many more. Rescued Roasters, that’s our way to continue to help the rescues in the area and help promote them and help the animals in need of a home.

Brittany: We own the building. Some of our staff members have been here through other owners. We’re in the process of making our dreams come true, having our own neighborhood coffee shop. Since about October, we have been re-imagining the space in the storefront. The whole front was just a popcorn shop with shelves. We are adding a coffee bar, public restroom, one side with the cafe with about 19 seats, and then the popcorn market. We have things in the works so this can become a neighborhood destination.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Rescued Roasters brings coffee and a good cause to Jackson Park