Our Story
We named Saint Frank after our city of San Francisco...
But more specifically, the beloved Saint Francis who showed all things seemingly mundane and ordinary to be special. His life warranted the denomination of a saint while he would prefer a simple name like Frank. Saint Francis had a passion for life and connection with people and the world around him in a way that shapes our direction in coffee and service. He approached everything with a humble wide-eyed view of simplicity and courtesy. Everyone mattered to Francis. Everything was important and special, worthy of attention and service. We approach our craft with simple and restrained elegance that amplifies our values in coffee, people, and connection.
“I have said that St. Francis deliberately did not see the wood for the trees.
It is even more true that he deliberately did not see the mob for the men.”
— G.K. CHESTERTON
For Saint Frank, coffee isn’t mundane or commodity, it isn’t “just coffee.” It has a quality to bring joy to life through its aromas and flavors but also with its ability to bring people together. There is a world and a story behind every coffee from particular people, places, and cultures. We travel to build real relationships with our producers around the world with a commitment toward quality through direct relationships but also because of a commitment to connection and quality of life from the farms to your cup. Founded by Kevin Bohlin in 2013, Saint Frank is the evolving dream for the experience of coffee toward a simple joy in life, but also toward social connection and celebration of people, place, and culture. Kevin discovered that small scale everyday farmers produced some of the most complex and incredible coffees in the world, yet they had no experience of what was happening to their work thousands of miles away or its tremendous value and appreciation by specialty coffee drinkers.
At Saint Frank, we are not technical masters turning a raw product into something special, we are simply the final step, the translation of a story that starts with artisans and specialists at the farms and in the mills before it leads to us. We believe that a collaboration between friends doing our best for one another and for you is what makes the most delicious and meaningful coffee.
While coffee is every bit as complex and involved as the finest wines and spirits with carefully selected varietals with unique terroir, there are some major differences beginning with the economic value. Coffee can only be produced in tropical climates, and the best coffees grow high in the mountains cultivated and crafted laboriously by hand. These farms are located in poor developing countries where the social and cultural distance between coffee producers and consumers is drastically different than that between wine producers and consumers.
Our business is to offer an excellent product with a service that does justice to the people behind it and the people who enjoy it. We want to serve you a sensory experience rich and full of connection to the world around us. We want to bring this experience and connection to new communities, but also to new communities of producers. We believe that specialty coffee is a movement and one worth expanding and multiplying. Saint Frank is one effort at serving that movement here in San Francisco and throughout the world from Honduras to Burundi. We want to do our best, because it matters.