For nearly a decade, Will Holder and Seth Wellens brewed and served coffee at Tartine, a small European café on 1st St. in Coronado.
But their love for coffee went beyond the morning rush and the customer interactions — they wanted to dive deeper, to understand the journey of coffee from farm to cup.
That passion led them to start Visitor Coffee Roasters (VCR), an online subscription-based roasting business, in June 2020. By leveraging subscriptions, they deliver a rotating selection of specialty coffees to customers and have been steadily growing in San Diego.
“We always talked about starting a coffee roasting business,” Wellens recalls. “We fell in love with the Moto coffee we worked with at Tartine, and we knew we wanted to create something of our own.”
For Holder, the journey began after watching “A Film About Coffee,” a 2014 documentary that explored the complex world of coffee farming and sourcing.
Their journey into roasting started small. Their first roaster, an electric model, could handle less than a pound at a time.
“We realized not how easy it was, but how it is possible to have really good coffee,” Wellens said. “There’s a lot of bad coffee out there, but when you roast in smaller batches, there’s room for a lot more care and patience.”
The two co-founders took their time perfecting their craft, launching VCR as a subscription-based model to keep costs low while working their day jobs — Holder in commercial real estate and Wellens as an aerospace engineer.
“The subscription model has been really cost-efficient for us,” Wellens said. “It has allowed us to grow naturally while keeping our day jobs. But eventually, the goal is to open a brick-and-mortar café.”
When it came time to name their business, Holder and Wellens wanted something that reflected their philosophy.
“We liked the idea of making as little of an impact as we can on earth,” Holder said. “Because in the end, we’re all just visiting here.”
Visitor Coffee operates out of a warehouse just shy of 1,000 square feet in National City, a location that Holder and Wellens found ideal due to its industrial zoning and affordability compared to Coronado and Imperial Beach, where they both have deep roots.
Their roasting sessions take place several nights a week, where they spend three to six hours fine-tuning their batches. One roasts, the other packages.
“Every bean is different,” Holder explained. “Size, density, weight — they all affect how long and how precisely it needs to be roasted. It can take anywhere from 10 to 17 minutes per batch.”
VCR works with trusted coffee traders, such as Inter American Coffee in downtown San Diego, to ensure they are getting high-quality, ethically sourced beans.
“Once you realize there are just so many different kinds of flavors that come out in different coffees, it’s pretty addictive; it’s similar to wine as people say,” Holder said. “But once we realized what we enjoy in coffee, it was addictive trying to find the next best coffee.”
While the coffee culture in San Diego is brewing, it’s also competitive.
“There are a few large-scale coffee roasters already in a lot of cafes around town,” Holder said “Some of them provide equipment repair alongside their beans, which is tough for a small roastery like ours to match.”
Local partnerships
Despite the challenges, Visitor Coffee has made its way into several local establishments, such as their 92118 blend, a collaboration with Boney’s Bayside Market and the local designer Orange & Park.
They also have partnerships with Millport in Imperial Beach and Dame Más Cafeina in Chula Vista, where their beans are served and sold.
Another specialty blend is their SunCoast roast, crafted exclusively for SunCoast Market Co-Op and sold at its farmer’s markets and events.
The co-op’s general manager, Doug Zilm, said VCR and SunCoast’s collaboration began modestly — just a conversation about shared values and quality brews.
“I hadn’t had a coffee in over a decade,” Zilm said, “but I went ahead and tried theirs to see how it was.”
The co-op’s community-driven grocery store — a $4 million project — is set to open this summer, where VCR will have a dedicated presence on the shelves, with both bagged and bulk options available.
Zilm pointed to SunCoast’s partnership with Visitor Coffee as emblematic of why working with local vendors matters.
“If we were dealing with a big national brand, it would probably take years to update the packaging with our new logo,” he said. “But with Visitor, they can just switch things up right away. It’s a two-way street — we’re helping promote them, and they’re promoting us.”
For now, Visitor Coffee remains an online-first business, leveraging subscriptions to deliver a rotating selection of specialty coffees to customers.
