By Cassie Galasetti
Childhood friends Holly Migliaccio and Shawn Kingsley left their big city careers to start Rook Coffee in 2010. Although they started with very humble beginnings, nine years later they are one of the most successful coffee businesses in Monmouth County, and have started a recent expansion to Ocean County with their largest store to date located in Point Pleasant.
Whether you know them as the brand with the iconic black bird logo that can be seen on stickers all over New Jersey (and even spotted in places like San Francisco, France and as far as Asia) or you’re a die-hard fan who can’t go a day without your favorite New Orleans Style Cold Brew, you know Rook as the company who offers high-quality coffee, paired with over-the-top customer service.
It doesn’t stop there, before their customers even purchase a made-to-order cup of coffee, the team at Rook travels and visits farms in some of the best coffee regions in the world. They meet with farmers, tour their farms and experience the coffee growing process firsthand, where they begin taste testing the newest harvest to select the coffees they’ll bring home to New Jersey. Once it reaches their facility, they roast the coffee in small batches to properly showcase each of the unique flavors and character before delivering to each of their locations.
From the beginning, Migliaccio and Kingsley have stayed true to this process and their motto: Quality, Simplicity and Experience. But it goes much further than that. Providing quality coffee to the masses is just one of their contributions to the community.
Courtesy Rook
Last month they celebrated their ninth year in business and hosted the first of what they hope to be an annual “Day of Giving” celebration. To commemorate, they featured a one-day limited release coffee from Peru, a customer favorite, and offered exclusive Rook Gives merchandise both in stores and online.
“In addition to the charitable contribution and raising awareness, the beauty of our ‘Day of Giving’ is that it also gives our customers the opportunity to participate by doing what they might do on any other given day – buy a cup of coffee. Of course, many customers went above and beyond and purchased coffee for the entire office or donated cash directly to the charities, which made the day and the effort all that much better,” says Migliaccio.
Three local charities benefitted from this day: The Ashley Lauren Foundation, The Friends of Monmouth County Child Advocacy Center and The Tigger House Foundation. “Choosing the three charities was a team effort. Being a local company of almost 200 employees, we are all connected with so many amazing people and organizations in our community. So instead of any one of us choosing personal favorites, we wanted a fair representation of Rook’s choice as a whole. We received almost 100 beneficiary applications, and with the help of our leadership team of 60 individuals, we did a blind vote to get to the top three charities that were chosen,” explained Migliaccio.
They hosted key members from these organizations during a small ceremony where they awarded them with more than $15,000 in donations. The organizations received 100 percent of the profits and donations from all 12 Rook locations.
In an official post on The Ashley Lauren Foundation’s website, founder and CEO Monica Vermeulen commented on receiving their generous donation: “We are so grateful to Rook Coffee and owners, Holly Migliaccio and Shawn Kingsley, for selecting The Ashley Lauren Foundation as one of the three recipients of their first #RookGives event! Our deepest thanks to Holly, Shawn, the Rook team and all of the Rook customers who worked so hard and were so generous. You are making a huge difference in the lives of children suffering from cancer!”
Rook will continue to help support local charities in the future Migliaccio says, “As far as the future of our charitable arm, Rook Gives, we plan on making each year bigger and better, and we’re hoping to work with many more of the amazing charities in our community as the years go on.”
