Our goal is to breathe new life into an ancient craft, and make amazing coffee approachable.

Over ten years ago, a coffee roaster and her teenage son worked together at a coffee shop in Culpeper, Virginia. Fast forward to 2012, when her son and three of his friends started bagging her coffee in a garage and offering free samples at local farmer?s markets.

Before long, we were offering single-origin coffees on shelves in dozens of specialty stores in Virginia. We began kegging our own ?Nitro Cold Brew Coffee,? biking the kegs to farmer?s markets, and installing them in high-tech offices. We also started supplying some of our favorite indie coffee shops, including North Arlington's "The Java Shack."

In 2015, the Shack's long-time owner, Dale Roberts, asked us if we would buy the shop and continue to carry the torch of "Arlington's Original Coffee House." Buying the Shack allowed us to control every step of specialty coffee preparation, from sourcing to roasting to brewing. In 2016, the Shack was featured in Washington City Paper as the D.C. metropolitan region's "Best Coffee Shop."

Soon thereafter, we worked with a real estate developer to build our first "Commonwealth Joe"-branded location in Pentagon City. Located by a Whole Foods and The Bartlett apartments, our newest shop is the first of its kind in the D.C. area. Like the Shack, it reflects the key elements of our approach: delicious hot coffee and espresso, multiple varieties of Nitro Cold Brew coffee, and friendly baristas.