Our Story

With over 20 years experience in food and beverage, sisters Joey and Cassy Gleason come from a west coast family of food lovers, home cooks and food growers.

Founder of Marigold Coffee, Joey is an entrepreneur and coffee veteran. She studied science at UC Davis, a discipline that informs her roasting and business philosophy today. As a trained chef, Joey discovered her passion for roasting coffee as one of the owners of the beloved Redwing Cafe in SE Portland. She decided to focus exclusively on coffee and launched Marigold Coffee in 2009. In 2019, Joey was elected President of the Oregon Coffee Board, a non-profit membership organization that promotes specialty coffee in the state of Oregon. Joey lives with her wife in North Portland and when she’s not knee-deep in the world of coffee you can find her watching soccer (go Thorns!), working in her garden or foraging goodies from the Oregon woods and coastline.

Cassy's early years included many jobs in food and beverage- starting with summers working on their family farm, to washing dishes and working in food prep at various restaurants, serving coffee at Full City in Eugene, then waiting tables at night while interning at the Children's Defense Fund in DC during the day. While living on the east coast for close to 20 years, Cassy's professional path was in community development, focusing on issues such as child nutrition, healthcare access and homeless services for LGTBQ youth. Her transition from a career in nonprofit to running a private business with her sister was a very happy leap of faith, finding the Coffee Industry to be endlessly fascinating, incredibly challenging and deeply rewarding. 

In 2015 Joey and Cassy opened the Buckman Coffee Factory, a unique shared-space roasting facility which also operates as a kind of business incubator for other small businesses in coffee.