Yellowstone
Entrepreneurs: Christopher Burke
Published
11 years agoon
Posted By
Outlaw PartnersOccupation?
Owner of Morning Glory Coffee and Tea Inc.
Age?
46
Where did you learn to ski?
Killington, Vt./Cannon, N.H./Snowbird, Utah
Where do you live now?
West Yellowstone
If you weren’t doing this, what would you do instead?
I’d probably work as a naturalist in Yellowstone National Park. That’s what I did before opening the business, and I have a degree in horticulture.
Christopher Burke and his wife Laura opened Morning Glory Coffee and Tea Inc. in March 2005. Now with a decade of business experience in West Yellowstone, Burke knows that diversifying is the only way to survive the cyclical tourist traffic in one of the Yellowstone’s most heavily visited gateway towns.
“It’s a hard balance in West [Yellowstone],” Burke said. “If we were just a coffee shop, it’d be really difficult when the faucet turns off.” A couple hundred people a day visit his retail shop during the summer, he said, while he may see five or six customers per day during the offseason.
To make it work, Burke has grown the coffee roasting side of the business, and now he says, he provides wholesale beans to establishments throughout southwest Montana, the park, and nationwide through orders from morningglorycoffeee.net.
Burke recently purchased a new roaster that will recirculate the heat used to burn off the emissions back into the machine, using less fuel to roast the next batch. It will double his roasting capacity, while cutting the emissions and carbon footprint by 97 percent, he said.
“[The new roaster] allows us to have the capacity to take on more year-round accounts, breaking us out of the seasonal cycle.”
– T.A.
The Outlaw Partners is a creative marketing, media and events company based in Big Sky, Montana.
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Bike Big Sky is a FREE community mountain biking group with BSCO and Gallatin Alpine Sports. Meet at posted locations at 6 p.m. Monday evenings. Visit BSCO.org or swing by
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Bike Big Sky is a FREE community mountain biking group with BSCO and Gallatin Alpine Sports. Meet at posted locations at 6 p.m. Monday evenings. Visit BSCO.org or swing by GAS for ride information.
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September 2 (Monday) 6:00 pm - November 11 (Monday) 6:00 pm
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Spanish Classes with World Language InitiativeThese unique, no cost Spanish classes are made possible by the contribution of Yellowstone Club
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Event Details
Spanish Classes with World Language InitiativeThese unique, no cost Spanish classes are made possible by the contribution of Yellowstone Club Community Foundation (YCCF) and Moonlight Community Foundation (MCF). This class will focus on building a lifelong affinity for world languages and cultures through dynamic and immersive Communicative Language teaching models.
Beginner Class – Mondays and Wednesdays from 5:30-6:30 pm
Intermediate Class – Mondays and Wednesdays from 6:45- 7:45 pm
- Classes begin Oct.7, 2024 and run for 6 weeks
- Class size is limited to 12 students
- Classes are held in Big Sky at the Big Sky Medical Center in the Community Room
For more information or to register follow the link below or at info@wlimt.org.
Time
October 7 (Monday) 5:30 pm - November 13 (Wednesday) 7:45 pm
Location
Big Sky Medical Center - Community Room (2nd Floor)
Big Sky Medical Center - Community Room (2nd Floor)
Event Details
Spanish Classes with World Language InitiativeThese unique, no cost Spanish classes are made possible by the contribution of Yellowstone Club
more
Event Details
Spanish Classes with World Language InitiativeThese unique, no cost Spanish classes are made possible by the contribution of Yellowstone Club Community Foundation (YCCF) and Moonlight Community Foundation (MCF). This class will focus on building a lifelong affinity for world languages and cultures through dynamic and immersive Communicative Language teaching models.
Beginner Class – Mondays and Wednesdays from 5:30-6:30 pm
Intermediate Class – Mondays and Wednesdays from 6:45- 7:45 pm
- Classes begin Oct.7, 2024 and run for 6 weeks
- Class size is limited to 12 students
- Classes are held in Big Sky at the Big Sky Medical Center in the Community Room
For more information or to register follow the link below or at info@wlimt.org.
Time
October 14 (Monday) 5:30 pm - November 20 (Wednesday) 7:45 pm
Location
Big Sky Medical Center - Community Room (2nd Floor)
Big Sky Medical Center - Community Room (2nd Floor)