Q&A with Have Fun Coffee

We chatted with Sonny Adamski, the Owner of Have Fun Coffee, to learn more about the coffee scene in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, and how he went from owning an ice cream store to a roastery.

- What made you decide to start a roastery?

This is my third business. I also own an ice cream shop called Dairy Bar, which was my first business and a cafe called Good Luck Cafe, which I opened five years ago. Have Fun Coffee is a sister company to Good Luck Cafe, which began as and remains to be a multi-roaster cafe.

- What made you decide to transition into coffee from ice cream?

I feel like coffee’s always been something that’s been on the radar in my family. My mom is really into coffee. As a kid, I remember we had a countertop espresso machine that I would play around with, and she used to brew a pot of coffee with cinnamon sticks that would make the whole house smell like cinnamon coffee. It’s actually one of the flavours we run at Dairy Bar—it’s really good!

Then when I was 15 years old, I had to get a job, and I wanted to work at a Starbucks. Then I got a job at the first real specialty cafe in Dartmouth. That was my first real introduction to specialty; I was 17 then, but they didn’t know that.

- What is the specialty coffee scene like in Dartmouth now?

It’s pretty good! Nova Scotia is a unique coffee place in that we have many die-hard dark roast drinkers, and people who really like it a specific way. But then we also have a lot of people who are really into a more recent version of third-wave coffee, where we have very approachable cafes and coffees that are more focused on quality than being very obscure and stuff like that. We have quite a community around it, and that’s a big part of why I wanted to open the roastery in Nova Scotia. We didn’t really have a specialty roastery that was like servicing local cafes in the way that I would have wanted to be serviced.

- What is the idea behind your branding and the name?

I love coffee, but I’m not a very serious person, and I sometimes find coffee can be too serious, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing—I think that’s good if that’s what people are into!

I felt like the communication can be dry, and I wanted to bring in some fun branding. The coffee is well purchased and roasted, but I wanted it to be light, fun, and inviting.