Partner Profile: Lindsey Hood of Badland Coffee Club

Starting in 2020, if you round out a meal at Arden with coffee and dessert, you’ll have Lindsey Hood to thank for your post-dinner drink. The co-owner of Badland Coffee Club (and former high school cohort of sommelier Kelsey Glasser!) started her coffee business in Bend last July and has plans that go beyond just beans. Having experienced both addiction and homelessness, Lindsey is determined to make her business a place where others with similar backgrounds can get a second chance. 

As she works tirelessly with her business partner Holly to build up their business, the two have set their sights on getting their own roasting facility and eventually a storefront where they can employ those who are going through a difficult time in their lives. In the meantime, they’re making great coffee and showing what a positive impact a business can make, no matter its size. Here’s more about Badland Coffee Club and its mission, in Lindsey’s words: 

Arden: How did you go from experiencing homelessness to becoming a business owner?

Lindsey Hood: After college, I was dancing professionally for the Trailblazers. I was heading for success, but I ran into some medical problems and had to have some major kidney surgeries. I was in the hospital and prescribed opiates. I ended up getting addicted to opiates. I gave up on dancing, I gave up on school. That just led me down the rabbit hole. I slowly lost everything. I lost a place to live, was living out of my car, and then lost my car. It was your average addiction story. Eventually, I was put into an intensive, year-long treatment program that really saved my life.

After that, I started getting back into life and working but realizing I had bigger goals. I always felt like I had a bigger mission. I’d been a speaker in prison for a lot of things. I’d tell my story at mental health conferences and the child abuse convention, I speak to police officers, paramedics and dispatchers for their crisis intervention training – I do lots of work like that. My main goal is to help people, and I think telling my story can help people in all sorts of different ways. 

Sometimes people just face these tragedies in life and they get stuck and need a helping hand in life. I‘ve always had that entrepreneurial spirit in me. I’m loving it. So far it’s just really trying to do everything I can to build it up. We will help people and make a difference.

Arden: How did Badland Coffee Club get started?

LH: Holly, my business partner, and I both went through a few years that were really rough. We live in Bend, where the weather is really extreme, and last winter we got three feet of snow. We found out that a bunch of families were recipients of Meals on Wheels, which wasn’t operating for a week. So [Holly and I] made 100 meals in the restaurant where we were working. We drove around and delivered to families who reached out to us. After that, Holly and I decided we should be doing something like this all the time.

What we landed on was employing people to help them get back on their feet. After we decided to do this, we created a website to do online sales and to get our coffee into restaurants and build up the business. Our mission, once we get the business built up, is to employ people who are either homeless or experiencing homelessness and having a hard time getting a job because of a criminal background or mental health issues – stuff that’s kept them in this cycle.

So far we’ve done donations and clothing drives, and have been a coffee sponsor for the homeless shelters. We want to set an example for other business owners to help fight this epidemic that Central Oregon and Portland are experiencing. We’re just hoping to make an impact.

Arden: How do you source your beans?

LH: We source our coffee from Costa Rica. When we started, we had a small little roaster and were roasting two pounds at a time and pulling all-nighters before going to farmers’ markets or filling orders for restaurants. A month ago, we linked up with another small business in town that has a bigger roaster, and they allowed us to rent that out. We’ve been roasting more supply for more demand. We have a Brazilian bean now as we expand our regions. The coffee is delicious, very smooth and bold. 

Arden: What’s challenging about starting a new business?

LH: I [previously] owned my own mobile ice cream truck business. That was pretty simple – it was a matter of buying a vehicle and having my own product. This business has been a lot more challenging because there are so many aspects and so many different routes you can go. It’s not just hopping in a truck and listening to music. 

But the sense of accomplishment after figuring things out is awesome. You have to think outside the box and not just do individual sales, but also try to get into places like Arden, try to get into restaurants that are normally buying big brand coffee and present a new angle to them. You’re not only supporting a small business, but supporting this philanthropic idea of helping other people. And a lot of people love that idea, but as business owners, some people aren’t into that. They’re looking at cost, and so that’s been a challenge as well. It’s ever-changing, there’s always new changes coming about.

Arden: What’s the story behind the name?

LH: We run in Central Oregon and we live next to the Badlands, which is a desert area where there’s some good hiking. And not only that, but we like to view ourselves as badasses. We’ve been through some major traumas in life and overcame them, and now we’re trying to help other people. ‘Badland’ is not only relatable to Central Oregon where our business is born, but it’s also kind of badass.

Arden: Why is it important to you to combine charity with hospitality?

LH: Our addiction crisis in Oregon is huge and growing. In Central Oregon, we have extreme weather and our nights are getting really cold in the winter, and the homeless shelters only have room for so many. We had a temporary homeless shelter that was open the past few winters, and it's closed this year. It was hosting 50 people a night. So the sheriff's office opened an old jail for a temporary shelter. It’s a crisis. There are transients that are dying in the cold. There are no shelters for just women and children; there’s only men or small parts of the shelters for families. It’s also a crisis in Portland. There are so many people living on the streets.

Why not take this [issue] on, one act at a time? This little impact we can make might also spread a message to other businesses, to those who are more established: Why don’t we consider being a second chance employer? You hire one person full-time, and all of a sudden they're making a paycheck and being an accountable employee. We’re taking one person off the street, and we’re opening one bed at a homeless shelter. It can really make a big difference.