Elemental Coffee Roasters

Elemental Coffee Roasters opened in 2008 as, in its own words, the first third-wave micro-roaster in Oklahoma, built around a mission to source, sample, import, roast, and deliver what the company calls the finest coffees available in the world. Its café followed in 2011, opening at Hudson Avenue and NW 8th Street in Midtown Oklahoma City -- early enough in the neighborhood's development that, per the company's own account, customers ordered espresso out of an alley garage door while the space was still being built out.

That same year, Elemental partnered with two other emerging local businesses, Ludivine and Coop Ale Works, to launch the H&8th Night Market, a monthly food-truck festival that the company says grew to draw 40,000 visitors and helped catalyze the wider redevelopment of the Midtown district. By 2023, Elemental's coffee had expanded into retail locations statewide, and the business opened a second café at Will Rogers World Airport.

The company is currently run by three partners -- Laura Phillips, Allie Shinn, and Marcus Smith -- who credit ongoing community support for keeping Elemental "a fixture" as both Oklahoma City's coffee scene and the Midtown district it helped build have grown up around it.