Thump Coffee

Bobby Grover founded what became Thump Coffee in Bend, Oregon, starting the business as 11 Roasters Coffee in 2007. A non-compete clause from an earlier job in the coffee industry kept him off the retail side at first; once it expired, he bought a café in downtown Bend and opened it in 2009 under a new name — Thump.

The name is a sound reference rather than a place or product name: Grover has described it as the universal sound of hard work, whether that's a portafilter hitting a knock box, a hammer striking a nail, or skis landing on packed snow — the physical, repetitive labor behind both coffee and Bend's outdoor culture.

Thump grew to three Bend locations plus a Denver outpost, and more recently merged with Backporch, a Bend and Redmond breakfast-and-coffee chain that started in 2006 and had grown to five of its own locations — the two companies now operate under shared ownership while keeping their separate brand names on the storefronts.

Roasting, café operations, wholesale and a private-event bakery all now run under the Thump name out of Bend, the base Grover built the company from in 2007.