HilltopCoffee & Tea

Jami & Dan

Founders

Jami and Dan have, for nearly as long as they’ve been together, dreamed of one day opening their own independent coffee shop. Living apart for several years during college and early careers, they would spend hours talking on the phone about their dream café. Dan returned to Pittsburgh in April 2017 after finishing an MA in European History from the University of Cincinnati. He was followed shortly by Jami, a 5th-generation Pittsburgher raised on nearby Wellington Street, who returned home after a stint working for the Department of the Navy in Washington DC.

New challenges came to pass, like purchasing and renovating their 1888-built South Side Slopes home; however, they never stopped dreaming about their coffee shop. “Maybe when we’re in our forties and have some money saved up,” they would say. Well, how things change, and quickly!

After some fortunate discussions with friends and neighbors, beginning in January 2020, Jami and Dan began work on the Day & Night Heating and Air Conditioning storefront that had recently closed after faithfully serving the community for decades. When the COVID-19 pandemic struck in March, progress stopped for a few months until construction could safely begin again. Then, errors made by the City of Pittsburgh Permits, License, and Inspections department delayed the project even longer than the pandemic did.

Despite bureaucratic and health setbacks, on December 12th 2020, Hilltop Coffee proudly and safely opened its doors with masked-but-smiling faces.

Tim

Operating manager · Thomas & Fisk, Ltd.

Tim was born and raised in the Arabian peninsula, where coffee consumption is elevated to an iconic cultural practice. In the 1990s, Tim operated two retail stores wherein coffee was a core product. After his retirement from the military, Tim revived his coffee passion by teaching himself to roast, before being formally trained by the Specialty Coffee Association in Schaumburg, Illinois.

Tim bolstered this enterprise by taking advantage of his adopted hometown of Pittsburgh’s rich coffee resources, including Fulton Commons’ and Chatham University’s educational programs. Seeking to grow Thomas & Fisk, Ltd. beyond the small order and farmers’ market environment, Tim has partnered with Dan and Jami from Hilltop Coffee to bring his roasts to a wider audience and their community-oriented coffee shop back to life.

Since taking over the day to day, Tim has carried the torch for that founding vision while raising the quality of the coffee, the tea, the syrups and everything else the shop retails. The hours are longer now, so the shop is open when the neighborhood needs it, and both the menu and the lending library have kept growing.