Emily Wild’s expertise in coffee, customer care and community engagement through early hospitality experience has made her the perfect fit for Zoka Coffee.

Zoka Coffee has been around since the early days of specialty coffee roasting. In the 90’s they pioneered the type of neighborhood coffeehouse that had a welcoming, hospitable environment while also paying close attention to the quality of their coffee. Zoka is both a Seattle-based wholesale roaster that supplies coffee to numerous cafés in the region, as well as a staple gathering place in several different neighborhoods around Seattle. If you talk to customers and employees of Zoka, they’ll tell you that the community that flourishes around each of the cafés is the true beauty of the company. One key person in this mix that can truly attest to that beauty is Emily Wild, who has been with Zoka for nine years and understands the business inside and out.

Emily has been in the coffee industry in one way or another for twenty-one years. In her early years, she spent summers working in a bakery, which awakened something in her that resonates today. She began to understand the importance of customer service and the basics of coffee service. Soon after, she started managing a coffee stand in Arlington, WA, which turned into a ten-year experience that solidified her love of customer service, her knack for managing people effectively and a passion for coffee that endures today.

Emily was drawn to Zoka’s overt measures to put the needs of its employees and customers first.

She ended her tenure at the coffee stand and shifted her focus elsewhere, working just a few doors down from the Kirkland, WA location of Zoka. As she became a regular, Emily saw how well Jeff Babcock, the owner of Zoka, was running the business and treating the employees. She was excited by Jeff’s aspiration to provide a safe workplace and fair wages to his employees, as well as the community feel of the coffeehouse. After five years away, she jumped back into the coffee world and applied the skills she had developed earlier in her career in Arlington, to her work at Zoka.

From daily tasks such as preparing a customer’s morning coffee, to traveling overseas to secure green coffee contracts, she has an altruistic impact at every step of the way.

Over time Emily became the assistant manager at the Kirkland location, gladly taking any responsibilities thrown her way. Eventually she moved to work at Zoka’s roastery and learned more about the coffee roasting and fulfillment part of the business. She spent a year fully immersed in this position trying to soak up as much knowledge as she could. After all that time, she still couldn’t get over how much she loved the profound sense of community the retail shops fostered. Touching people’s lives through the small, daily task of preparing their morning coffee and sharing her knowledge and passion for coffee with her guests kept her coming back. While she enjoys the process of extracting delicious espresso, her competence of the craft gives her freedom to focus attention on connecting with people, instead of just the coffee.

Emily makes up part of the lifeblood of Zoka. At this point she has several titles, but the most significant of them doubles as a term of endearment. She’s known as the “Swiss Army Knife” of the company by the owner, Jeff. She’s worked in most sectors of the business save a few, like roasting and traveling abroad to secure green coffee contracts. Jeff can call her about anything and knows that she’s gonna help make it happen. To the community she’s known as the “Mayor of Kirkland.” By virtue of spending so many hours behind the bar at the Kirkland location, she’s deeply invested in her regulars’ lives. She knows their anniversaries and travel plans. She’s even set up two of her regulars and watched their relationship grow into marriage.

She calls home to a place that truly values the energy and enrichment she brings to the array of roles she plays.

It’s known that being an effective coffee professional is just as much about community management as it is having a thorough understanding of the craft. Emily’s job is part drink crafter, part general manager, and part systematic problem solver. She does it well and she seems hooked on the industry and its community for the future. She slips in bits of education constantly to keep energy in people’s daily routine, and she enjoys cracking the uncomfortable, getting people to center themselves on life, even if only for a few minutes. Emily genuinely cares about the people in her community and has found a sense of belonging as a vital member of it.