The Legend of the Star Mountain Roasters


After a career spanning 34 years in manufacturing management in a large aerospace
corporation manufacturing rocket motors for the defense and space exploration
industry, our founder, Sam R. Starnes, left corporate America to pursue his passion in
the coffee business.


With the support of his family, wife, daughter and son, the business was incorporated in Utah under the name, Starnes Distributing, Inc., dba Star Mountain Roasters in l994.
The primary market was selling gourmet coffee to the local coffee shops in the Salt Lake City, Ogden, and Park City, Utah area.

The business has expanded to include not only gourmet coffee but all of the other items coffee shops sell, such as chocolate, tea, chai, soy, Italian syrups, iced coffee mixes, cups, brewers, grinders, and espresso machines.


The market area has also expanded to include sales in surrounding states such as
Wyoming and Nevada. A major customer is located in New York City, NY and
distributes our coffee to the gourmet food stores in the New York City, Connecticut,
and Pennsylvania area.


Our philosophy of, (1) buying nothing but the highest quality green coffee beans,
(2) having state of the art roasting equipment, and (3) pride in ownership of the manufacturing process where the owner’s family members do 100% of the roasting,
enables us to produce the finest coffee you can buy anywhere at any price.
Our motto, “it may be just a cup of coffee to you but a reputation to us” is evidenced by our manufacturing and quality control process that enables us to take pride in the fact that, “if it has our name on it – it’s gotta be good”.