Just two years ago, Kevin Pedeaux went from being a vendor at St. Roch Market — one of only two historic city-owned public markets left in the city — to running the market.
In this week’s Biz Talks, he shares some surprising insights about the market and details on a big event coming in September.
about
Kevin Pedeaux has been roasting and selling wholesale coffee in New Orleans since 2009. What started with selling bags of beans at local markets turned into something bigger when he started supplying local coffee shops with wholesale coffee. He then expanded to his own coffee shop opening CR Coffee Shop inside the historic St. Roch Market in 2015. From there, he grew the wholesale Coast Roast coffee business by creating custom blends for more than 100 shops across the country. In 2019, Pedeaux opened a flagship CR Coffee Shop on Magazine Street. It took off so fast that during the pandemic, instead of shutting down, it doubled in size. A year earlier, Gambit had already tagged him as one of their “40 Under 40” young leaders.
By 2023, Pedeaux wasn’t just running a coffee business. He stepped in to take over St. Roch Market itself, keeping the 19th-century food market alive when it was close to shutting down. Since then, he’s brought in new vendors, refreshed the bar and turned the place into a lively gathering spot again. His love of flavor goes past coffee, too. He curates the wine list at the market, comes up with cocktails like the tiki-style Zanzibar Boogie. Pedeaux still insists on roasting coffee the old-fashioned way on antique 1910-era machines. He keeps his operations running with a pretty casual, pragmatic style that still circles back to the same thing he started with: making people happy with really good coffee.
