Producer Faces on the Wall: A Pittsburgh Roaster's Quiet Challenge to Specialty Coffee

Seventeen-foot windows. Eggshell-white walls. Framed photographs of coffee farmers looking directly at the camera, their faces lit by natural light pouring through the glass.

This is La Galeria, the second cafe from Pittsburgh's Dynamic Coffee Roasters, and the design choice is not decorative. It is a statement about who matters in the specialty coffee supply chain.

Walk into most specialty cafes in Sofia, from the established DABOV locations to the newer multi-roaster spaces, and the focus lands on origin names, processing methods, tasting notes. The farmer's face rarely appears. The question La Galeria poses is simple: what changes when the producer becomes visible?

The Philosophy Behind the Gallery

Andrew Delgado, Dynamic's co-founder, was born in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. His family were coffee producers who eventually sold their farms when prices collapsed. That history shapes everything about how Dynamic operates.

I usually meet the farmers before even trying their coffee. For us the priority is to work with great human beings. Because of my coffee processing background, I am usually able to provide help to farmers to elevate quality or profile, so if I try their coffee and it's not what we want, I know how to get it to where we need it. We do it this way because the pillar of the relationship is the farmer, not the coffee. We can adjust and shape coffee, but not people.

Andrew Delgado

This inverts typical specialty coffee logic. Most roasters lead with cup scores, with processing experiments, with the coffee itself as the primary selection criterion. Delgado leads with the human relationship, then works backward to improve quality where needed.

His background makes this possible. Before founding Dynamic, Delgado trained Adivasi growers in India's Araku Valley in specialty production, processing, roasting, and barista skills. He later led farmer education programs for Caffex, a San Pedro Sula-based exporter, teaching producers low-cost methods to improve cup quality.

A Space Built for Staying

La Galeria opened in March 2026 at 6101 Penn Ave in Pittsburgh's East Liberty neighborhood. A long cupping table doubles as community seating. Delgado and co-owner Dylan Thomas finished the wooden seats, tabletops, and accents themselves.

I tried to have the seats be as comfortable as possible. I like when people hang out and don't feel like the chairs are chasing them away.

Andrew Delgado

Cafe design often optimizes for turnover: hard seats, limited outlets, layouts that discourage lingering. La Galeria optimizes for presence. Spotlights are planned to enhance the gallery effect. The space invites you to look at the faces on the walls and stay long enough to think about them.

Dynamic roasts in a 5,000-square-foot facility in Carnegie, outside Pittsburgh, using a 15-kilo Joper for production and a Stronghold S7 Pro for smaller batches and competition roasts. The company sources directly from producers in Ecuador, Guatemala, and Honduras, using importers only for logistics.

Фото: Виктор Младенов

The Circular Vision

Dynamic's trajectory tells a story of expanding ambition. Founded in 2022 as a wholesale roastery, the company added producer export support in 2023 to help Honduran farmers sell green coffee to other U.S. roasters. The first cafe, a 900-square-foot space in South Side Flats, followed. Now La Galeria. The next goal is a shop in Honduras.

We want to create opportunities back home. It's important to know that no one wants to leave their country. We leave to seek better opportunities to grow. If our moving here and building this company here can in some way allow us to build opportunities for people in Honduras, I think this would be the next goal to hit.

Andrew Delgado

Diaspora capital returning home. A roastery built in Pittsburgh that eventually creates jobs in San Pedro Sula.

In Sofia, roasters like Blue Bag Specialty Coffee are exploring similar producer-centric sourcing with verified farms across more than a dozen partner cafes. La Galeria's physical expression of this philosophy, the literal gallery of faces, offers something worth considering as Sofia's specialty scene continues to grow.

What would it look like if more cafes here treated producer visibility not as a marketing afterthought, but as the foundation?

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What is Dynamic Coffee Roasters' approach to sourcing coffee?

A: Dynamic prioritizes relationships with producers over initial coffee quality. Co-founder Andrew Delgado meets farmers before tasting their coffee, then uses his processing expertise to help improve quality where needed. The company sources directly from producers in Ecuador, Guatemala, and Honduras, using importers only for logistics.

Q: Where is Dynamic Coffee's La Galeria cafe located?

A: La Galeria is located at 6101 Penn Ave in the East Liberty neighborhood of Pittsburgh. The cafe opened in March 2026 and features 17-foot-tall windows, framed producer photographs, and a cupping table that doubles as community seating.

Q: What equipment does Dynamic Coffee use for roasting?

A: Dynamic operates a 5,000-square-foot roastery in Carnegie, outside Pittsburgh. Production roasting uses a 15-kilo-capacity Joper roaster, while smaller batches and competition roasts are done on a Stronghold S7 Pro.