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Xavier Alexander

Xavier Alexander

Owner , Metric

Xavier Alexander has been deep in the coffee game since the early 2000s—back when “small-batch” sounded like a risky science experiment and Starbucks was basically the only game in Central Florida. His origin story kicked off in Orlando in 2001, but things got real in 2003 when he attended a specialty coffee event in Atlanta and took that fateful first sip of true specialty coffee. One great cup later, he was hooked for life.

After paying his dues and eventually landing as Roaster and Quality Control at Intelligentsia Coffee (where he roasted enough beans to sink a small ship), he decided there had to be more to life than corporate coffee. In 2013, he teamed up with Darko Arandjelovic to co-found Metric Coffee in Chicago’s Fulton Market. They went all-in: racked up credit cards, sold anything of value, and Xavier even took out a student loan—just to buy the roaster. No investors—just grit and determination. That’s still exactly how we do things today.

These days, Xavier spends his time circling the globe building direct relationships with coffee growers, working with the roasting team, and splitting time at Milli by Metric—Metric’s newest all-day café and bakery in Avondale. When he’s not visiting producers at origin or obsessing over roast curves, he’s a devoted husband and father, a former touring musician from his past life (yes, he once lived the rock-and-roll dream), still enjoys strumming the guitar from time to time, and occasionally picks up books he bought years ago—only to fall asleep before getting past the first chapter.

 

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