I've been the person who didn't get a break.

I'm a registered nurse and a veteran. I've spent my career in cardiac ICU, in interventional radiology, and in neuro and trauma — the kind of units where you look up and it's somehow 1500 and you haven't sat down, eaten, or used the bathroom since you clocked in.

The coffee in those buildings was always the same: a scorched pot somebody started at 0500, a jar of powdered creamer with a spoon fused to the bottom, and a sleeve of cups that ran out by noon. We were the people keeping everyone else alive on twelve-hour shifts, and we were drinking the worst coffee in the county to do it.

A loading dose is the first, larger dose you give to bring a drug up to therapeutic level fast — before you settle into maintenance dosing. That's what the first cup of a shift actually is. Every name on our bags comes from that same place: charting, bedside manner, codes, and the break room. Not jokes about healthcare from the outside. Language from inside it.

Loading Dose started in my kitchen. I bought a small coffee roaster and began learning the process myself—testing beans, adjusting roast profiles, and making coffee for the people who rarely get a real break.

When it was time to produce the coffee consistently and at scale, I chose Barriques to roast the launch lineup here in Wisconsin.

I've worked in the military, the cardiac ICU, interventional radiology, and neuro-trauma. Different environments, same lesson: when things get difficult, you take care of the person next to you. Loading Dose is built around that idea.

Getting good coffee to people who don't get a break.

— Founder, RN · Veteran · MBA candidate · Loading Dose Coffee Co.