Nicole, Milan & Max
The story behind
Rooted Roast.
"Rooted Roast began long before the roastery, the café, or the mountains of Norway."
It began years ago on the Czech mountains, where Nicole and Milan first met as ski instructors. Looking back now, it almost feels inevitable that mountains would continue shaping their story.
The Beginning
Coffee entered their lives early.
Nicole spent years working in cafés — first in the Czech Republic, later abroad in England and Canada — where coffee slowly became more than just a job. It became a passion. A ritual. A way of bringing people together.
Over time, that passion became shared.
On the Road
With a food truck and a lot of determination.
Driven by curiosity, ambition and a desire to create something of their own, they started a small coffee business together. They travelled across festivals, concerts and town celebrations — serving coffee wherever people gathered.
Around the same time, their son Max joined the journey — becoming the smallest, and perhaps most important, member of the team.
A Different Dream
But they were searching
for something more.
Not just another business. A different way of living.
There were dreams along the way. A small hotel in the French mountains. A new beginning somewhere abroad. Later, an opportunity on Bali that seemed to promise a completely different future. They moved there, invested nearly everything into a project of three villas and spent months believing they had found the next chapter of their lives.
Bali
Instead, it ended in loss.
The project turned out to be a scam. They lost almost all of their savings — and with it, much of the illusion they had built around that dream.
So they returned home to the Czech Republic and started again.
Starting Again
The food truck came back.
Coffee remained.
And for the first time, they began roasting their own beans.
Months later, an unexpected opportunity appeared online: a management position at an adventure centre in Dagali, Norway. Within days, their lives changed once again.
Norway
What was supposed to be
a new experience
slowly became something much deeper.
Dagali
Dagali felt like home in a way no other place had before.
With its silence, mountains, forests and long winters.
After a year, their path separated from the original project they had come for. But by then, something new had already started taking shape.
The Brand
And so,
Rooted Roast
was born.
They realised they didn't want coffee to be just another product. They wanted it to carry the feeling of the place they had fallen in love with.
The landscapes.
The silence.
The cold air.
The slow mornings.
The warmth inside small mountain cabins.
A coffee brand inspired by real Norwegian places — where every edition tells the story of a landscape surrounding them.
The Café
Months of painting, building, carrying, rebuilding.
Soon after, they found a small building next to Joker in Dagali. What followed were months of painting, building, carrying, rebuilding and long evenings filled with uncertainty and excitement.
Just before Easter, the dream finally became reality.
The Roastery & Café →
Today, Rooted Roast is more
than a roastery or café.
It is a place where both locals and travellers can slow down for a moment — to enjoy good coffee, mountain silence and the atmosphere of a small Norwegian village surrounded by nature.
Because for Nicole, Milan and Max, coffee has never only been about coffee.
It has always been about places.
About people.
About moments.
Each edition is a place. Each cup is a moment.