About Leroy Hill Coffee Company®

Leroy Hill is an all-American success story. He started with nothing, learned his business from the bottom up, and has spent more than 50 years perfecting the coffee trade. His company, the former Hill & Brooks®, renamed Leroy Hill Coffee Company Inc.®, in 1999, is one of the few remaining businesses head-quartered in Mobile. Alabama.

Leroy Hill is an old-fashioned businessman who has guided his company’s growth over five decades. His goal has always been to “produce the ultimate cup of coffee for the American public at a fair and reasonable price.”  His personal message, which is included on each package of the company’s products, speaks directly to the consumer: “Neither time, trouble, nor expense were spared in creating this unique, rare, and full-bodied coffee.” It’s a message he has insisted upon from the beginning, and it echoes his belief that everyone deserves the best cup of coffee that man and money can produce.

Now a proud Mobile tradition, Leroy Hill Coffee Company, Inc.® experienced phenomenal growth under Hill’s leadership. “The free enterprise system will work if you do,” he insists. Originally serving an institutional market including restaurants, businesses and hotels in five Southern states, Hill added self-service centers in convenience stores during the ‘80s. The company started its retail operation in late 1989 - finally, customers were able to bring the taste of Hill & Brooks® coffee and tea into their own homes.

In the early ‘90s, Leroy Hill made news with his plans for a multi-milliondollar expansion of the company that more than doubled the size of its plant. The facility in Mobile is where the coffee is roasted, packaged, and distributed. “When you believe in your product, have quality people at your side and the support of thousands of loyal customers, the growth will come,” Hill told the Mobile Press Register in 1992, and he was right. The several million dollar, 30,000-square foot expansion increased Hill & Brooks® retail presence beyond the Southeast. The new equipment, including a German manufactured coffee roaster, produces the equivalent of millions of cups of coffee per week.

The expansion also brought on the addition of new coffees – Leroy Hill® Gold and Decaf, and that Southern staple, tea. After Jay Grelen, the former Mobile Register columnist and noted iced tea connoisseur, told Saveur magazine in its July 1999 issue that he only uses Hill & Brooks® tea to make his “sweet tea,” the company’s mail order business flourished.

Now, as the new millennium begins, the next phase of Leroy Hill Coffee Company. Inc.® will be continued growth and expansion. Although the coffee and tea will retain their “old fashioned” flavor, new, state-of-the-art packaging will earn the products more attention. As his business continues to change to meet customers’ demands, Hill is remaining focused on his personal and professional commitments. He firmly believes that in this great country, a young person can climb the ladder of success if he works hard enough – he is living proof of that. He has faced many adversities through his life. There is one saying he  has had to live by many times: “A boy can get knocked down, and he will still stay down. A man can get knocked down, and he will get up and be a better man.”

Hill gives lots of credit to his loyal employees for contributing to his company’s success, and he relies on the love and support of his wife, Debbie, and his strong faith in God. Leroy Hill looks to the future with great optimism. As Leroy Hill would tell you, “Don’t look back, throw the rear view mirror out the window and move forward on a positive path.” Leroy Hill looks forward to the new millennium with new energy and vision.

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