Christine Ball, at the opening of her Galaxy Girl Coffee shop in Manhattan Town Center in fall 2022.
Christine Ball, Navy veteran-turned-entrepreneur and owner of Galaxy Girl Coffee, became a coffee drinker and enthusiast when she was only 16 years old. Her love for coffee was inspired by her aunt’s favorite drink, playfully named the “poor man’s mocha”, a hot cocoa mix blended into a cup of coffee. “The chocolate always helped cover up the bitter taste in the coffee,” says Christine.
As she got older, she ventured beyond the “poor man’s mocha” and became enamored by the various blends, roasts and flavors of coffee available from around the world. It wasn’t long before she discovered the art of roasting beans herself, although her introduction to the craft was somewhat primitive. “In 2005, my grandfather told me about roasting beans in an air popper for popcorn,” says Christine. After using her grandfather’s coffee trick, Christine says it opened her eyes to a new way to experience coffee. “I tried it, and while it wasn’t ideal, the coffee tasted so much better than anything I had before, even black. It was then that I decided to start a coffee shop,” says Christine. Although it would be years before her coffee shop would open, Christine was committed to teaching herself everything she could about coffee roasting.
Christine’s career path led her through military service in the Navy, followed by 10 years as a federal employee. After struggling to manage the effort of her work along with single parenting, Christine decided to finally follow her dream. “The stress and anxiety I had from trying to keep up with my workload and being a single parent in a town where I had no immediate family was exhausting. I realized I wasn’t setting a good example for my teens,” she recalls. Like most entrepreneurs, she experienced her business journey as a team effort, and she sought out the support of family as she got started. “I left my [federal] job in August 2020 and moved to Manhattan in January of 2021 to stay with family, with the sole purpose of starting Galaxy Girl Coffee.”
Christine got her start online and doing vendor pop-ups, like this one, before opening the Galaxy Girl Coffee shop in Manhattan Town Center in 2022.
Galaxy Girl Coffee began as an online, micro-batch, coffee roasting service but recently expanded into a retail location at Manhattan Town Center. “I am so glad that circumstances caused me to open up my shop instead of being purely mobile,” says Christine. Since opening her store in Manhattan Town Center, she has been able to expand not only her business but her perspective. “Business is about relationships, and I have met some amazing people since getting to my location in Manhattan Town Center,” says Christine.
With having the capability to roast her own coffee blends, Christine can easily adapt the products she offers. While preparing to start her business, Christine found some unique offerings to add to her store. She enjoys encouraging her customers to try new flavors and learn about her coffee. Her four-ounce sampler bags are popular for this reason, but Christine thinks the flavor profile chart is the real fan favorite. “I think the most unique thing about my business is my flavor profile chart. Showing what flavors are available at different roast levels is important. It helps match the right bean to each customer,” says Christine.
She is also dedicated to helping her customers to make sure that they get the most value out of her products. “I’m not the only roastery that offers custom roasting, but I have yet to see any of them working to truly help customers find their favorite bean and roast.”
The customer and professional relationships Christine builds are the foundation of Galaxy Girl Coffee. “The entire goal of my business is to change people’s relationship with their coffee. This includes helping grow the micro-roasting industry,” says Christine. However, she has high aspirations to continue to grow her business into a franchise. “I would like to turn Galaxy Girl Coffee into a franchise business so that other micro-roasters don’t have to slog through the difficulty of building their brand. They could just plug into my business model and enjoy the roasting and brewing of owning a coffee business,” explains Christine. “It would allow us, as a group, to directly source our beans, which would just further improve our quality of coffee and provide better prices to both our customer and the growers/producers we purchase from.”
Christine’s favorite part about being a micro-roaster and opening her new shop is being able to witness the reactions of customers sampling her coffee in person, often starting with a simple cup of black coffee. “Most people think black coffee tastes terrible because they are basing their opinion on old, stale coffee,” says Christine. “I love the look on someone’s face when they try one of my coffees for the first time. The ‘Oh! That is surprisingly good’ look is priceless,” says Christine.
Galaxy Girl serves pastries from local bakery, Therapie, along with their micro-roasted coffee.
Catch Galaxy Girl Coffee online or stop by her shop at Manhattan Town Center, next to HuHot, Wednesdays through Saturdays, 9:30am to 6:00pm and Sundays 11:30am to 6:00pm. Galaxy Girl is the coffee sponsor for this month’s Veteran Entrepreneur Meetup, designed to build networking and education opportunities for veteran entrepreneurs and business owners. The January Meetup is Wednesday, January 25. Get more information and RSVP here.
