Our names are Thomas and Tisha Hardesty. We’ve been married for thirteen (mostly wonderful) years and live in Parke County, Indiana with our three children. With his background in English teaching, Thomas does sales for a fiber internet company; and with her degree in music business, Tisha runs a short-term rental property. It’s funny how life works out.
anyway, about the coffee
Thomas has long dreamed of roasting coffee. With nothing but a Whirleypop and a lot of optimism, he ignored the naysayers (mostly Tisha) to pursue his dreams. Firing up the stove, he loaded the beans into the popcorn popper…and managed to scorch a whole pound of beans and fill the entire house up with smoke.
fast forward a few years later
We were especially exhausted due to our third child’s hatred of sleep. We were drinking more coffee than usual—which is really saying something—and longing for more variety in our caffeine intake.
So we did the research, bought a fancy espresso machine, unboxed it, and eagerly watched the first shot fill the cup. We slowly sipped it, excited for our bright future of coffee shop quality drinks made right in our very own kitchen. Instead, we were sorely disappointed with the taste. We tried all sorts of coffee, and one shot after another, we eliminated every possible cause.
we soon realized the problem: old beans
We did some investigation and soon discovered the beans we had used in those first shots were nearly as old as the two-year-old keeping us awake at night. We searched all over for locally roasted coffee options, soon realizing that fresh roasted coffee was hard to come by in our area.
so decided to start a coffee roasting business
While Thomas dreamed of roasting coffee, Tisha had always dreamt of small business ownership. As we started to research and pursue this idea, we felt like God was giving us one green light after another. We invested in a sophisticated roaster that gave us the capability to roast consistent, quality coffee not just for us, but also for our customers (who we knew would eventually come along!).
We read coffee roasting books, watched coffee roasting videos, and listened to coffee roasting podcasts. We invited a small business advisor into our home, pummeling him with questions. We registered our LLC, received business credit cards in the mail, and spent ten minutes swiping fake purchases in the kitchen, pretending to be successful coffee tycoons. Just kidding. Maybe.
we’re a real business now!
Since setting up our roaster in February of 2025, we’re happy to report that we have successfully roasted hundreds of pounds of coffee. And it even tastes good! Our coffee is available at multiple locations and through our website.
the reason for our name
We chose the name Late Knight Coffee for a few reasons. We were always up late with the kids (none of them really took a liking to sleep), but also doing the coffee roasting and work for the business. We really looked forward to that first cup of morning coffee after a late night. We also share a love of nerdy medieval-adjacent interests such as The Legend of Zelda, Harry Potter, and Lord of the Rings. We even enjoy the occasional renaissance faire. And heck, we are just punny people and we thought the theme would be really fun to brand. I mean Lancelatte…come on!