Brothers in law Stephen Hall and Jeff Johnson founded Tinker Coffee Co. in early 2014 in the Herron Morton Place neighborhood of Indianapolis. They started in response to what they saw as a gap in the city's coffee culture, with the belief that great coffee should be accessible and not intimidating. Tinker sources high quality coffees and roasts them with an emphasis on approachability, letting the product speak rather than leaning on marketing. The roastery helped shape Indianapolis's growing specialty coffee scene from its earliest days.