Nomadic pirate-themed coffee roaster drops anchor in new permanent Oak Park home
The award-winning Black Sails Coffee will soon occupy the former Naked Coffee & Roastery space at 3527 Broadway.
But the journey from nomadic pirate-themed roaster to permanent brick-and-mortar involved multiple frustrated attempts and a personal tragedy.
Co-owner Sean McCullough has been in coffee for 20 years, and worked at Naked Coffee a little more than a decade ago. He began by learning the back end of the business, including sourcing, supplies and delivery, but soon took an interest in roasting.
“I took on an apprenticeship, learning how to roast coffee, and I did that for a couple years before I moved on to being a head roaster and green coffee buyer for a company up in Rocklin called Vaneli’s Handcrafted Coffee,” he said. Green coffee indicates coffee beans in their unroasted state.
Through Vaneli’s, McCullough began submitting roasts to the pan-continental Golden Bean the Americas competition, winning multiple silver and bronze medals.
“You submit your coffee to these blind panels, and they taste your coffee blind against other roasters in the country. Then they assign a numerical value to your coffee. And then it’s just whoever has the highest score wins. It doesn’t matter if you’re a $1 million-company or $1,000-company,” he said.
The wins emboldened him to start roasting on his own, starting Black Sails as a cottage business. He used a Behmor home roaster, a small countertop appliance that can roast about a pound at a time. “It looks like a toaster oven,” McCullough said.
Though the Behmor does allow for presets, McCullough preferred to make manual adjustments to hone his roast. It’s an inexpensive device, but requires the finesse of a skilled roaster to produce excellent beans.
“You give Martin Scorsese a VHS tape camcorder from the ’80s, and he’s still going to win Oscars,” he said.
He submitted his home-roasted beans as the sole American competitor in the Australian International Coffee Awards, winning a bronze medal.
After entering in the Golden Bean competition again, pro skater Tony Hawk took notice. McCullough sent him beans, and Hawk hawked his coffee on social media to a combined audience of around 10 million followers.
McCullough, with his business partner and best friend, Anthony Pulido, decided to make the leap to go brick-and-mortar. They leased a raw space in Gold River in 2021, with the intent to convert it into a full-service cafe. Logistically, this proved unexpectedly difficult.
After going through layer after layer of red tape over the course of several months, paying utlities and rent while unable to drive revenue, they abandoned that plan. They fell back on e-commerce and pop-ups.
Last year they were presented with an opportunity to rent a space in the Marketplace at Birdcage shopping center in Citrus Heights. While not as big a lift as the previous space, it still took seven months to get through the necessary permitting.
Then, tragedy struck. McCullough’s house burned.
“My house was condemned from all the damage. I lost my home business. I lost my roaster, I lost all my supplies. I lost all my personal items,” he said. “I essentially became homeless.”
McCullough was able to lean on family and friends for support. The fire didn’t deter him.
“I’m kind of a stubborn person, so it’s hard for me to just, you know, fold my hands and walk away. So I just put my head down,” he said. “Instead of letting all of the stress dictate my life, I just put all of it into opening, and it was a good distraction. It gave me a purpose and something to focus on.”
Black Sails opened in the Birdcage, but the lease was only for a year — and seven months had already passed. Before the end of the year, the landlords informed the business that they would not be renewing.
McCullough had been consulting with Naked Coffee, his former employer, for about two years. When the owner had family commitments that pulled his attention from the business, he offered the space to Black Sails.
Unlike the previous two projects, the Naked space came fully equipped and ready to occupy.
“I learned my lesson with my first warehouse, how much easier it is if a place has already been what you’re trying to do. You can fly through the permitting process if it’s already been a food facility,” McCullough said. “If you can find a place that’s pretty turnkey, you can just walk in and start operating.”
McCullough is “shooting for a grand opening” on Valentine’s Day, Feb. 14.
This story was originally published January 30, 2026 at 12:23 PM.
