We Met Over Coffee: Philly’s Own Oat Foundry
It’s always a pleasure for us to work with fellow Philadelphians, especially Philadelphians that make cool stuff like Oat Foundry. This Bensalem-based company provided amazing pieces for our latest cafés: Saxbys Rochester and Saxbys Drexel. Oat Foundry is responsible for the stunning wood Saxbys medallions in both new spaces as well as the patio rails and refurbished art tables in our Drexel café. (The art tables are true showpieces — they were reclaimed from nearby University City High School and sealed and mounted by Oat Foundry.)
The guys at Oat Foundry are also consummate collaborators — each piece is a product of their team sitting down with our Construction & Facilities Manager, Dave King, and brainstorming and designing concepts that are truly custom-made for each café.
We had the opportunity to talk to Out Foundry’s CEO and Co-founder, Mark Kuhn, about Oat Foundry’s process, their favorite projects, and the best places to grab a bite in Philly.
How would you describe Oat Foundry and what you do? What’s signature to Oat Foundry?
Oat Foundry started as a collective of like-minded doers and makers falling in love with the process of design, product development, and building. Our team was brought together through a project to design an automatic pretzel vending machine for the Philly Pretzel Factory. In the middle of this engagement, we fell in love with the product development process: building up, tearing down, iterating and exploring; we loved making stuff, and we loved doing it together. Two years later we are still expanding our capabilities — as engineers, machinists, wood workers, designers and fabricators, gaining more momentum with each project.
Oat Foundry’s signature is tenacity and a willingness to build cool stuff. We take our work very seriously, but we still know how to laugh and joke and be silly. Remembering how to “play” when designing, coupled with working hard — I mean really hard — has led to our success.
So many businesses need cool stuff built. We are here to help.
Can you describe your relationship with the city of Philadelphia?
We all met while engineering undergraduates at Drexel University. Two-thirds of the founders were even on a study abroad trip to Germany together! We like to work with local Philly companies (like DiNics Roast Pork, Greensgrow Farms, and of course Saxbys) as well as customers as far away as Germany. In addition to our shop in Bensalem, PA, Oat Foundry has four memberships to NextFab studios in South Philly. It was a tremendous leg up for us when we were just starting out and has continued to be a fertile place for new ideas and to build cool stuff.
Where’s your favorite place to go in Philly (…besides Saxbys)?
Big fans of Franklin Fountain, DiNic’s Roast Pork, Terakawa, Dim Sum Garden, Federal Donuts, and The Garage when Deep Space Jawns is slinging snacks from the cart!
What’s your favorite project Oat Foundry did for Saxbys?
I want to say the reclaimed art tables because they were so beautiful, but it was the railings in front of the Drexel café. Dave called us on a Tuesday afternoon in need of some serious short-term fab: The inspector was coming that Thursday afternoon and without the Certificate of Occupancy, the café would not open the following Monday. We stayed up for almost the entire 40 or so hours from first cut to delivery. It was my favorite because it encompassed all of the tenets of Oat Foundry’s humble beginnings that I love — talented engineers rolling up their sleeves and scrappin’ and hustlin’ to get.it.done.
Where does the reclaimed wood used in our Saxbys medallions come from?
That is a good question! We bought it from a stock of reclaimed wood from our lumber yard.
What would your dream project be?
So many of the projects we work on internally start as dreams — the fun part is watching them become physical manifestations, grow in the wild, and be enjoyed by our friends and their friends. Right now, Oat Foundry is working on some cool projects for the bar/brewery crowd — big butcher’s block tables and a new kind of beer keg (or iced coffee!) tapping and pouring system for events. I cannot wait until you all get to see them too!