When Roy Baker left Oklahoma State University in 1995, he never would’ve surmised his life was destined to amount to a hill of beans. 

Long before he and his wife and business partner Maura began roasting coffee and cacao, the couple raised four boys, lived between Tulsa and Houston and had a commitment to the Army National Guard. 

It was in a tent in Kabul that the seeds of Zero Tolerance Coffee and Chocolate first were sewn. And those seeds have grown into an old-fashioned coffeehouse at 913 W Britton Rd. in Old Britton that is backed by artisanal coffee, roasted and ground in house, and handcrafted confections made from cacao that's roasted, tempered, molded and wrapped in the chocolate factory out back.

Boy Scout energy abounds with the Bakers. Listening to them talk gives the impression a common appreciation for preparation knitted their hearts together. Historical research came easily and handily.

Zero Tolerance is named for the coffeehouse ban of 1675, which was issued by King Charles II. The ban selling coffee, tea and chocolate in coffeehouses passed on Dec. 29, 1675.

"It lasted all of 11 days," Maura said. "The ban was an attempt to suppress free speech, but the people wanted their coffee."

It's a story oft told between the walls of Zero Tolerance because storytelling is part of the fabric of this growing micro-community.

"I love getting to know our guests, but I also like introducing them to each other," Maura said. "The coffeehouse tradition is about community and getting to know your neighbors."

The spirit of community comes easily to the Bakers thanks to a lifetime of military service. Roy comes from a family of Air Force men and his sons are sailors.

"My sons joined the Navy because they're smarter than me," he tells a customer. "They wanted to go to the cool places."

Without Roy's military service, Zero Tolerance would be Zero Dark Thirty.

"I started drinking coffee because of my grandmother," Roy Baker said when asked about his coffee origins. "I didn't really like it myself as a kid, but she always drank it. I would make it for her. After she was gone, I just kept making it because it reminded me of her. You know, the smell and everything, so I eventually started drinking it and was like, 'Hey, this stuff is pretty good.'"

Roy worked as an accountant and tax specialist, specializing in the oil and gas industry, while the passion for gourmet coffee percolated. Maura worked as a fitness instructor.

In the early days, Roy roasted the coffee beans, but Maura took the wheel of the roaster once he was deployed.

"While I was in Afghanistan, Maura had to start doing most of the roasting," he said. "She was already pretty good at it, but while I was gone she really dialed it in."

Roy's coffee eventually became so popular that he had to enlist help grinding beans.

"I had to have two guys help me grind," Roy laughed. "We had a line out the door or people waiting for coffee."

Maura grew bullish on roasting beans. Cacao captured her curiosity.

"I started playing around with cacao beans and pretty quickly could see all the different things you could do, and things really opened up," she said.

Once back home in Houston after deployment, Roy was lured to Oklahoma City by Devon Energy. Flushed with confidence in 2019, the Bakers couldn't have seen fate trundling forth with bad news.

First, Roy was laid off from Devon just months before Zero Tolerance was scheduled to open.

"At first, I was going to help out when I had time," Roy joked. "Once I got laid off, I had plenty of time to focus on this place."

Then, COVID-19 arrived just months after the store opened.

"We stayed open as best we could," Maura said. "We wore masks and did curbside, of course, but we felt like people needed some connection. It was a scary time for everyone, and we wanted to provide some kind of comfort. People just needed their coffee."

When they weren't serving people, the Bakers got better at making coffee and confections.

Maura’s ongoing dance with chocolate is on display at the coffeehouse's entrance along with Oreshki cookies, a walnut-shaped treat filled with dulce de leche cream from Roy's Ukranian heritage. Foo bars are Maura’s answer to the Butterfinger, and her answer is correct. The peanut butter cups can clink those from Reese's any day, and those heart-shaped numbers will fly like Cupid's arrows on Valentine's Day.

Thirsty? The shop employs a Cyclops immersion batch-brewer to customize your cup of joe. Need a suggestion? Poor Ken is a cold-brew guaranteed to pick you up, shake you and send you along your way with a friendly pat on the head.

Their cacao products include single-origin chocolate bars, and handcrafted confections dappled with nuts and fruit. Want to drink some chocolate? Save the hot chocolate for winter, Zero Tolerance has cold-brewed cacao tea.

Whether sipping, nibbling or both, Zero Tolerance has a comfortable place to enjoy it. Friends can gather inside or in the courtyard where local musicians occasionally play. Singletons seeking a quiet quarter hour can sidle up to street-view seating along the front window. 

The hill of beans the Bakers climb every day is neatly stacked in burlap sacks inside a metal building around the corner from the back exit of the coffeehouse.

The unmistakable aroma of coffee and cacao fill the air inside the roastery and chocolate factory. This is where folks start looking around for lounging Oompa Loompas.

Alas, no mythical creatures do the dirty work at Zero Tolerance. Maura and Roy don't have time to fantasize, they're too busy testing, learning and executing. They share responsibilities and a common curiosity that drives their knowledge of process and the various pieces of equipment that support it.

"We had to buy a lot of second-hand equipment to get started, but we're not afraid of that sort of thing," Maura explained. "Roy's pretty good at taking things apart and putting them back together. Even making improvements on some things."

A conversation about cacao beans can take you all the way to the beans' origin story and the long trip they take before they are ever roasted, cracked, winnowed, ground, liquored, tempered and molded into treats that would make Willy Wonka shudder.

Talk of coffee beans is no different. Conversation soars from Ethiopia to Guatemala points around the globe. Zero Tolerance currently offers beans from Guatemala, Costa Rica, Sumatra, Uganda, Mexico, India, Kenya, Colombia and Nicaragua.

The Bakers next want to grow their community beyond Old Britton. Not with new locations, but new partners.

"We would like to do more of that," Maura said. "We love custom-roasting and collaborations. We've talked to a number of local vendors."

Among their current collaborators are Lahoma's Red Ridge Creamery, which provides milk and cream.

"When you taste these things that are made locally, they're made with love," Roy Baker said. "You can taste that, it makes a difference in the flavor. It makes a difference in what people do, so we try to bring as much of that love together as possible."

The Bakers and their delicious adventure brings to mind the wisdom of the most famous chocolate-maker who never was, “Don’t forget what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he wanted; He lived happily ever after.”

Zero Tolerance Coffee, 913 W Britton Rd., is open 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday with brunch served 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Sundays.