In shortDr. Sandi Luck, founder and CEO of Grand Forks-based Bully Brew Coffee and ND Coffee Roastery, was named North Dakota's 2026 Small Business Person of the Year by the U.S. Small Business Administration.
3 things to know
1Luck started Bully Brew in 2010 in a small coffee concession space inside Valley Eldercare, later expanding to coffee shops, a roastery, and a coffee school.
2She has begun licensing Bully Brew locations to other owners and estimates four or five former managers have gone on to own their own businesses.
3Luck holds a Ph.D. and taught marketing and entrepreneurship at the University of North Dakota before building her coffee business empire.
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Dr. Sandi Luck can trace her entrepreneurial spirit back to a lemonade stand. But the real story—the one that eventually led to Bully Brew Coffee, ND Coffee Roastery, ND Coffee School, multiple coffee shops, wholesale accounts, and recognition as North Dakota’s Small Business Person of the Year—started with necessity.
“I was a young mom and I was a little scrappy,” Luck said. “I did whatever I could do to make money.”
At 19 years old, Luck was raising a child and trying to figure out how to build a life. She sold Tupperware. She sold Pampered Chef. She admits she did not cook or bake, but she was willing to learn the product, make the calls, and try to sell.
She does not look back on those early sales ventures as financial wins. In fact, she is quick to say they were not exactly “successful” in the traditional sense.
“They taught me grit,” she said.
That grit has followed Luck through every chapter of her life from single motherhood to college, through divorce, to earning multiple degrees, teaching at the University of North Dakota, to buying coffee kiosks, to building Bully Brew, and mentoring other entrepreneurs, and learning—sometimes the hard way—what it really takes to survive as a small business owner.
Today, Luck is the founder and CEO of Grand Forks-based Bully Brew Coffee and ND Coffee Roastery, and in 2026, the U.S. Small Business Administration named her North Dakota’s Small Business Person of the Year. The honor recognizes not just business growth, but leadership, resilience, job creation, innovation, and impact.
For Luck, though, the award is still hard to talk about.
“I’m pretty humble,” she said. “Getting this award was really hard. I would much rather praise and be all about my people and tell you how amazing they are.”
From Coffee Customer to Coffee Owner
Before Bully Brew, there was Mountain Mudd.
Luck was working at UND when she became a regular at the local coffee kiosks. She loved the coffee, but just as much, she loved the experience with the baristas, the local feel, and the everyday connection of it.
“I would go through that kiosk every single day, probably a couple times a day,” she said. “I loved it.”
Then one of the baristas said something that changed the trajectory of Luck’s life.
“You should own this.”
“No, I have a good job where I get paid every other Friday,” she remembered thinking.
But the idea stuck. She called the owner and told him that she did not have deep coffee experience, and she did not have a lot of money. But she had run businesses before, and she was willing to try.
“In my eyes, he kind of started the process for me,” Luck said. “He was a giver. He sold it for a good price, and that was the dream. I didn’t even know it at that time, but it was the dream.”
Luck bought the Mountain Mudd franchise locations, learned what a franchise was, and quickly realized that, as someone with a marketing background, she did not necessarily need someone else creating the brand strategy for her. Eventually, after the franchise went bankrupt, she rebranded the kiosks as Mountain Espresso.
Then came the economic downturn of 2008 and 2009. Luck sold all four kiosks.
She went back to UND. For a moment, it seemed like the coffee chapter had closed.
Then, in 2010, a director at a nursing home asked whether she might be interested in running what was essentially a coffee concession stand.
That small space inside Valley Eldercare became the first Bully Brew.
Luck hired a young woman who needed a full-time job. Her kids helped. They pushed through.
“And that’s kind of where it all started,” she said.
The roasting side of the business, based in Grand Forks.
ND Coffee School
Her education and training business connected to ND Coffee Roastery.
Board Room Coffee & Taphouse
A Grand Forks coffee-and-taphouse concept.
Real Experience
Luck has been a young mother trying to make ends meet. She has worked in a lab. She has been a probation officer. She earned a Ph.D. She taught marketing and entrepreneurship at UND. She has bought, sold, opened, closed, licensed, and reimagined businesses.
That range of experience became part of her edge.
In the classroom, Luck said, she never wanted to simply teach from a textbook.
“I can teach you the theory but that is not how it always works. Let me share with you how it happens in the real world.”
That same approach now shows up through ND Coffee School, where Luck teaches aspiring coffee shop owners, managers, and baristas the practical realities of the industry.
She believes owners need to understand the work from the ground up.
“Get behind the bar,” she said. “Understand.”
That does not mean the owner should stay behind the bar forever. In fact, Luck believes that part of growing as an owner is learning how to step into a different role. But knowing the work matters. It builds empathy. It builds credibility. It helps owners train people well.
“You teach people to be a whole lot better than you,” she said.
The Business of Change
Ask Luck what she loves about business, and one word rises to the top, challenge.
“I get bored quickly,” she said.
“I’m definitely an entrepreneur who gets bored.”
That restlessness has become part of the Bully Brew story. Luck is not afraid to change the game, change the strategy, or admit when something did not work.
“I thought, ‘Okay, that didn’t work. It failed, but let’s try something else,’” she said.
However, she does not jump blindly. She knows her numbers. She researches. She pays attention. But she is willing to move.
That willingness to pivot is also one of her core pieces of advice for other entrepreneurs.
“Strategy is always important. Having a plan is important, but being okay with changing your plan,” she said. “Don’t get stuck in it because you’re going to have to pivot.”
Coffee is not a high-ticket business. A $6 or $7 coffee may seem expensive to a customer, but Luck knows exactly how many drinks it takes to cover rent, payroll, inventory, utilities, and the countless other expenses that come with operating multiple locations.
“Do you know how many $6 or $7 coffees I have to make up and sell to pay rent, payroll, all of the goods that are coming in?” she said. “It’s a lot.”
The only way to make it work, she said, is to offer strong service, create a place people want to return to, and build a team culture where employees enjoy showing up.
One of Bully Brew’s guiding principles is to be silly.
“When I tell people that, some say, ‘Well, that’s not very professional,’” Luck said. “‘No, it’s not. We’re kind of goofy and fun.’”
She believes there are times to be professional. But she also believes life is too short so enjoy it.
“When you’re having fun, your customer is going to enjoy that,” she said.
Learning the Hard Way
Luck is honest about the mistakes. There have been many, she said, and that is okay.
“I’m a believer in failure,” she said. “It hurts, but it’s okay.”
One of her earliest lessons was the importance of knowing the numbers. Today, she can tell you exactly where the business stands every day. Her daughter serves as CFO, which Luck says gives her both confidence and peace of mind.
“I’ve been burned by people, and that’s hard,” she said.
Still, she has not let that harden her completely.
“I still believe that people are good,” she said. “You’ve got to give people grace because they’re learning and growing.”
She has seen employees leave and come back because they realized a workplace is about more than the paycheck.
“Life is too short,” she said. “We work for so many hours, and if you’re not happy at work, life is tough.”
Raising Owners
One of Luck’s greatest sources of pride is seeing people who once worked for her move into ownership themselves.
Over the years, she estimates four or five former managers have gone on to own their own businesses, many in coffee. One has coffee houses and a roastery. Another, in Idaho, started with a mobile coffee truck and recently bought a brick-and-mortar location.
Luck teaches her managers to think like owners.
“I tell them, ‘It’s like you own this. You’re just going to use my money,’” she said.
That mindset now shapes the next phase of Bully Brew. Luck has begun licensing some Bully Brew locations to other owners. They operate under the Bully Brew name. Luck still gets to mentor, coach, and teach—but she can slowly step away from the day-to-day demands of running every coffee house herself.
That matters because the business has grown far beyond its first nursing home location.
Bully Brew now includes coffee shops, ND Coffee Roastery, and the ND Coffee School. In 2022, Luck purchased a 27,000-square-foot warehouse in Grand Forks to house roasting operations and educational programs, a move that helped ND Coffee Roastery grow its wholesale presence significantly.
The roastery, Luck said, is a different kind of business than the coffee shops.
“It’s much easier to run with only a few employees,” she said.
The coffee shops, by contrast, involve roughly 70 employees.
Her long-term vision is to sell or license more of the coffee houses to people who will own them, care for them, and grow them with the same level of commitment.
“When you own something, you’re much more dedicated to do everything you can do to make it work,” she said.
Scrappy by Necessity
Long before awards and warehouses, Luck was a young single mother trying to figure out school, work, parenting, and survival.
She grew up in Grafton. Her dad was a janitor. Her mom worked as a grocery clerk. They did not have a lot of money, but Luck describes her upbringing as normal and grounded.
She knew she wanted to go to college, even though her parents had not went to college. Her brother was at NDSU, and she looked up to him.
“I was like, I’ve got to do this,” she said.
So she did.
She raised kids. She worked. She went to school. She sold whatever she could sell. She learned how to multitask because she had no other choice.
Then, after leaving a marriage, she had to rebuild again.
A Small Business Reminder
For all of Bully Brew’s growth, Luck remains deeply aware of the weight carried by small business owners.
They are the ones up at night wondering how rent will get paid, whether payroll will clear, whether someone will show up for the opening shift, whether a new idea will work, whether a closed location means failure or just the next pivot.
“We signed up for it,” Luck said. “So you just go. You just do it.”
That is why she hopes people understand the small business world in their own communities. Not every idea works. Not every shop survives. But behind each one is usually someone working harder than most people see.
“To have so many people on my side being cheerleaders, man, that feels so good,” she said.
Luck is realistic. She shops at big stores too. Everyone does. But she hopes people remember the local owners around them—the ones who are building, risking, employing, mentoring, and trying again.
“Maybe just give them that love and attention sometimes,” she said. “Not expecting anything from them, but dreaming to make their communities even better!”
Editor of Fargo INC! — covering the founders, companies, and ideas shaping business in Fargo-Moorhead. Eleven years in, still no opinions, no politics, all business.
