Interview With Recovery Café Executive Director Kyle Roscoe

December 16, 2025 at 17:00 PT

Kyle, in a blue hat, stands among cafe staff

Running the Everett Recovery Café isn't what Kyle Roscoe ever imagined. When he was first offered the job, he turned it down. We recently sat down with Kyle to learn more.

Everett Recovery Café is a safe, healing community for individuals in recovery from the trauma of homelessness, addiction, and mental health challenges. If you or someone you know is seeking long-term transformation through human connection, visit the café at 1212 California St, Everett, WA 98201 during the weekday. Guests must be drug and alcohol free.

As someone in long-term recovery himself, Kyle has been part of the recovery community in Everett since 2016. We asked him to tell us about his early experiences, and who inspired him.

Kyle - I used to work at Coastal Community Bank, where I met my boss Justin Mueller, he's a really important mentor for me. He's the first person to ask if I wanted to be in leadership of any kind, and I told him no. I had told quite a few people that, but he was the first person to ask me why. When I said I didn't know why, he said "Then maybe your answer isn't no."

"There's a lot of Justin Mueller in how Kyle Roscoe leads today." - Kyle

EVRT - You've been serving as Executive Director since early 2024, how did you end up in this role?

Kyle - When I joined the board, my first task was to find the next Executive Director. I showed up to the next board meeting with a friend's resume in my backpack. I got a call from the President of the board at the time, who said, "We kinda think this is the elephant in the room, but we're gonna ask you if you want [the role]". And I was like, "What elephant?!" and I said no. I didn't understand that this really cool group of people had seen something in me that I didn't see.

I went home and told my wife, and she said, "Wait a minute, you just got offered a job to give all of your time to the community that you care about more than anything else, that saved your life, and you said no?" And I was like, "Yeah but I don't even know what 'executive director' means." And then she pointed out, "Who's more qualified to say if you're qualified - you, or all those people who have been at the cafe for years and years and years?"

So I came back two days later, talked to the founder who was trying to recruit me, and that's how I started here. In the beginning, it felt like my role was to exist and be the face of an organization, but now it's about trying to lift up a lot of really impressive people who work for the cafe.

"To me, executive director means I work for everybody who works here" - Kyle

EVRT - One of the cafe's core values is radical hospitality, what does that look like? What does that mean to you?

Kyle - The thing that always sticks out, when anybody asks about the cafe, is the staff. There was a guy who came in over a year ago, he had just broken up with his girlfriend, was going through a crisis, and he came in talking about harming himself. And in our lobby, he ingested a lethal amount of fentanyl.

Now, we don't have a nurse on staff, but we're all from recovery land, so staff immediately jumped into action. Nick White, one of our coaches, grabbed narcan and used it to save his life right on the floor of the lobby. And as the EMTs were rolling him out the door, Nick said out loud, "Come back tomorrow." That's who we are.

"Come back tomorrow."

EVRT - What's your vision for 2026? What will you need from the community to achieve your goals?

Kyle - The vision for next year is to help more people understand who we are. That's the question I hear the most often, like, "What the heck is it?" We also really want to continue to grow our resource hub, which includes people who show up to teach our members financial literacy, suicide prevention, domestic violence prevention.

Outside of our space, it's a really scary time for non-profits of our size. Grants are getting cut, budgets are shrinking, fundraising can't keep up as local and federal funding is going down. The big thing that we need is financial help, whether that be sponsorships, donations, or anything in between. When you run an organization that feeds 20,000 people a year, when you coach almost 1,000 people a year, that funding is key.

If local businesses want to sponsor with us, our social media manager is amazing. We had 30,000 eyeballs on our Thanksgiving post, and that was just Facebook. The opportunity for local business is, we'll show you off.

Subscribe for early access and special features