Today we’d like to introduce you to Luis Arteaga.
Hi Luis, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
After getting out of the Marine Corps, I was unsure as to what I wanted to do, so I started helping my then-girlfriend with her business which was making body scrubs to sell at farmer’s markets. One of her scrubs was a coffee-infused scrub, I was in charge of getting the coffee grinds because I loved drinking coffee. I had seen Calusa Coffee Roasters in passing so I stopped in and saw that it was only one person (Steve) in the shop who was the owner. I spoke with him for a bit about coffee and then asked about ground coffee to use in the scrubs. He said no problem just let him help out the couple that had just walked in while they were talking, I overheard that steve was looking for help to run the shop. Once they left and I got my coffee, I told him that I would like to help him. He agreed and I started that same week. I learned the coffee making quite fast and wanted to learn more. He slowly started teaching me how to roast and at the end of my first year, I approached him wanting to open up a second Calusa to which he replies ”I’ll sell you the whole company if you’re interested”. Shocked at his negotiation tactics, I went home and told Maria ”we’re buying a coffee shop!” she wasn’t on board at first but like most things in life we took a chance and here we are four years later. We have then been voted the best coffee shop in the state of Florida by Buzzfeed, had a Yelp award for the Best Roaster in South Florida.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
Steve continued to help us transition as the new owners for the first month. He continued to work with me to master the skill of roasting, which is an expensive endeavor since each ruined batch was 9lbs. Each coffee has different water content and is a different size so they each have a unique recipe. Luckily, I love challenges so it was easy to fall in love with the art of roasting. We were a year in and finally settling into a routine when the pandemic hit and most places shut down. We were considered essential since we are a wholesale business as well. We closed the lobby and had a make-shift drive-thru in our parking lot. It is then we realized that we had a truly loyal customer base who came every day. Those that no longer worked in the area continued to purchase coffee bags through our website. During all this uncertainty, our shop was broken into and cash and electronics were stolen. We have never recovered those items but we experienced the love from our customers. One of them gave us an old laptop he no longer used and others put extra cash into our tip jar to help us with what they could.
Some of the coffee shops that we wholesaled to had it worse than we did and were forced to close their businesses. We saw the worst couple of months in sales late summer of that year. We didn’t have any employees so we also didn’t qualify for any SBA grants for small businesses, so we continued to struggle. In late September, governor DeSantis lifted the mandates and we started to see our business slowly improving.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Calusa Coffee Roasters?
We are a small-batch coffee roaster that specializes in high-grade arabica coffee beans from around the world. We wholesale to cafes, hotels, offices, online retailers, etc. We offer our single-origin coffees and can create blends specific to what they are looking for. We like to highlight the flavor profile of each coffee so we roast from light to medium dark. When are customers want that dark taste we guide them towards a coffee that is naturally bold with a heavier body without that burnt aftertaste. We help our wholesale customers set up their coffee stations with equipment and training for their staff. Educating them in what they are serving to their customers. We also have a small coffee shop here in Oakland Park, Florida. We offer espresso-based drinks and rotate our pour-over offerings to give our customers the opportunity to try a variety of origins, which they can purchase to brew at home. These coffees can also be found at our website, www.calusacr.com. Since we are in South Florida, we do get a lot of tourists who take advantage of that and we ship our freshly roasted coffee directly to their homes all year round.
Can you talk to us about how you think about risk?
There are no guarantees in life so I believe that taking risks is a necessary part of the journey. There is no reward without a bit of risk. We took a risk when we purchased the roastery. I didn’t have any experience in owning or running a business but I enjoyed the community of coffee lovers that I chatted with every day that I was there. My partner, and now fiance, had experience as a manager and she loves spreadsheets and the clerical aspect of the business. I figured that we could make it work, and if it didn’t well, it’s a life experience that we would learn from.
Contact Info:
- Email: info@calusacoffeeroasters.com
- Website: calusacr.com
- Instagram: @calusacoffee
- Facebook: Facebook.com/calusacoffee
- Twitter: twitter.com/calusacoffee
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/calusa-coffee-roasters-fort-lauderdale
