Today we’d like to introduce you to Steve Chang.
Hi Steve, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
The idea for Copa Vida started in a friend’s kitchen in Costa Rica. My wife, Elena, and I were visiting long-time friends after exiting our last business (noodles and pasta production) and looking for our next adventure. The visit led to a serendipitous meeting with the General Manager of a coffee cooperative named Coope Dota in the Terrazu region and began our journey into starting a specialty coffee company.
As Asian Americans who met while working in a non-profit agency promoting Asian American rights (Asian Pacific American Legal Center), community and what it means to people was something central to our identity. So when the desire to start a coffee company was planted in our hearts, we knew that community had to be a central purpose. For us, the cafe and the products we serve help create a platform where community can develop. Every community needs a gathering place where ideas and cultures are argued, shared and learned. It’s our desire to be the builders of those places.
We began with a single cafe in Pasadena, close to our home. And from the start, we wanted to be welcoming to a broader audience by ensuring that we emphasized tea and food as much as coffee in our offerings. We also wanted to ensure that the design of the space was welcoming to a diverse group of people and emphasize service and hospitality as a main part of our offering. Designing these experiences is central to our focus and strength.
The first cafe became a success with our concept being recognized for the inclusion of a great tea and food program along with amazing coffees. The size of the space as well as the attention to detail in its design also helped bring recognition to the cafe. This led to us adding a roasting facility (also in Pasadena) as well as a wholesale division to the company. Though it took us a good year to really develop our roasting style and approach, we launched Copa Vida Coffee Roasters in our 2nd year and have been growing ever since.
We are now eight cafes (seven in the San Diego area) and a roasting company that serves much of Southern California with desires to grow further into Orange County as well as in Los Angeles. Though the pandemic caused us to slow down our growth and even close a couple of locations, we were resilient through the rough patches and are looking forward to thriving in the aftermath.
Along the way, Elena and I were joined by some amazing people who each brought their amazing skills and insights into the company and we have been truly blessed with a great team. And as we hoped, we have been able to develop new relationships and see new communities and networks being created in our cafes.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It has not been a smooth road at all. In fact, in many ways, I am not sure how we survived. Though there were many challenges that come with being in specialty coffee, the most daunting things we faced were: people, cash and growth.
Whether it’s finding the right managers or the right baristas, staffing has always been a struggle at a company of our size. Finding staff is hard enough, especially in the pandemic, but when you are trying to layer in skill set as well as character and style fit, the challenge is substantial. Though we have been blessed over the years to find some amazing people, we have had our share of fails. More frustrating is the fact that this work is never done.
Cash flow issues are also always challenging. Though this is not anything new in any small business, retail/hospitality is not like a tech start-up that can continue to “raise” money. Our financing models are usually dependent upon history and when you are a young company, there is very little history to go on. It also didn’t help that our appetite for expansion and growth created a constant drain on the cash flow that required us to be on our toes financially.
The third struggle has been growth itself. As we expanded to eight locations (ten if you count th two we closed) in eight years, the rate of growth puts a great strain on systems and culture of the company. What we created to manage three locations no longer applied when we grew to five. This meant that we were constantly changing the way we measured, reported and maintained quality, sales, production and labor. And with the constant influx of new people, it was easy to have our culture diluted or even lost in the mix.
That is why I am not only grateful but amazed at where we are and what our team has been able to accomplish.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Copa Vida?
After 8 1/2 years of work, we are proud to see what we have been able to achieve. Our cafes are known as welcoming spaces where people from all walks of life can find a safe space. The beverages and food, though they are thoughtfully crafted and incredibly delicious, are not the banner that we wave. Though we have done well in coffee competitions and have been recognized for our amazing food, our goal has been to become stewards of amazing experiences and we believe that this is what keeps our customers coming back. Our emphasis on the customer experience has consistently landed us on many Top 10 lists but even more importantly, each location has become a local favorite where the people in the community can come and find a second home.
What matters most to you?
As an immigrant to this country, I know what it’s like to not feel “welcomed”. There have been many times that I’ve walked into a restaurant or a cafe or even a public venue and known that I was an intruder rather than a guest. Over time, I realized that this was not unique to me but to many people, even those who were born in this country. We all know and have experienced feeling like an outsider at some point in our lives.
This is why having a cafe that is welcoming is so important to me. My wife and I met while working for a non-profit organization that focused on improving race relations in LA and those values carried over into other things we ended up doing. When we decided to start Copa Vida, we wanted to make sure it was a place that people could come and feel comfortable in…. and that this would lead to people coming out of their comfort zone and being willing to meet people outside their bubble and that these chance meetings would lead to conversations that would lead to relationships that end up building a community.
Having and great beverage and food program as well as beautifully designed spaces that provide this opportunity is very tricky. If we focus too much on food or design and forget the customers, we miss our target. If our food or space isn’t crafted well, no one wants to come and we miss our target. This means that we, as a company, have to be internally focused on craft and excellence with our products but externally focused on service, hospitality and design. The balance has been hard to identify and achieve but I believe that we are well on our way and we would be a part of something special if we can hold the course.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: copa-vida.com
Image Credits:
Copa Vida Cafe LLC HNF & Associates LLC
