SBA

Coffee Lover Turns Passion into Business with Help from SBA’s Women’s Business Center Program

Puerto Ricans love their coffee.  It is estimated that the local coffee consumption is 30,000,000 pounds a year, roughly 7.5 pounds per capita. Erica Reyes is also a coffee lover… down to the very last drop.

It should come as no surprise.  This young entrepreneur has been linked to coffee her entire life.  The daughter of coffee growers, Erica knows the elaboration process of what many have called the elixir of the gods from its picking stage to the brewing of a perfect cup.

Oddly, though, the beginning of her professional career was not aimed towards owning a business in the coffee industry. After having obtained her master’s degree in marketing, Erica first worked for a telephone company and later for one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the nation. However, she could not get coffee out of her mind and spoke of nothing else, every day, everywhere.

“Imagine, in college people used to call me Mamá Inés,” Erica recalls with laughter as she makes reference to the animated character that is the icon of famous Puerto Rican coffee Yaucono. “I was always talking about coffee.”

It would be logical to think that Erica would join her family’s coffee business, but she wanted to do something all on her own.  That is when she visited the Women’s Business Institute (WBI) at the University of the Sacred Heart.

“I remembered having seen a center for women entrepreneurs when I studied at the University,” Erica says. “The first thing I did after my first appointment was to enroll in the WBI’s course ‘From the Idea to the Key’.”

Established in 1997 under a cooperative agreement between the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) and the University of the Sacred Heart, the WBI provides women entrepreneurs with business training and counseling, technical assistance, mentoring, and access to the SBA’s programs and services.  Thousands of women benefit every year from the WBI’s assistance.

Erica blew the dust off a marketing plan for a wine, coffee, and tea boutique she had presented as part of her master’s thesis, she modified it focusing just on coffee, and presented it to the WBI.

“They have been like a guide to me,” Erica assures.  “I had experience in developing a business plan, but having someone to guide you through the necessary steps, such as how to obtain permits; the Institute was instrumental that way.”

Erica became certified with the Puerto Rico Barista Association, she sought a location, obtained financing from the Economic Development Bank and the Department of Agriculture, and on June 4, 2006 opened the doors of Puerto Rico’s Café Cola’o, a specialty coffee boutique located at Pier 2 in Old San Juan.

 “I have to tell you,” Erica says. “I was anxious to open the business and really didn’t do much to promote it.  The most I served that first day were perhaps 30 cups of coffee. What I did sell a lot of was bottled water! It wan excruciatingly hot Sunday.”

However, six months after inaugurating Café Cola’o, Erica serves close to 250 cups a day, in addition to pastries and other desserts made especially with… coffee; what else?

Coffee fanatics can visit Puerto Rico’s Café Cola’o seven days a week and enjoy a cup of the famous espresso and of specialty drinks such as the Piña Colada with Coffee or a Banana Latte. Also, Café Cola’o has six selections of Puerto Rican coffee available for sale, as a whole bean or ground on site. The customer can select a Caracoli –or pea berry— a dark or medium and a sun-dried variety, among others.