On the heels of opening two new cafés in six months in the Edmonton region, the founders of The Colombian are on a mission to grow their business exponentially.
"We are actively looking to open in 75 communities, internationally, in 10 years," said Santiago Lopez, co-owner of The Colombian.
Lopez, along with his business partner and wife Kristin Panylyk de Lopez, opened the pair's first café and roastery in Glenora in 2018. Since 2021, the pair has steadily added one location per year. The Colombian now operates shops in the Bonnie Doon, Parkallen, Mill Creek, and Forest Heights neighbourhoods. Last month, the duo opened their first shop outside the city, in Sherwood Park.
"Sherwood Park has embraced the shop, and already has regulars," Panylyk de Lopez said. "There are lots of families visiting the café."
Demographics are a key factor that determines where the company decides to open, as The Colombian tries to appeal to inter-generational customers. Lopez is also guided by internal data that shows where online coffee bean deliveries are made. All of this information led to them considering Sherwood Park.
"It's a great community that is under-serviced," Lopez said. "It's better than St. Albert because people stay in Sherwood Park and are more willing to support businesses there. People in St. Albert come into Edmonton for most of their services. I haven't seen a coffee business succeed in St. Albert."
The Colombian has been very intentional in positioning itself in areas where third spaces are missing. "If we open in smaller communities, we become the gathering spot in the neighbourhood," Lopez said. "We go into places that need the community."
Lopez wouldn't say where the company plans to expand, but indicated the plan will be "very organic" just as its growth from one location to six has been. "We feel that we can impact several communities in North America," he said.
Santiago Lopez and Kristin Panylyk de Lopez. (Supplied)
Given that the business has found success in a relatively short period of time, Panylyk de Lopez shared that some are under the false impression The Colombian has achieved its growth through external funding.
"We don't have investors, it's just the two of us and small business loans," Panylyk de Lopez said. In fact, although Lopez is with The Colombian full-time, Panylyk de Lopez continues to work full-time as a junior high school teacher.
"With investors, you lose the control of the business," Panylyk de Lopez said. "It turns into a numbers business. We take on a high level of risk, but we want to grow it and still maintain the company culture."
With so much personally invested, the stakes to succeed are high. One example that pushed them to the limit happened out of necessity.
"We started our bakery during the pandemic," Panylyk de Lopez said. "We said, 'We've got to do this.' So we set up a bakery and took an online course. We started with brioche donuts. Now, we have a team of three amazing bakers. They do all of our cookies, scones, muffins, and all of our food ingredients. They even make our roast turkey from scratch."
The Colombian's through-line of quality starts with its coffee beans. Much of its coffee is sourced from Lopez's uncle Felipe, who owns a coffee farm in Colombia, where Lopez is originally from. Lopez believes it is some of the best coffee in the world, owing to the terrain and year-round production capability.
"The reason we started this business was to bring Felipe's coffee to Canada," Panylyk de Lopez said. "To make it sustainable, you have to get close to the consumer. Farmers are benefiting when we can buy directly and not at commodity prices."
The duo views The Colombian as a bridge to specialty coffee, which may be a different approach than other independent cafés. "My biggest qualm when you go to a coffee shop is when they make you feel like you can't put cream or sugar into it," Lopez said. "That's the most off-putting thing you can do. When we then say we want to be a bridge, we want people to drink a better, high-quality product however they want it."
Perhaps most prominent to the business, however, is the value of good hospitality. "We are not hipsters roasting coffee," Lopez said. "We borrowed from Walt Disney: People want to come back for how we make them feel. We're not transactional, we are experiential." Echoed Panylyk de Lopez, "Our focus is making people feel special and seen. When you come in, our whole team will greet you. And that is not something that you find in specialty coffee."
The couple is forward-looking. On the immediate horizon is the launch of a new breakfast sandwich next month, with house-made English muffins, as well as scratch-made sausage rolls. But they always have an eye to the future. "We have big plans," Lopez said. "We want to do many things. How, we don't know. We didn't know how we would have six shops and employ 70 staff. We just work very hard, and we are crazy about people."