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Champion barista opens own specialty shop Need Coffee

Article (news)

Leah C. Salterio

<div class="embed-wrap"><figure data-feedback="fb:likes,fb:comments"><img src="http://sa.kapamilya.com/absnews/abscbnnews/media/2017/entertainment/08/04/1.jpg"/><figcaption>Handout photo</figcaption></figure></div>MANILA -- Need Coffee, a newly opened specialty coffee shop along the bustling and busy stretch of Aguirre Avenue in BF Homes, Paranaque City, was not a name deliberately thought of, planned or conceptualized for the place. The name simply cropped up after the owners found themselves scratching their heads for an entire afternoon without coffee.Thus, Need Coffee was born. The name came as the team was feeling exactly just that.“While we were registering the company, we found out that a lot of the names were taken and we were getting cold feet,” recalls young entrepreneur Daniel Concepcion Roque, a partner at Where Have You Bean Co. Ltd. “The name came about just a few days before we finally registered.”Putting up a specialty coffee shop was never a dream or a plan for the 24-year-old Roque. However, after he went to Dublin, Ireland to represent the Philippines in the World Aeropress Championship last year, things changed. He returned with the brilliant idea of starting a specialty coffee shop. “I never intended on putting up a coffee shop,” Roque discloses. “It only crossed my mind last year. Luckily, my best friend’s father was planning on putting up a coffee shop. He just needed the expertise to do it. From then on, we signed a contract and opened Need Coffee and more.”In the coffee shop’s manifesto, Need Coffee emphasizes it is not here to “reinvent the wheel,” but simply to give customers the middle ground of specialty coffee not overly a commercialized package.“The chains get it. The average consumer does not walk into a shop expecting their lives to change over a cup of coffee. They simply need coffee,” the manifesto reads.“Right now, specialty coffee is seen as unnecessary, overpriced and merely a trend. Need Coffee is here to differentiate itself from the stigma of commercial coffee tasting bad, but also learn from commercial shops and how they operate,” the manifesto adds.<div class="embed-wrap"><figure data-feedback="fb:likes,fb:comments"><img src="http://sa.kapamilya.com/absnews/abscbnnews/media/2017/entertainment/08/04/2.jpg"/><figcaption>Daniel Roque. Handout photo</figcaption></figure></div>“We put out an ad for hiring,” Roque shares. “The thing is, as a company, we want to train and grow with our baristas then later partner up with them in their own ventures. Only a few people showed promise and most of them whom we can trust in handling the shop are already friends.”The major challenge that Roque encountered in putting up Need Coffee was dealing with people. “People will always be the hardest to deal with,” he maintains. “Contacting suppliers, working with government agencies, meeting with architect and contractor, it&#x27;s always difficult to transfer the image in your head into someone else&#x27;s. That and some people just aren&#x27;t all that interested in making a sale.”Scouting for a feasible location was a tough one, too. “We spent days just driving around the area looking for a place to set up shop,” Roque recalls. “We contacted several places, but with no luck. Until one Saturday, my partner went out jogging and found a new place up for rent. We set a meeting, inspected the site and went straight ahead with it.”Roque’s good friends, Kevin Calderon and Cindel Tiausas, did the murals inside the coffee shop, as well as the security mirror installation.“It was written in stone that the shop would be in black and white,” Roque says. “There is a huge al fresco area in the back for movie nights and barbecues, when the shop&#x27;s all settled in. The shop is really a blank canvas. Anyone can come in and enjoy their coffee. It&#x27;s the ones who go out changed, with their eyes open to coffee, that we are most keen on.”Even with the “very small” specialty coffee community in the country, Roque is fortunate to have made friends in the circle whom he can call on to help him out in his maiden business venture.“Yardstick supplied us with our espresso machine (La Marzocco) at a good price,” he beams. “Yardstick has been supportive of me ever since. Their machine is reliable and their servicing is easy.“El Kapitan supplied us with our Compak grinder and Loveramics cups, which are essential to our work flow and customer experience. Plainsight is our featured roaster for this quarter.”Roque credits his parents, Andrew Roque and Marissa Concepcion Roque, for having been the biggest influence in his business venture. ”They bought me my Aeropress, they bought me all the beans, the coffee grinder, the home espresso machine. They gave me everything to form my passion for coffee.”Operating with a small team of five people, including himself, Need Coffee, Roque emphasizes, wants to bring specialty coffee to the commodity coffee drinker. “We want to give our patrons that same comfort and easy customer experience they are used to in a chain coffee shop. At the same time, we want to stay true to the coffee as a product more than just for consumption, but for a flavorful experience.”The place is “neither commercial nor independent, it is both,” says the manifesto. The coffee shop serves espresso, Americano, latte, hot chocolate or even iced mocha and rose water cold brew latte. Also available are light snacks to go with the blends.<div class="embed-wrap"><figure data-feedback="fb:likes,fb:comments"><img src="http://sa.kapamilya.com/absnews/abscbnnews/media/2017/entertainment/08/04/3.jpg"/><figcaption>Handout photo</figcaption></figure></div>“We have a chiller full of sweet, savory pastries and little snacks that we&#x27;ve picked to go well with our coffee,” Roque offers. “In the future we&#x27;ll have heavier meals, but I&#x27;m a barista and cooking is a whole different game.”Asked what is the edge of Need Coffee over other coffee shops around, multinationals included, Roque reasons out, “Our concept is very different. We observed all the coffee shops, found what works for Starbucks, found what works for the specialty coffee shops and put them together into Need Coffee.“This works for the whole country. We don&#x27;t want to just be set apart from our neighbors. We want to be set apart from all the shops in the industry. We&#x27;re set up for the quality specialty coffee product that&#x27;s at par with the best in the country and we&#x27;re visually different from anything else that&#x27;s out there.”

“The average consumer does not walk into a shop expecting their lives to change over a cup of coffee. They simply need coffee.”

“The average consumer does not walk into a shop expecting their lives to change over a cup of coffee. They simply need coffee.”