MEET VIENNA
CAFFE AMOURI
RESTAURATEURS:
Caffe Amouri is a special place. We know that sounds like a cliche - and really, how many more "special" mom and pop coffee shops can we endure. But trust us when we say - Caffe Amouri is different. It's that place where the genuine values of the owner shine through in every aspect of the place. From their sustainable fettucini stirrers to the staff that are trained in-house which happens to be the only specialty coffee association premier campus within a 200 mile radius of DC.
What are the 3 schools that have free coffee on Wednesdays?
Vienna Elementary, Wolftrap Elementary, and Louise Archer – for parents – to encourage to walk kids to school. There are parent volunteers who come pick up the coffee every Wednesday morning. We call it "Walk to School Wednesdays".
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Was the decision to expand a difficult decision?
Ha! No! We were busting at the seems here, our original space is 900sqft. We will walk close to or over 1000 customers some days. I would sit, and try to figure out ways to speed up the line, and speed up the processing, but there are limits – and I would see people get in line - look - and then walk out.
The business that was here – sanctuary – it would be sad if they went out of business – but she moved to Bethesda. So it wasn’t like someone had to fail for me to succeed. So it was a win win. So when the landlord called me, the words weren’t even out of her mouth – it was “do you want…” “—yes!”. And I was literally in here the next day with a sledge hammer bustin through the wall.
The biggest part of the decision to expand was because I love training and education – and a lot of people say to me - most coffee shops that have been successful as we’ve been (and thank God we’ve been successful) will have 2, 3, 4, 5 other places. That’s a lot of work… I LOVE being here – I’ve really focused on the education part, and our training center, so opening next door was finally the opportunity to have what we call the Caffe Amouri Experience Coffee Lab and Education center. So we do classes for consumers, we do classes for professionals, we do classes for our wholesale customers; I like education I like imparting that knowledge. So it was getting the opportunity to do something that I’ve wanted to do for years which is to have a coffee lab. And from a business standpoint there’s lots of coffee shops – they’re opening all the time. We are the only specialty coffee association premier campus within a 200 mile radius of DC. So we have that whole market. From a business standpoint it also made a lot of sense.
And people are looking for experiences. People like knowledge, and information, something different to do – we get a lot of couples that come in and take classes together. And we’re also reaching into the professional community in the DC area because most specialty coffee premier campuses across the country charge a lot to get certified – and we sat and thought about it – again our mission statement which is "community" – and we’re talking about the professional coffee community – most people who are gonna be going for certified barista will be kids working off tips. We don’t want to gouge people, let's give something to the coffee community. Many of them are not sure what they want to do with their lives – they just want to become better at what they’re doing now, and we want to give them the opportunity to do that.
So part of our mission on the education side is to be a bit more accessible and affordable to the professional coffee community so they can get better at what they’re doing. And yeah, we might be training a barista at a competing coffee shop – but ya know – what’s the JFK saying “a rising tide raises all ships”. We know we’re good, all of our staff is great, and we don’t necessarily need to prove anything to anyone else.
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How did you fall in love with coffee?
I fell in love with coffee, and I also fell in love with the idea of coffee – and they are really two separate things. I drank coffee as a teenager, and I fell in love with the idea, more than the actual drink itself – and what I mean by that is that the romanticism of a coffee shop and sipping espresso and solving the problems of the world seemed really romantic. And then as I dove deeper into realizing the vision, I began to fall in love with the cultural and global relationships from growers to pickers to the families involved – it was more the culture of coffee that I fell in love with. When I was younger the idea of opening a coffee shop sounded very cool, and reality is always a little different.
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Why Vienna?
I’ve lived here since 1985 – I’ve coached basketball at Madison HS for 17 years. Vienna is my community, and I feel like I’m part of the community and I feel like I want to give something back to the community. It's more than a business – Caffe Amouri is part of the community. I could’ve done something else as a business, but then it wouldn’t fulfill the 1/3 of my mission statement which is quality/community/sustainability.
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Your slogan is “where community meets coffee” – what does that mean for your potential customers.
It could mean something to them, but it really doesn't have to mean something to them. I was a business major and I wrote my business plan a year before I opened, and at the very top of the business plan is our mission statement which is quality/community/sustainability. Whenever we make decisions here the first thing my management team and I discuss isn’t the bottom line – it's 'how does our decision fit into the mission statement'. So, we have to have core values – and those are the core values of the business. So to answer it, it might mean something to someone walking by, or, perhaps they’re a parent who walks their kids to Vienna Elementary every Wednesday and they get free coffee there because they walk their child to school – because we give free coffee to 3 elementary schools in Vienna where parents walk their kids to school. So maybe our slogan means something directly for them. There are so many ways to touch the community – and we don’t count them – we just become a presence and a part of the community. Whether they know it or not, it probably means something significant to them.
There are so many ways to touch the community – and we don’t count them – we just become a presence and a part of the community..
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We are the only specialty coffee association premier campus within a 200 mile radius of DC.
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What makes Vienna unique for you as a business owner?
It’s hard to say – but I think people really care about the community. I also think it starts with geography – it can be really compact which drives some people crazy because of traffic, but you might go to another NOVA city and you have a couple intersections of a downtown surrounded by a lot more sprawl. But I think a lot of people over the years, and its not something that happens – you don’t 'make' a Vienna -its taken generations of people who I’ve volunteered for and coached for years and people who want to give something
back to the community. But the other things is – town government is committed to maintain a -not necessarily a small town feel -but a true sense of community – regardless of who is on the town council – the ethics may differ, but the motivation remains the same.
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What’s the hardest part about owning a business in Vienna?
There isn’t necessarily anything more difficult here compared to anywhere else. Everywhere is going to have regulations – certain regulations put in place seem unfair when they affect you , but when they affect everyone else they seem totally reasonable. And everyone is concerned about the traffic – as a business person -traffic is good – but of course we can study things, and do things to improve it and calm it a little bit, but it means that people are coming through here. And so, what’s my job as a business owner (?) – to capture it – and that’s on me. What I don’t want to see is no traffic, b/c then there’s no one for me to capture.
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What’s the ethos behind your sustainability mission?
Sustainability is very important to us. it’s the third leg of our mission statement (before the addition of our knowledge 'leg'). This is something we’ve been dedicated to since we opened – and we'll be here 10 years in July -and we’re actually planning something special and surprising for our anniversary that I can’t really reveal yet.
But it goes right down to our fettuccini coffee stirrers – so over the years, we’ve gone through a very slow process of getting rid of plastic which is very hard. We’re about 90% there for getting rid of plastic in our shop. But it costs money – so I’ve had to make a commitment to do things like spend more on our cold cups which are corn compostable, I might be able to do it – I still want to be competitive on my pricing – but that’s a commitment we make. But equally important to environmental sustainability is people sustainability – and that’s not just our staff who we help to educate, and give careers to – but also sustainability through the supply chain as well – by doing direct trade relationships where we can. That means that the farmers are making more than they normally would – in places like Columbia and Nicaragua. Our broker is dedicated – and we will pay more for our beans, but we’ve made the decision as a company to take less of a margin because we’re sustaining somebody across the globe. My lead grocer Nikki and I went to Columbia 3 weeks ago, and we stayed at the farm of one of our growers – and these people work so hard, and put so much love in, generation after generation, that our job here is to be responsible and to honor what they have to do. We are the last stop on the supply chain, and we can either honor them and their work or mess it up – and we want to honor it. So human sustainability in the global sense is part of our mission.
Our definition of success is bigger. And it reminds me of coaching girls basketball as the JV coach at Madison for 10 years, then assistant varsity for 7 – I would always read the first half of John Wooden’s “Practical Modern Basketball” – winningest coach UCLA 60’s and 70’s and 10 straight NCAA tournament wins. I would read it before the start of every season. Wooden defined success – to paraphrase – as doing everything that you know is necessary to do, regardless of the outcome – that makes you a success - the process. Don’t look at the scoreboard, the score will take care of itself. We do what we train to do. So when I opened the shop, I adopted the same mindset – which is “don’t look at the bottom line” – let's concentrate on our mission statement, not our margins when making decisions. We make decisions based on those things that are necessary to succeed – and our success is defined by staying true to our core values: quality/community/sustainability/knowledge.
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Caffe Amouri is located at 107 Church Street NE, Vienna. Visit them starting at 6am every day, or you can order on GRUBHUB or have coffee shipped to you via their website CAFFEAMOURI.COM