Interviews

Pelicano has been a mainstay of Sydney Street for a number of years now, but have only recently moved their roasting operation to the site. We spoke to the owner Zephir about how he and his wife, Sol, ended up back in Brighton and why they decided to open a coffee house and roastery.

One of the reasons The Independent Brighton & Hove Coffee Guide exists is that we believe in the values of the Brighton coffee community, those values of local businesses supporting each other, creating an inclusive and friendly atmosphere for staff and customer alike. We were lucky enough in the last year to spend some time being shown around Pelicano’s operation by manager Sam, and we can safely say that these values hold true.

Founded in 2014, by husband and wife Zephir and Sol, Pelicano is a modern family-run business. Zephir runs the day to day operations, and Sol is in charge of all the art and design for the business. Zephir is a “Brighton boy through and through” in his own words, and returned to the town to open up Pelicano after meeting Sol.

“I met my wife Sol (from S. Korea) on a pear farm a couple of hours from Melbourne, we both had a pretty rough time on the farms, we learnt two things – we hated working for big companies and we both missed working with coffee. We always wanted to build a culture around Peli where we actually enjoy coming to work day in day out, I see so many people working in hospitality and not having a good time – that’s just not what it’s about! Our staff really are our family. At our wedding there was more Peli fam than blood family!”

Everything at Pelicano is done on site. In early 2018, they moved their roasting operation into the basement of their cafe, upgrading the roaster in the process. They roast their house Smokey Bird Blend, as well as a number of directly sourced single origins, in the early hours of the morning on Monday. Each bag is individually hand stamped with one of Sol’s unique designs, then either sent upstairs for retail within the cafe, or hand delivered by head roaster Adnan the very next day.

Pelicano use a refurbished Royal Mail post bike to deliver all their coffee to various establishments around Brighton, continuing that personal, hand crafted touch from the beginning of the roast, to holding fresh coffee in your hand the next day. Pelicano supplies many local businesses and, as well as the coffee, each place they supply gets their own hand crafted, and hand stamped, design on the bag.

Most of the coffee roasted on site, though, is used on site, and you don’t get much more local that your own basement. Pelicano has evolved from serving various guest roasts, to their own roast from a small site in Southover, to the cafe location itself. This ensures that the coffee is at an optimal freshness when served.

In our review, we wrote that Pelicano’s attention to detail was incredible, it was interesting to find out the origin of the decor, “In many ways it was planned to a T and in other ways it was organised chaos,” explains Zephir.

“When we got the keys to the shop we told ourselves six weeks and we’d be open. It took six months! Without a large budget we did all the hard graft ourselves – from stripping walls of 22-year-old grease for 20 hours straight to laying floor boards found off a skip till 4am, it was crazy but with help from a lot of friends we finally opened!”

With a new roaster in operation, it’ll be interesting to see what the future holds for Pelicano, but we can safely say that with a community focus they’re doing things the right way. We asked Zephir where he hopes Pelicano will be a few years down the line.

“To be honest, I get asked this a lot and the answers always the same: I’m still not sure how we got this far!”

Pelicano House
28 Sydney Street
Brighton

Pelicanocoffee.com

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Equality in the coffee industry is an often-overlooked subject. Across the globe the subject is a hot topic – from the comments heard almost daily by a certain POTUS, to the #MeToo campaign that is helping to expose abuse and open up debate surrounding harassment, to the continual pay-gap between sexes – and it is high time for the debate to take its place amongst coffee drinkers worldwide.

It is seen in the fields, where women are estimated to make up 60-80% of the workers on coffee farms, yet are more often than not excluded from training and more senior positions. It is seen in the ownership of these businesses and lands where, in some of the most severe cases, women are limited by law to what they can own. It is seen in the US, where there’s a pay gap of 13.6%, and it is seen closer to home where women regularly outnumber men as baristas, yet men still remain over twice as likely to reach the highest positions in this field.

In order to find out more about the issues the industry faces and how we can help push for equality in the coffee business, we decided to talk to Fi O’Brien, co-founder of Girls Who Grind Coffee (GWGC), an all-female roastery based in Wiltshere. Run in partnership with expert coffee roaster Casey Lalonde, GWGC focusses on supporting females in coffee, while roasting great tasting beans.

Hi Fi, how’s your day going so far?
Hello! Day has been good, busy, but good! Packing lots of wholesale orders can only mean two things, lots of coffee and music – obviously then followed by wine!

So, tell me about yourselves first, how did you and Casey meet and how did you realise you both had a passion for coffee?
Casey and I had moved to Frome, Somerset at different times and met through our kids at baby yoga, as you do, ha! Both coming from coffee-centric countries previously (Melbourne and New York) we got chatting about things we missed from back home and how we would like to recreate a business here in the UK, with those same vibes and ideals.

Tell me about Girls Who Grind Coffee. How did it start and what was the reason?
Basically Girls Who Grind Coffee was a name that I had come up with a couple of years ago and I knew I wanted to do something with it for women in the coffee industry, so when Casey got talking about her plan for owning a roastery we felt as though it was the perfect opportunity to bring our two ideas together. With our business being owned and run by women, it was the ultimate set-up for Girls Who Grind to come to life – offering that support and celebration of other women in the coffee industry who we felt had been underrepresented.

As you know, the coffee industry is very male-dominated. Why do you think this is and how can we change it?
I feel as though it has a little bit to do with the whole Hipster-Barista culture thing going on over the past few years – hipsters, beards and coffee seem to go hand-in-hand in mainstream culture for some reason. Personally, I think it’s because men in coffee generally like to geek out about ratios and machinery, so for some women it can feel a little intimidating – NOT saying that women don’t also enjoy those things but it’s played out to us a ‘boys and their toys’ kind of scene. Then when it comes to roasting – we’re talking about even bigger bits of kit, heavy machinery etc so women are generally not expected to be “suited” for the job – but we’re here along with many other women to PROVE THEM WRONG. I think by simply creating a more level playing field in all areas of coffee will make it more of the norm. Also, it’s really important for women to have the confidence in themselves – belief and understanding that they have their own set of skills to bring to the table.

With a focus on supporting females in the coffee industry, how do you think Girls Who Grind helps celebrate those women and inspire others to get involved?
By supporting female producers, sharing their stories and putting them front and centre of our packing and design, means that you can’t help but notice them – read their stories, appreciate the incredible things they are achieving! Also, we’d hope that other women who want to get into the coffee industry will feel empowered by what we are doing, seeing us do this gives them the confidence and motivation that, they too, can do this.

What’s the atmosphere like at your roastery compared to other mixed-sex environments you’ve worked in previously?
I suppose the main difference is that we are both really supportive of what we are trying to achieve individually. No intimidation tactics, with the one focus to empower ourselves and other women-alike. We haven’t set out for the roastery to be a ‘women only’ environment, it just happens that at the moment it is simply the two of us within the business, hence the all-female roastery. It is not to say that we wouldn’t employ men in the future, but anyone who joins the team will certainly have to appreciate and want to work towards gender equality.

So, tell us about the roasting side of Girls Who Grind. How do you create the ideal roast for yourselves?
Casey is the Head Of Coffee within our team, she has an amazing understanding of coffee and how to gently bring out the best of the coffee from each region. We like it to really represent the origin from which it comes. We receive lots of samples from various female producers, which Casey then sample roasts on our Ikawa, and then we always cup together – having an understanding of what our customers are looking for and what we feel passionate about, we then select. Also, the story behind the coffee is incredibly important – ensuring that it adheres to our strict buying policies. Basically we just want to do the female producers proud!

What are your passions outside of coffee? And if you can, how do you incorporate them in the business?
My personal passions outside of GWGC are design and cafe culture, I feel really blessed that I can bring my design skills to the table with GWGC. Being Head Of Brand means that I can create a brand that excites me. My background prior to GWGC is as a Creative Strategist, and I also owned a cafe back in Melbourne, so GWGC is the ultimate mash-up of my two favourite things! Casey loves being outside in nature, hiking and exploring our local countryside gives her inspiration for the business. She is also learning to play the fiddle and is planing to serenade us while we work – haha!

Your branding is so visual and definitive, how important was it to get it right when you started out?
Thank you! As I mentioned, my background is as a Creative Strategist, so I work together with my husband Ben who creates all of the illustrations of the women on the pack for me and I do the brand work and social media. It’s incredibly important that the design is 100% right – each illustration/pack represents the spirit behind the coffee – capturing the essence of the female producers and the tasting notes combined – it’s how we tell their story.

We’re fascinated by what you’re doing at Girls Who Grind, are there other businesses doing similar great work to yourselves?
Yes, I feel like the last 12 months has been incredible for the female empowerment movement, there is still obviously so much that still needs changing, but I feel like finally our voices are being heard. We are in awe of the work Tate Roastery is doing with their Gender Equality Project and the incredible women of the Luminary Bakery, an all-female social enterprise based in East London; providing training, community and employment opportunities to empower women who have experienced poverty, homelessness, violence or criminal activity.

We’ve seen shops in Brighton serving Girls Who Grind, are there any plans to guest roast for other Brighton coffee shops?
Not at the very moment, but we are always up for working with any like-minded cafes and businesses.

What does the future hold?
Our plan for the year ahead is to develop our sourcing policies, creating tighter criteria to ensure empowerment and equality, and later in 2019 we plan to open our first GWGC cafe – which we are very excited about!

Where can people find you?
They can find us at various cafes around the country and online at GirlsWhoGrindCoffee.com, on Instagram and Twitter.

The speciality coffee sector is beginning to develop a problem; there is a shortage of staff and it seems to be getting worse, with understaffed coffee houses becoming the norm. There are also a large number of unemployed young people who would do anything for one of these jobs. It should be a match made in heaven, but unfortunately there’s a barrier in between the two: skill.

Although it may be classified as such, being a barista at a specialty coffee shop isn’t unskilled work. With the relatively high turnover in staff, it becomes almost impossible to train on the job as a busy cafe is trying to keep its head above water. This makes a strong coffee skillset invaluable. It becomes a case of the Catch-22 conundrum “experience required”. How do you get the experience if the position requires it to start?

One Church Brighton’s Gloucester Place building plays host to a number of social projects, including the Bloom Drop In and the Pro Barista Courses. The aim of these courses is to give those looking for a career in coffee the skills they need, both in terms of barista skills and soft skills. Bloom’s drop-Ins are from 12-3pm on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. As the name suggests, it is a service where anyone is free to drop-in and play around with coffee. They teach basic coffee skills, as well as working on developing employability skills. We spoke to Xav who gave us an example of this.

The drop-ins are a space where people come to feel safe, meet new people, learn about coffee skills and grow as people. The Bloom programme spans a minimum of 3 months and is broken down into 5 modules – technical skills, soft skills, mentoring, experience + certification. The technical training focuses on espresso drinks, filter coffee, customer service and workflow and is done at the highest standard and is SCA certified. The soft skills elements of the programme are largely influenced by psychology Professor Carol Dweck and her work around growth & fixed mindsets. Dweck’s research challenges the common belief that intelligence is bestowed upon people at birth and that one’s mental aptitude can’t be developed later in life. “The best thing to do is to love challenges, be intrigued by mistakes, enjoy effort, and keep on learning. This will offer a lifelong way to build and repair one’s own confidence.” We fold this research into coffee-focussed activities, both at the drop ins and on our Pro Barista’s Foundation Courses.  

Xav himself was taught by the Pro Baristas program, he now trains and passes on his knowledge to those attending the Bloom sessions and Pro Barista courses. Not dissimilarly, one of the distinguishing elements of the Bloom programme is that, upon completion, graduates are encouraged to remain a part of the community as alumni, engaging in further education and helping foster the development of the newest members.

The Pro Baristas program builds on the foundations laid by the drop in sessions with further training, hopefully leading to apprenticeships and internationally recognised qualifications. The end goal is for those involved is to find employment, so the course works with Brighton businesses to build an employability network. Institutions, such as Small Batch, don’t just support the courses by offering advice and supplies, but also employ those who have participated in the courses.

The final piece of the puzzle is The Real Junk Food Cafe, a pay-what-you-feel cafe that appears at the One Church on Fridays, offering hot food, coffee, and produce. The Bloom Drop In and Pro Barista Courses are excellent at providing someone with both coffee and employability skills, but they are unable to replicate a fast paced, cafe environment. It is one thing to prepare a pour-over, or an espresso, when you have ample time, but it is a different thing entirely to do the same thing under pressure. The Real Junk Food Cafe doesn’t just provide this busy working environment, but also offers those working the chance to develop vital organisational skills. The volunteers themselves decide how the “cafe” is set up and run, and the module nature of the workspace means the layout can easily be changed.

The high quality of the coffee at The Real Junk Food Cafe is comparable to many of Brighton’s artisanal establishments and gives vital experience to those eager to develop the many skills required to pursue a career in coffee. If you have an interest in Brighton coffee, we highly recommend visiting both the Bloom Drop In and The Real Junk Food Cafe, chatting to the many volunteers, and seeing how everything works in person. All are welcome.

The Real Junk Food Cafe is open from 1-3pm on Fridays at One Church Brighton’s Gloucester Place.

Bloom Drop Ins are from 12-3pm on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays at One Church Brighton’s Gloucester Place.

For more information on Pro Baristas visit www.probaristas.com

He’s covered presidential campaigns in America, helped create the World Atlas of Coffee, and now he is developing the next generation of highly-skilled baristas in Brighton, meet Ben Szobody.

Who is Ben Szobody?
I’m a former journalist with a drawl — an American who jumped the pond and found a way to turn some of my favourite things, like coffee, into a job that helps people. I used to cover presidential campaigns in the “Dirty South” but now I develop social projects for One Church Brighton. Kind of strange!

What are the Pro Barista Courses?
Well, Pro Baristas fundamentally exists to solve two major problems. On the one hand, the speciality coffee sector faces a real shortage of skilled staff, and it’s only getting worse. On the other hand, there are tons of unemployed young people in particular who would kill for one of these jobs. So we offer everything from very lightweight drop-in sessions where you can literally play and develop confidence on our range of coffee machines, all the way up to year-long apprenticeships that come with five certificates from the Specialty Coffee Association. Our most popular course is “Barista Foundations Plus” — it’s the standard Foundations certificate course spread over four sessions, with lots of practice time, mentorship and live bar experience added on.

What do you see as the future for the Pro Barista courses?
Wow, the potential for this thing is a bit breathtaking. The goal is to nurture well-rounded people so they can find satisfying careers in coffee. We’ve worked with more than 200 people in the past year. But we still have more cafes asking for baristas than we have baristas. The potential is huge to (a) really change the way coffee companies employ people, (b) substantially alleviate youth unemployment across the city, and (c) improve the quality of coffee across the board, simply by adding trained talent to the labour pool. ‘Cause we all know there are plenty of shops with sweet machines and good beans serving dodgy drinks, right?

Why hold courses at the One Church?
Well, One Church Brighton is the umbrella charity over this project. It’s a real church (there’s a spiritual community that meets together) but it’s also a charity that operates a range of social projects aimed at marginalised people in Brighton, from night shelters for the homeless to meals for low-income families. I’ve never worked in a more inclusive, energetic place — there’s no sneaky religious thing under the surface, and not everyone here is religious. We have this building that I manage in central Brighton where tons of this stuff happens. When I took it on several years ago, I was just looking up into the vaulted ceilings thinking, “Whoa, what a place to drink coffee.” So I invited my friend Andrew Tolley, who owns Taylor St Baristas, to see it and we hatched a plan to start Pro Baristas. It’s an amazing space in which to do any kind of learning, but especially coffee stuff. Al and Laura from Small Batch have also been crucial in helping us get it off the ground, and all our collaborators are doing it for the broader health of the industry.

What are your opinions of the current Brighton coffee scene?
Haha! Is this where I walk on eggshells with a demi in my hand? I hope not. Surely we can appraise coffee honestly! (I’d welcome criticism at my usual espresso cart at Florence Road Market on Saturdays.) In general: Brighton coffee is easygoing and chilled, but companies don’t collaborate like London companies do. There’s a lot of mistrust and weird, isolated thinking. As for the roasting, I feel like there’s a big divide — either you’re on the darker side of things (tasty but roasty!) or trying to roast light because it’s trendy but really ending up with grassy, herbaceous results. Sweetness and solubility remain somewhat elusive, for me anyway. As for cafes, there’s just a staggering range there. It’s hard to summarise. But I think that we still have lots of room for a company that can nail killer food, great coffee at high speeds AND brilliant customer service, all three.

Do coffee shops, roasters and other coffee companies have a social responsibility and do you feel they are living up to their responsibilities in
Brighton and why?
Well, this could be an entire article. I obviously think that YES they have a social responsibility, but this isn’t always an obvious point to make. Look, cafes are blamed for gentrification, for the hipsterisation of everything, for stratifying consumers into elite tiers, for being pretty bad at racial and gender sensitivity, etc. etc. So what’s a quality-focussed business to do? I’d argue we need to look out our front doors at the people needing work, and do things differently. It makes no sense to hire your customers — middle-class coffee drinkers tend to view these jobs as placeholders, and they top out quickly. But if you hire someone who wouldn’t normally get the chance, then what you tend to get is a motivated, long-lasting, satisfied, durable employee who sees coffee work as a career. It’s worth some up-front investment, it makes business sense AND it meets a need in the city. And with a social project like Pro Baristas kicking around, it’s crazy not to think about this.

How can people find out more about the Pro Barista Courses?
Our website — www.ProBaristas.com — or honestly just pop in to our drop-ins. It sounds too good to be true, but the front doors are wide open at One Church on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons, 12 to 3. Total beginners and seasoned pros can be found taking apart grinders, practicing latte art and reading about water chemistry. Anyone can cruise in and have a chat.