Coffee shops inside clothing stores is the new trend in São Paulo

The newest is Catarina Coffee & Love, which recently opened inside BEMGLÔ at Oscar Freire, owned by actress Glória Pires and her business partner, Betty Prado

Despite the ease of the virtual world, many people still prefer to shop in the real world. And for part of this contingent, service is everything. And if you can unite the customer’s lifestyle with a differentiated service, combining fashion and coffee, for example, success is almost guaranteed.

Six friends specializing in specialty coffees, Henrique Ortiz, Cecile Desille, Jonas Picirillo, Paulo Gabriel, Maria Gomes, all formerly from Octávio Café www.octaviocafe.com.br and former teacher and barista, Amarilis Ibanez, came together and created the Catarina Coffee & Love brand in March 2018.

At the beginning of the operation, the plans were to focus exclusively on roasting specialty coffees, always from small producers. To do that, they paid a contribution and bought a small toaster from Carmomaq www.carmomaq.com.br, which was properly installed in the basement of one of the partners’ house, Cecille, at Jupuá Street, between Pinheiros and Vila Madalena, in São Paulo.

Despite the focus on roasting and partnering with small specialty coffee producers, suddenly an opportunity arose to set up a coffee shop inside a super chic store in Pinheiros, alongside the former FNAC, Hybrida, an experience that lasted about eight months.

Suddenly, Amarilis was called to attend an event at a tattoo parlor. “It was all sot of improvised and rushed, but Henrique, one of our partners, found it a cool idea, and so, without any planning, I found myself setting up a kind of fair structure to operate at Mercado Itinerante, curated by Fábio Andreoni, who also happens to be a curator at Bemglô. We were so successful that we were invited to set up a small structure to offer our coffees at the Oscar Freire Ellus store, where we stayed for eleven months, serving brewed coffees, chocolates and teas. As we were at the window, several managers from other brands saw us, loved the idea and several other opportunities came from there. Among them, the partnership with Combo Café and Cultura (read article here). And now, with Bemglô www.bemglo.com.br”, he explains.

Glória Pires’ business partner, Betty Prado, learned about Catarina’s operation at Ellus and thought it was a great idea to put a coffee shop inside Bemglô. “And since we only work directly with the small producer of specialty coffees, it matched the store’s proposal,” explains Amarilis. The architectural office Vão Arquitetura www.vaoarquitetura.com.br was called by the owners to realize the multibrand project, which already included the coffee shop space.

Catarina works with 10 microlots of specialty coffees, prepared with different brewing methods, but the preference is for strains. “In addition to Brazilian microlots, we also offer Colombian coffee, espresso taken from a San Remo machine www.sanremo.com.br, coffee drinks, cold brew, hot chocolate prepared by Luisa Abram (read article here), natural fermentation breads, vegan sweets and so on,” under the supervision of two baristas.

“Everything we serve here is organic, as is Bemglô’s proposal. To accomplish that, we have made several partnerships with people who are starting as we are: the bread is from Padaria Peruíbe, created by the former barista of Pato Rei, the cheese bread is from a French duo, Padaria Santico, and so on,” she explains.

Special coffee capsules

The operation is still recent, but it seems that Catarina’s group has already found its way. In addition to the packages, they are launching the special biodegradable coffee capsules, compatible with Nespresso machines.

There are three lines, all of single origin, divided into three categories: balanced, less acid, more chocolatey; exotic, fruitier with notes of honey, sugarcane sweet, coffee, berries; and fermented, created in partnership with a farm in Garça, countryside of São Paulo. The box with 10 capsules is R$ 19.00 and the 30 one, with 10 coffees of each category, is R$ 54.00.  The 150 grams packages range from R$ 19 to R$ 35.00.

Thanks to the success of the capsules, they are already roasting an average of 60kg per month and will invest in another roaster. Catarina’s next steps is to establish itself as a small roaster, open its online sales website and increase its business share. “We already have partnerships in the countryside of São Paulo, Brasília and Maranhão and we want to grow,” concludes Amarilis

Another clothing brand, such as men’s Oriba, www.oriba.com.br, with three stores in Sao Paulo, for example, also has a small cafeteria on the inside, but does not work with specialty coffees yet.