We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Mason Galle a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Mason, thanks for joining us today. Coming up with the idea is so exciting, but then comes the hard part – executing. Too often the media ignores the execution part and goes from idea to success, skipping over the nitty, gritty details of executing in the early days. We think that’s a disservice both to the entrepreneurs who built something amazing as well as the public who isn’t getting a realistic picture of what it takes to succeed. So, we’d really appreciate if you could open up about your execution story – how did you go from idea to execution?
It goes back to when we opened up our coffee truck. My wife and I were 21 and 22, and we had a dream to start our own business. Coffee has always been a big part of our lives, and we have shared many beautiful moments at our local coffee shops. I asked her to prom at one, and we visited another right after I proposed. We spend so many moments catching up with friends, making business plans, or just enjoying each other’s presence at these spaces. We wanted to bring that feeling to a coffee truck, and that’s how we decided on our name: Parea Coffee. Parea is a Greek word that means gathering of friends. We hoped that we could encourage our community to gather and drink coffee together. We were able to find our niche in catering events, and we grew our brand that way. The last couple years we were looking for next steps and started seriously putting together a business plan for a brick-and-mortar. We were lucky to find a new construction building with a drive-thru that was available. It is also right across the street from our local community college. We still wanted to focus on the meaning of Parea – gathering with friends. We are really inspired by third spaces and wanted that to be somewhere that Tulsa could feel comfortable hanging out in.
The business side of everything definitely took a lot of work and sacrifice. When we invested in our coffee truck, we moved into a studio apartment to keep costs down. We lived beneath our means for a while and worked other full time jobs while we grew the business. We spent about 5 years working the truck on the side while having our full-time jobs. Once we started construction on our shop, we sold the truck to a new coffee business who was looking for a turn-key truck. That gave us more time to focus on the opening of the shop. We got approved for a Small Business Association (SBA) loan, and we invested more of own money to start purchasing equipment and supplies. The whole construction process took just about a year which was longer than we expected. Now we have been open for almost one year and things continue to grow!
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
With coffee, it all starts at the source. We are proud to use Topeca Coffee Roasters out of Tulsa, OK. Topeca started as a crop to cup roaster in the early 2000s with their family owned farms that date back to the 1850’s in El Salvador. They are a specialty coffee roaster and consistently cup high scoring coffees and have won national awards – including the 2018 National Roasting Championship. Our partnership with their brand has been a great way to show our customers our commitment to sustainable and top quality coffees. We knew we needed to implement the best equipment that would highlight these coffees be it a light roast single origin, or a curated signature espresso blend. The quality of the equipment is paramount in making the best cup of coffee for our customers. To do this, we used industry knowledge, roaster and technician feedback, as well as market research. We then purchased a two group Synesso MVP Hydra which is a talented barista’s dream machine as it can control all aspects of the shot. We wanted to have the one of the highest quality machines for our in-house customers, but we knew in order to be financially viable, it’s important to increase ticket sales per hour. The best way to do that is to incorporate a drive-thru. We didn’t want to take away from the in-house coffee exper50iences, so we also purchased an Eversys Enigma which is a two group superautomatic espresso machine. This machine is one of the industry’s most advanced coffee machines that can calibrate, grind, dispense, and clean itself all with the touch of the button. This makes a fast tool for high volume drive-thrus. This marriage of equipment and product is a good example of our attempt to bring accessibility to quality coffee.
What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?
We have been in the coffee industry for seven years now. We care greatly about the quality of our product and accessibility. We want everyone to feel welcome to order what they like. Our beans come from Topeca Coffee Roasters who have a crop to cup philosophy. Our syrups are also made in house, and we have many seasonal flavors to experiment with. We love to experiment with different flavors that aren’t very common, and we take a lot of feedback from customers and what they want to see. We designed the cafe to have an outlet at every table for students or remote workers, and we created cozy reading and conversation areas for people who want to hang around. We also have a drive-thru for our costumers that are on the go! Every month we partner with a local charity, and our customers are able to round up their order to donate to them. We host live music at least a couple Saturdays a month, and there are plans for move events in the future!
Can you talk to us about how you funded your business?
Our primary source of capital has been the Small Business Administration and their small business loans. We also have a great relationship with a local bank in Tulsa – Security Bank which has been a great help in allowing us to expand Parea into what it is today. Additionally, we have put owner equity from our personal assets such as a cars and home as means to provide the necessary requirements for small business loans. Being young business owners, we didn’t have much cashflow as young adults. Luckily, we were able to buy a house at a young age with the help of a military conventional loan that I got access to after I got out of the military. This allowed us to use our home equity as a downpayment for the SBA loans down the road.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.pareacoffeecompany.com/
- Instagram: @pareacoffeecompany
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pareacoffeecompany/
