We recently connected with Oscar Zapien and have shared our conversation below.

Oscar, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you tell us a bit about who your hero is and the influence they’ve had on you?

My hero’s are my parents, Abundio and Leticia Zapien. They both sacrificed and immigrated to the United States of America from Mexico during the mid 70’s with the sole hope that life could be better. That dreams could be realized. That the sacrifice would bear fruit.

My siblings and I are who we are today in large part because of my parents influence. First, I learned that God is our almighty father and loves us unconditionally. I learned to love myself and others, to serve one another, to care for each other, the value of hard work, that nothing would ever come easy, and if I wanted something, that I couldn’t sit on the sidelines, that I would have to go work for it. I learned that there was internal value to being humble and grateful in all things.

I carry these values with me, in my home, with my family, share them with my children, in my business. Because of my values, I hold myself to a higher standard at home and in my community.

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?

I was born and raised in Toppenish, Washington. I came from humble beginnings alongside my 4 siblings. My parents were not rich by any means of the word, but we had all we needed at home and growing up. My first memories of my parents were working in the agricultural fields of the Yakima Valley and Warehouses.

Growing up, I had a strong desire to become a police officer. I say it was God’s gift to plant that desire in my heart because I had no family in the military or law enforcement. Law Enforcement simply drew my attention from an early age and through high school and college.

In 2007, I started off as a Reserve Police Officer with the Toppenish Police Department. About 12 months later, I became a Corrections Officer with the department, while still maintaining my reserve police status. In January 2012, I was hired on as a full time police officer with the department. In April of 2017, I was promoted to Patrol Sergeant. In July of 2019, I resigned to open my taproom business.

The last few years at the police department were difficult because we were losing officers to bigger agencies who offered more compensation. After several years of frustration with the department and the city, I decided it was time to look ahead and I took an inventory of where I was in life and what I wanted to do.

Late 2018, this is where the thought of opening my own businesses came into play. My wife and I enjoyed our local craft beer scene, so I started doing research about taprooms and asked myself how I could create something that was different from any other local taproom/brewery. Through my research, I found that self-pour existed. I did some more research on self-pour and realized it was an amazing idea and opportunity, especially in our area because no one else was doing it.

I then started to obtain local data, demographic information, costs, potential revenue, and build a business plan around it. I had never done this before so it was difficult at first, but the more information I obtained for my business plan, the better I felt about opening this business. This took me about a couple of months to do. I also kept adding and refining my business plan the further I went.

In early 2019, my brother and I got together and spoke several times about the idea and how we could make it happen. I always thought the owning a business was for the wealthy. As a working class family, I, nor my brother, had the financial stability to make a move this big. So, we spoke to several banks and all major banks denied our idea because they preferred to work with individuals already in business. We then got a hold of a local credit union. Usually, their lending requirements are not as strict as larger banks. We made contact with a commercial lender from the credit union and explained to him what our plans were. He asked for a business plan and I was ready with one since I had been working on one for the past several months.

A few days later, we got the first big news. The commercial lender came back saying he had looked at our business plan and really liked what he saw. He said he wanted to move the conversation further see about possibly helping us get financing. I remember him saying, “if we’re going to risk it on people, we want to risk it on people like you!” That was our first major breakthrough.

While we worked on the financials, we started looking for a space for our business. We made contact with a local commercial real estate agent and spoke to him about what our needs were. He also asked for a business plan. A few days later, he gets back to us and tells us that in the 15 years of commercial real estate, he had never seen a business plan so thought out, comprehensive, and detailed than the one we shared with him. That was the second biggest news we had heard in the matter of a week or so.

Fast forward, we were able to secure financing and secure a place in Downtown Yakima. We started build out on our space December 2019. We were set to open in April of 2020. As we all know, COVID-19 had plans for all of us. The governor of the State of Washington announced the first of two state shutdowns in March of 2020. That put a stop of construction and our plans to open in April. Eventually, we opened our doors on August 15, 20220. I had left the police department just two weeks before that. COVID-19 put a damper on a big grand opening and through the months ahead. Looking back though, COVID-19 allowed us to slow down and really get a handle on what business life was like.

So what exactly is it that we offer our community. We are a self-pour taproom. We offer 50-taps of craft, beer, wine, cider and cocktails. Customers check in at our front desk, open a tab, and they get a wristband that allows them to active any one of the 50 taps we have on our Tap Wall. Customers don’t have to wait in line, nor have to wait for a server. Customers are allowed to sample many options and they don’t have to commit to full glasses because we charge by the ounce. So customers can pour 2oz, 8oz, 16oz, or whatever in between. This gives the customer the convenience and freedom to pour, how much they want to pour, when they want to pour, without having to wait on anyone. Self pour technology is what sets us apart from the rest of the taprooms/breweries in our area.

What I’m most proud of? I’m most proud of our vision and making it a reality. I’m proud that we had the strength to endure the early roadblocks and the persistence to find a way. Looking at where we are today, we are 2 years and 5 months into business. We have been received very well from our community. When we see our taproom full of customers on a weekend, that makes us very happy because that was the vision, to create something new, that was different, where customers could have a great with family and friends. I have to give credit where credit is due and that is our almighty God.

We’ve learned and improved as business owners and as a team as we’ve come along. Know that you don’t have to have it perfectly figured out. Just get going. There will never be a perfect time to start. If you’re waiting for the perfect time, that will never come. Just get going. Start off small maybe with a business plan. Do some research, gather data, etc. You will get some road blocks along the way, but those road block help structure your “perfect” plan. Roadblocks force to stop and pivot, find another way, see something in your business that you hadn’t thought of before. Reconsider your options, but just get going.

Se si puede!

Cheers.

How do you keep your team’s morale high?

The team we have today has been a work in progress. I feel fortunate because I still have my two original hires from day one working with us. In fact, they are both managers now.

One of the things I look for when hiring is a good attitude. I feel like someones attitude goes a long way. Someone with a great attitude is easy to work with, they respond well with other team members and customers. They are easy to train. They’re someone you generally are happy to be around with and they are the type of people I want around my customers. A good attitude comes first in my book.

Procedures and training comes second. I can train someone on how to do something, but I can’t train a bad attitude out of someone.

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

Funding was our very first hurdle. As mentioned before, my brother and I didn’t have money just sitting around to be used to open a business. We had a little bit saved up between us both, but not enough to make a business move comfortably.

We first contacted several larger, national banks. Each of those banks declined to work with us. The common thread here was because these banks were looking to work with existing businesses. Businesses that had revenue numbers to show for. It’s a greater risk for these banks to work with someone who is just wanting to start a business compared to business owner who had a positive track record. These larger national banks also have stricter rules for lending.

We then pivoted and made contact with a local community credit union. Shout out to Hapo Credit Union. These local community banks have far less rules for lending, so they make it easier for someone to be approved compared to the larger national banks. Our initial capital, in fact most of our capital needs came from this source to start our business.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.thetapyakima.com
• Instagram: @thetap_yakima
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/thetapyakima
• Yelp: The Tap (Yakima, Washington)
• Other: email: [email protected]