We recently connected with Ozzy Guragac and have shared our conversation below.

Ozzy, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.

Yes, of course, as Barbarossa Coffee, we do a lot of work outside of industry standards. As a company, we take care that everything we produce is of very high quality and that there is an excellent knowledge behind it. The main ones are:

Coffee: It is a standard for us that all the coffees coming to Barbarossa Coffee have a cupping score of 85+; we try to buy these coffees directly from the farmers themselves, and we want the farmers to make the coffees they produce better by increasing their living standards, education and welfare levels without any intermediaries.

After these coffees come to us, we create a profile for each of our coffees, and we use statistical and scientific methods to find the best roasting profile by trial roasting in small batches to capture the best flavor. For example, while many coffee roasters in the market roast all their coffees dark to achieve a standard in taste, we apply a roasting in the individual language of each coffee since we observe that light and medium roasts are more delicious in some coffees. This allows our coffees to differ from others in taste.

Merchandise: We make our own designs. This may sound crazy, but we do not only roast coffee—we also engrave our merchandise products with a laser engraver, we screen print our t-shirts, and we shoot and edit our own videos. At the stage of opening any store, we make things that are difficult to produce because we want many custom-made things. We are also interested in woodworking. For example, we handcrafted the bars and flooring of our last two shops ourselves. All the operations I mentioned before are a job in and of themselves. We invest in machinery for them. We are trying to show people that there is excellent craftsmanship behind the Barbarossa brand. That’s why we have a motto for ourselves, “do the best in whatever you do.”

As you can see, I can say that we are not just a coffee shop that roasts high-quality coffee, but also like an art gallery in which we produce many handmade products for our brand.

This is the most fundamental aspect that distinguishes us from other coffee roasters on the market.

Ozzy, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My name is Ozzy Guragac, and I founded the Barbarossa Coffee brand in 2016. Before that, I served in the Navy for about 17 years, and during this duty, I had the opportunity to visit many countries. Being a sailor, I have used this advantage by participating in fantastic cultural and gastronomy tours in many countries during our port visits. Visiting local restaurants and coffee shops in the countries I have been to has become my biggest hobby over time, and my love for coffee started there. During the overseas trips, I brewed coffees by myself and even experienced coffee roasting in small popcorn machines. As my passion for coffee increased, I started to find myself in this job. I was giving people the coffee I roasted myself as a gift, and my interest in coffee grew even more as people really liked them.

In the last five years of my profession, I have worked as a restaurant manager, food inspector, and supply chain manager. In these jobs, I was always involved with coffee, and in addition to this, I had the opportunity to develop myself in customer relations, supply chains, and culinary science.

After earning my retirement in 2016, I planned to open a coffee shop, and I chose this place because Houston is a virgin region in this regard. Before I opened my shop, I got extensive information about all the coffee shops in Houston, and by reading the online reviews of all of them, I clearly understood what the customers wanted and what they did not want.

When I felt ready, I opened our Louetta branch, the first branch of Barbarossa Coffee, on May 8, 2017. This was a 1,400 sq. ft. shop, and we had just 12 tables. Because people loved our coffees and customer service very much, our brand quickly turned into a brand that made a name for itself in coffee, and we opened our Tomball location on May 8, 2020, in the middle of the pandemic.

People found it crazy, but believe me, it didn’t scare us because we trusted what we did, and it continues in our second location in a beautiful way. We are proud that we are now the coffee shops with the highest reviews in the region.

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

In order to acquire the capital I needed to establish Barbarossa, we sold everything we owned; here, I want to thank my wife endlessly. My wife and I sold our house and all our valuable assets, and with the help of our families, we turned it into a fund and founded Barbarossa. The day we launched and opened Barbarossa, we only had $750 left. This situation scared me a lot, but because my wife knew my devotion to my job and my purpose in life, and because she believed that I would be successful, she always supported me on my most challenging days making this venture. I can say that we have come to these days thanks to my wife.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

As many of us know, human life follows a fluctuating course; no matter what business you are dealing with, after a certain point, it becomes difficult to produce new things, follow technology and innovations, and approach your work as enthusiastically as the first day.

Like everyone else, I had times when I was reluctant about my job, being very tired and unable to spare time for my family and my daughter because the job sometimes wore me out. Since I like my job too much and I am passionate about it, I could not stay away from the job somehow, even during the holidays I went on with my family (secret between you and me, but I still can’t). This naturally gave me a reason to ask myself the question, “Why do you work so much?”

I’m sure many entrepreneurs have faced the same problems because you take on a particular responsibility, invest your whole existence in something, and you therefore have no choice but to be successful. But after spending a specific time in the name, I can say that I learned this lesson:

Life is short, and it is as important as our work, our families, loved ones, and our health. Therefore, when you feel psychologically tired, it is good to step on the brake a little. ”The golden rule of entrepreneurship is to be uncomfortable.’’ Still, in these situations, you need to dilute the things you feel uncomfortable about and want to improve your business on and move forward at a slightly slower pace.

Look, I’m not saying stop because stopping makes you lazy; deal with one job a day and take care to finish it. Continuity should never end; we should slow down from time to time but never stop, always learning something new.
I will not go without saying the following: A day has 24 hours, and you are only one person. If you are lucky like me, you can have amazing teammates. Let them believe in the world you want to create, take the flag where you stand, run forward, and celebrate the great victory together when the day comes.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.barbarossacoffee.com
• Instagram: @barbarossacoffee
• Facebook: @Barbarossacoffee.roastery
• Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/oguzhanguragac
• Youtube: @barbarossacoffee
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/barbarossa-coffee-spring?utm_campaign=www_business_share_popup&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_source=(direct)

Image Credits
jo Grudo