We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Sammi Rivera. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Sammi below.

Sammi, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

I can remember as far back as being 20 years old and living in Salt Lake City. I had always wanted to start my own coffee shop. When I had moved to Georgia about an hour south of Atlanta, I had purchased my first home and it was a very secluded area and the only option for coffee was Dunkin’ Donuts. Now having come from the West Coast in Oregon I was accustomed to having Dutch Brothers coffee. Dutch Brothers. Coffee had played a very significant part in my journey through my Kidney Transplant, since it was the only thing that kept me going while I was trying to get to the Transplant. When I had moved to Georgia, there wasn’t anything close to that kind of coffee service around where I lived, I think Starbucks was about 18 miles away from me which was a pretty far drive . I couldn’t find a job because I had been out of work for a very long time, probably close six or seven years, it wasn’t easy to apply for work because my last position on my résumé had been a traveling producer with the Food Network on a reality television show, so nobody would hire me. I’ve always been the type of person to think quickly on my feet and come up with ways to make money, and I knew that I needed to contribute to the house Because I couldn’t do nothing and let my partner take sole responsibility for everything alone. One day we had gone to a country fair and saw a man who was selling lemonade mixes and I became really curious and I said to myself, I wonder how he got started doing that? Curiosity led me down the path of doing some research of roasting coffee and how it was done and what it took to start doing it at home, I figured maybe I could start roasting coffee and just sell it to my friends as I had done with previous small businesses. I had previously had small businesses with chocolate dipped pretzels, and chocolate dipped strawberries, a cupcake company and while I was in college had started my own video production company. I figured maybe I could sell coffee as my new product as I had done before. Initially, I was only going to sell roasted beans and grounds of coffee at the local farmers market, but they had asked me if I could provide coffee service , and I quickly jumped into creating menu items, buying supplies and inventory for providing coffee service at the farmers market, which then sparked my creativity to start creating different menu combinations that I have not seen before anywhere else. I would make a weekly special and feature that at the farmers market and they sold really well! I was able attend a convention in August 2023 to further develop my skills and my curiosity for the craft because I was in love with making coffee items that no one else was creating, and it was incredibly eye opening.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I am A former traveling, Food Network Producer and I worked a for 10 years in television film & video production . when I had gotten sick, I was unable to work in my field and after my transplant, it was very difficult for me to recover or even function as a normal person so going back to work was very difficult for me. I had decided to start a small business from home that I could work at my own pace and ability. I had built my coffee company from the ground up, literally self trained to roast, and I had discovered that I had a very keen sense of smell and taste when it came to the flavor in the beans, flavor of the ingredients and being able to elevate certain flavors with other ingredients that has not previously been implemented. I had also reflected on my own health journey through Dialysis and remembered that during my time I had faced some difficulties with maintaining my diet, so I had to cut back on my cup of coffee consumption that had dairy products that were commercially used in most coffee recipes. At that time the introduction of plant based milk alternatives had not hit the market yet and it caused me to have to stop drinking coffee for a while until Transplant completed. When I was developing my company, I had taken my own personal history into account with my own struggles during that time, and decided that I would regularly carry oat milk, almond milk, and other such dairy free alternative so that people who are on dietary restrictions could still enjoy a cup of coffee without having to limit themselves due to whatever dietary restrictions or medical issues that they were facing. I did research on how to reduce the acidity of coffee, how to balance flavors and textures and most importantly how to balance sugar intake. I really dove into creating the best possible coffee company with health consciousness in mind so that everyone could enjoy.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

In August 2023, I had returned home to Georgia from attending a coffee convention in Los Angeles, so that I could do more research and develop my skill and my company further unfortunately, when I came home, my life had completely fallen apart, and I was pushed in a different direction and ended up leaving my home in February 2024 and went back to California to restart my life. When I had gotten to California, nothing had worked out. I couldn’t even find a job in film or television to be able to sustain me let alone try to restart my coffee company. I had reached out to a friend who was living in Las Vegas and she had invited me to come to Vegas and I ended up staying here and in a short amount of time I was able to get back on my feet and started roasting and selling coffee out of my apartment, mostly to my neighbors, but I was able to start my business back up And get reestablished here in the Las Vegas area. I had faced many challenges between the months of February to May and as soon as I was able to get back on my feet, it was almost like I couldn’t let it go because I knew how much work and effort and love that I had poured into my company. I just picked right back up where I had left off and I started creating recipes again and I used my production skills to create the high-quality videos that are posted on my TikTok account. With those videos I had begin showing my neighbors. This is what I do in this tiny apartment and telling them that I create everything from roasting the beans to creating the recipes to the logo design to video production to music overlay, and then packaging it altogether to build this channel, and they were blown away by what I was able to do in such a tiny space and with very little resources. Slowly they started asking me how much are your cups of coffee and I just began to roll from there . I had to pivot instead of give up and for some reason it’s just not in me to give up on the things that I love so much.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I had arrived in California in late March and was able to stay in a hotel for a month, I had a job interview lined up to work at a local Starbucks near my hotel so I figured I would be OK. But once I went to the interview and she looked at my résumé and credentials, and discussed my previous experience with coffee. I ended up not getting the job and started to panic because I was quickly running out of money. I had remembered, thinking to myself what am I going to do? I am in a very delicate health situation with being post Kidney Transplant and having a very strenuous daily medication regime to uphold and I knew that I could not go to a homeless shelter or be on the streets because I wouldn’t survive. Something in me came up with the idea that I could rent a U-Haul cargo van for $20 a day, I rented one for about two weeks and I slept in that thing with my dog and we just drove around the Santa Monica mountains and went hiking and camping and just spent traveling around and even though I knew what the situation was and even though there were times that I was crying my eyes out and it would be 34° overnight and we were shivering all night, I kept thinking what am I doing here? What is happening? Why am I here? For some reason I just I didn’t have the answer but I knew that it was going to get better. I just didn’t know how or when. At that time I was getting desperate for money so I sold my camera equipment, and bottles of syrup that I had from my coffee supplies I sold them to local coffee shops. I kept trying to find ways of making money and nothing was working. I learned how to live off of cold grocery store food that was on clearance to maximize the allotment of food stamps, and money that I had on hand, I was doing literally anything and everything to survive. When I had gotten to Las Vegas, I had found myself in a similar situation where I was again renting a cargo van to stay off the streets. I had spent one night in a homeless shelter and I couldn’t even sleep. It was so painful and so exhausting being there that, the next day I had called my realtor who was working the deal for our house in Georgia to be sold, we were about a week away from the closing date and I had told her what was happening and she, in good faith sent me some money so that I could get out of the homeless shelter and into a hotel until the house sold, and when my house sold, I quickly jumped into the apartment that I’m at now, and I had remembered from another friend who had lived here many years ago temporarily and she said that they were weekly rental and that they didn’t require excellent credit and that they were flexible stay apartments. I had looked up every location and I found the one that I’m at now and it was perfect, I was far enough away from the strip so I wouldn’t be distracted and I just, began creating again.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://UnicornCoffeeBar.com
• Instagram: Unicorncoffeebar
• Facebook: Unicorncoffeebar
• Other: TikTok: Unicorn_coffeebar

Image Credits

All photos by Sammi Rivera/Owner Operator/Producer