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

Sofia, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

Roasted’s Mission is to be a place where you can enjoy coffee while connecting with creativity, and sustainability, within a collaborative community.

The creation of Roasted stemmed from a cumulation of all my favorite things in one place; art, coffee, people, and comedy.

I envisioned a casual and vibrant place where people could hang out, and in that, every aspect of Roasted was intentionally designed and curated. My background in art, marketing, and coffee, led me to the tools I needed to embody our mission of creativity, sustainability, and community.

For sustainability, I thrifted and painted as much furniture as I could; It not only gives our cafe space a pop of color, it is giving a second life to the furniture. We also use compostable lids, straws, and plasticware.

For creativity, on top of painting all the tables, Roasted works with a variety of artists in the area. We commissioned a coffee mural, and we sell local prints/art pieces from local artists.

As for community, we work with other small businesses and individuals to have workshops, popups, comedy, and music events.

To promote a casual hangout spot, we have extended hours, and close at 7 pm during the weekdays.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Since I was a child, my world very much was surrounded with art, creativity and coffee. I always said it was my dream to have my own coffee shop – I just didn’t know how I could bridge the gap from idea to creation, so I decided to be creative for companies instead.

I chose to follow a career of marketing, helping a mix of small businesses, corporations, and non profit organizations with their marketing and communication needs; from website design, to social media strategy, branding and development, paid advertisements, and graphic design.

I’m originally from the Cleveland area, but my marketing job had gotten me all the way out to Los Angeles. While I was working my more recent corporate marketing job, there was a shift in my mindset of wanting to be creative for myself. I had this moment where I realized I was helping all these people market their dreams, but I was ignoring my own. Which then led me to taking the leap, quitting any sense of stability, and jumping into the brick and mortar coffee shop world.

While I have worked in the marketing field for more than 8 years, my passion for coffee was always subtly pursued. My first job was a barista/pastry/cashier at Panera Bread, and while I worked in marketing, after my 9 to 5 job, I had a part-time/weekend job at a local coffee shop. Both jobs gave me an underlying foundation of the day to day operations of running a coffee shop. I also had attended a coffee festival, where I met a woman who was from Honduras, and she told me about this trip where she takes people to her country every year to learn about coffee firsthand on a coffee farm. I spontaneously signed up, and at the time, I had no idea how much that trip would impact my future.

My trip unintentionally turned in an all woman’s trip. Alejandra, who hosted the trip, took our group to a speciality coffee farm, called Finca San Isidrio, which was run by her friend and coffee producer, Katia Duke. During my trip, I learned how rare it was for there to be a female coffee producer. Katia is an incredible woman – she has a degree in agriculture, and was the first person in her to family to start a speciality coffee farm. During my time on the farm, we learned about the production of coffee first hand, witnessing the entire process of plant to bean. We also got to experience a barista cupping competition, and participated in our own cupping practice. All of which led me to have a deeper understanding and appreciation for coffee.

I did things a little backwards – I found the perfect location, and told myself that I would figure the rest out along the way. Once I decided to go for it, I was all in. It seemed as if the universe was conspiring in my favor and everything unfolded in only a four month span. During that time, I was still working my corporate job in Los Angeles, but during my free time, I took a coffee shop ownership course, wrote a business plan, designed my logo and branding, created my website and menu, researched suppliers, did cost analysts, and talked to a few business owners that I had previously worked with in the marketing world. I moved back from California on November 28, 2021, and got the keys to what is now Roasted Tremont, on December 1, 2021. I jumped right in and haven’t looked back, with now owning two coffee shops in the Cleveland area – Roasted Tremont and Roasted Lakewood.

Also, since I had went on the coffee trip, I made connections with the group of woman who all had varying degrees of interest in the coffee world. Some worked as barista, some were aspiring to open their own shop, and some just wanted to explore the coffee culture. So when I decided to go for it, I was able to get advice, and that’s how I ultimately met my roaster – they roast Katia’s coffee beans from Honduras.

So now in my coffee shop, we get to support Katia directly, and I get to know exactly where our Honduras beans come from and the process its gone through.

When I was designing the coffee shop, I had a clear idea that I wanted it to sustainable and a creative place. Once I decided on the branding and color scheme of my business, I was then able to thrift all of my tables in the cafe, and I painted them to match the envisioned vibe. Also, because of my work with non-profits, I wanted to incorporate anan aspect of giving back, so I partnered with different local non-profit organizations and we collaborate in fundraisers . I believe in sustainability and creativity. That’s why I repurposed as much as I could and did all the design work myself, with my friends and family helping along the way.

Art has always been a big part of my life, but so has caffeine. My dad is from Hyderabad and masala chai is a very commonly served drink in India. So since I was a child, my dad would let me drink chai, which is basically a spiced tea made with milk. I believe chai is what first opened the gateway into the coffee world. To pay homage to my culture, we make our chai in house – and don’t use any type of concentrate, which is frequently used in a lot of coffee shops.

Comedy is another aspect of Roasted. Growing up, I was drawn to comedy and would frequently see comedians live, and wanted to incorporate that not-so-serious vibe into the coffee shop. That’s how the name was born, Roasted is rooted in comedy – it’s not that we roast people or even roast coffee, its moreso meant to be a place that has laid back vibe and atmosphere. We feature a variety of comedy and improv shows, usually in the evening.

Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?

I have a growing staff of 14 employees, between two locations, so I’ve had to create systems that help keep things running as smoothly as possible. My advice to managing a team and maintaining moral is clear and open communication . We have a group chat to keep everyone updated about any news or changes. I also hold monthly all-team meetings, so everyone can be on the same page, but typically during those meetings, I open the floor to the staff, so they can discuss if they have any suggestions or changes.

My employees know their expectations, and my standards, so I created a working environment, where I don’t micromanaging and its more laid back atmosphere. We’ve all had jobs, and I know no one place will be busy for the entire duration of a shift, so during any down time, after their tasks are done, they can use that time for themselves. Some will do school work, read, knit, or just catch up on social media.

We also implemented a daily note, where the morning crew will write down what they did, like prep cream cheese, and they’ll write down items for the afternoon crew, like make cold brew. This isn’t a perfect system but it does help keep a communication channel to help keep things stocked, and the tasks are distributed more evenly.

I think it’s important to have a good attitude and not project any stress onto the staff. Of course there will be moments where things might be done incorrectly, or something happens, but I tell my staff that everything is a learning moment.

To keep moral high, I try to be a friendly and approachable boss. I just turned 30, so my staff is relatively around my age, and we can connect a lot of things. It’s nice feeling involved in their life, being able to hear about what they’re doing and being able to meet their friends and partners.

I also host a fun team outing every quarter, we’ve done activities like Dave and Busters, or have gone out to dinner. We also have an instagram group chat where we send each other funny memes and videos that relate to our industry.

I believe the culmination of open communication, approachability, fun outings, and not micromanaging helps with managing and keep moral high with my team.

How did you build your audience on social media?

My background is in marketing and communications. So before I started my coffee shop business, I was already doing social media strategy for more than eight years. I also specialized in building websites, graphic design, copy writing, and email marketing. So I will say I had a little advantage when building my audience on social media. Regardless of my experience, like anyone, when you start a social media page, you start at zero.

So my advice to those wanting to build an online presence is to create a strategy. I think the biggest reason people don’t find success is due to lack of intention. I believe everything needs to be purposefully created, because in turn, it helps you create an authentic experience, which emulates what your business is.

When building a strategy, you need to break down and define multiple aspects of your business. A business to business social presence is a different strategy than having a business to consumer focused account.

Once you figure that out, then you move on to your audience. Is your business better catered to young professionals or perhaps more middle aged people who may have a higher disposable income. There are many facets and factors when determining who you want to be your audience, but once you figure that out, then the next strategy is figuring out what content you want to post.

You can brainstorm what you envision for your brand. Ask yourself how it aligns with your mission. Do you have a logo and color theme? Breaking all this down can help give you ideas of what to post, in an intentional way.

I’ll give the example for my coffee shop. It’s a brick and mortar, so I need to prove myself as an unestablished business. I had to play on the hype of a new business coming to town, while simultaneously authenticating the business to the public.

My strategy was broken down into building excitement and painting the growth, but still being a fun account. As I was building out the space, I’d show sneak peeks of design choices of painting, etc, and had followers participate in polls. Since I had a physical space, I put fliers up that stated coming soon, with a QR code that directed people to our social media and website. As I got closer to the opening date, I would post more sneak peaks. I limited physical feed posts in the pre-open stage. I had the announcement of opening soon, but for the 4 month space build out duration, I utilized instagram stories, and made a highlight story for that period. Using stories, and creating a highlight page helps keep your page active without busying up your feed, but later down the line, you’ll already have a saved highlight of the build out phase, which is always cool to go back and see – for your customers and yourself. Who doesn’t love a good progress pic.

Once I was ready to open, I made a physical post which was a sneak peek/invitation to our opening, and once we opened, I always made sure to repost/comment/ basically engage with any type of content that included us. I also respond to any and all messages, and encouraged an environment where customers could always talk to us. From there, my posts varied around the different aspects of my business, and it grew from 0 to 4k in one year, and continues to grow daily.

Every business and social media strategy will be different, but I believe if you’re authentic, have a quality product, and provide good customer service, any business and account can thrive.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.roastedtremont.com. //// www.roastedlakewood.com
• Instagram: @roastedlakewood /// @roastedtremont
• Facebook: facebook.com/roastedtremont

Image Credits
Bri Schillero (@bgs.photos)