Turning Family Roots into a Roasted Legacy
- lklosterman8
- Aug 5
- 4 min read
Updated: Sep 30
The line formed before they even set up. Word had spread—someone was selling spiced coffee that tasted unlike anything else at the festival. The siblings behind the business—Andres De Arco, Nora Graciela, and Edy Soraya—had barely finished preparing it just hours before. The night before the Columbus Coffee Festival, they crowded around the kitchen counter, measuring panela sugar and spices, sealing bags, and hoping they had enough. By morning, everything smelled like cinnamon, cloves, and caramelized panela—their clothes, their hands, the counter. They packed up two boxes and hoped it would last. Within 90 minutes, everything was gone.
"We finished making it around 2 a.m. We only had two boxes, and since we’d never rolled it out before, we didn’t know what to expect. An hour and a half into the festival, we were completely sold out," Andres said.
They hadn’t grown up dreaming of running a coffee business. They weren’t even coffee drinkers. Their parents, who had retired to Colombia, bought a farm and handed them a challenge: "We have all this coffee. Y’all gotta move it," Nora said. "I think of it as our inheritance, but we had to work for it," she added. "It wasn’t just handed to us—we had to decide what to make of it."
None of them had worked in the industry before, but their dual citizenship gave them a unique advantage. They ran the business out of Edy’s apartment, navigating orders and roasting schedules between her couch and kitchen table. Andres, the one with a knack for applications and logistics, handled the paperwork. Nora, drawing from her project management background, kept the business structured. Edy balanced multiple jobs while running the farmers market stand, bringing in new customers with her energy. Their mom oversaw exports, their dad ran the farm, and the three siblings ensured their coffee made it into customers’ hands.
"We didn’t just have to learn the coffee business—we had to learn how to work with each other as business partners," Nora said. "I’m the oldest, but I can’t talk to my siblings like I’m the boss. We had to figure out how to play to our strengths without stepping on each other’s toes."
Their first setups were thrown together with whatever they had—bags of coffee stacked in plain boxes, no branding, no sign. Café Graciela was named for their grandmother, a woman who could make a meal out of nothing, but at first, their stall didn’t even have her name on it.
"I didn’t even have a sign—just some coffee bags in plain boxes," Andres said. "Other vendors noticed right away. 'Oh, you finally got a sign!' they said. And I realized—yeah, I’d gone this long without one."
Despite the rough setup, people kept coming back. Edy thrived at the markets, drawing customers in and keeping them engaged.
"People are always curious because we’re young and we’re siblings running a business together," Edy said. "And that curiosity keeps them coming back."
People kept coming back. But at the Columbus Coffee Festival, they needed more than curiosity—they needed something that would stand out. Surrounded by well-established vendors with polished branding, they needed something unique. Andres remembered a coffee he’d had in San Antonio—spiced, sweet, unlike the usual black coffee.
"We thought, ‘How do we stand out when everyone here is selling coffee?’ Then Andres remembered Café de Olla from a trip to San Antonio. It was so good, so traditional to Latin America—we had to try making it ourselves," Nora said.
They experimented, refining the recipe until it had the perfect balance of sweetness and spice. Their take, La Panelita, became their defining product. Edy, who hadn’t been a coffee drinker before, was the first to say how different their coffee tasted.
"Even our plain black coffee—it’s one of my favorites. The medium roast is so smooth. A lot of coffees are bitter, but ours isn’t. It’s not burnt—it’s just good," she said.
Their attention to quality was recognized early on, earning them a Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) score of 87.58 in their first year. Their blend of panela, cinnamon, and spices gave the coffee a natural sweetness and smooth finish. The air around their stall carried the warm scent of anise and cinnamon, drawing people in. They stopped for a sample, then told their friends. "We were told to come here for this coffee," they said.
Selling out was one thing. Keeping up with demand was another. They needed more space, more structure—something to take them beyond the farmers markets. That’s where ECDI came in.
"We got the support of ECDI. That was our first commercial kitchen," Andres said.
Through ECDI's Food Fort, they gained access to a certified workspace. It gave them the capacity to expand into more markets and events, helping them scale their operations by 200%. They also secured two loans—one for $10,000 to support their first full market season in Columbus and another for $5,000 as they continued to scale.
Beyond providing kitchen space and funding, ECDI helped them navigate retail expansion and work on their business strategy.
"Working with Jacob helped us stay accountable—tracking costs and making sure things ran smoothly. And Anthony and Kathryn helped us prepare for retail, learning what it actually takes to sell in stores," Nora said.
ECDI gave them a place to work, the resources to grow, and a path forward. With the right support, they could focus on scaling their business while ensuring their family’s farm upheld sustainable practices and fair wages for workers.
At first, they imagined opening a café, even securing an offer for a storefront in Cincinnati. But as they grew, their vision shifted.
"This all started in 2020 when our parents decided to retire and go back to Colombia and buy a farm... But now, we’re getting the opportunity to pitch to Kroger, expanding our retail presence, and growing beyond just farmers markets," Nora said.
From their family’s farm in Colombia to markets across Ohio, Café Graciela is how they stay connected—to home, to each other, and to the people who keep coming back. Now, when customers come to the farmers market, they don’t just stumble across Café Graciela—they look for it.
