Today we’d like to introduce you to Ross Walters and Ethan Rivers.
Ross and Ethan, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
Valor Coffee started off with the 19-year-olds passionate about hospitality and specialty coffee. Instead of leading directly into a brick and mortar space, we wanted to begin catering events via mobile espresso cart. We raised 10k on Kickstarter and had loads of fun catering weddings, movie sets and corporate events.
After a while of doing this, we came across the opportunity to park our mobile cart in a coworking space in Alpharetta. It’s in this space that we now serve daily. We also roast coffee and partner with other cafes through wholesale. We’re looking for a full brick and mortar space as well!
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
We’ve had several challenges along the way. Catering is SUPER labor intensive and risky.
We’ve almost broken our espresso machine several times. Since we are super young, we’ve had to learn a lot by trial.
Please tell us about Valor Coffee.
We create hospitality experiences that bless everyone. Everything we do is predicated around that mission. While the main we do is roast and extract coffee for guests in our cafe, our core “why” reaches far beyond that. One of the things I am most proud of is one of the core values, “Excellence and Empathy.” This core value speaks to serving a top-tier, specialty product to the best of our ability while presenting it in a kind, approachable manner.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
I would have had a better grip on why we started the business in the beginning. We have a very clear ‘why’ now. I also would have made a proper business plan sooner.
Contact Info:
- Address: 44 Milton Ave. Alpharetta, GA
- Website: valor.coffee
- Phone: 6786229693
- Email: info@valor.coffee
- Instagram: @valor.coffee
- Facebook: @valorcoffee
Getting in touch: VoyageATL is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
