It’s not rare to encounter a coffee addict, especially in a university setting. But Hani Yaafouri’s passion for coffee is no ordinary one, based not on hunger for caffeine content, but rather on a deep respect for the culture and process of making quality coffee.
“I love coffee and if I’m not working in coffee, I’m somewhere around the coffee community. When I travel to a new city, I always pick four or five coffee shops in the city and check them out,” said Yaafouri.
The native Lebanese DU alumnus is the co-owner of Steam Espresso Bar at 1801 S. Pearl St., a spacious and streamlined coffee shop that opened in April 2012. He received his masters in management through Daniels College of Business in 2008 and went back to get his masters in resources law studies.
Defying the haphazard coziness of the typical Colorado coffee shop, Yaafouri attributes the shop’s distinctive clean lines to the architectural influence of his twin brother, Zahi Yaafouri, who also completed his graduate studies in Real Estate and construction management at DU in 2001 and his MBA in 2003.
Despite the shop’s relative youth, Yaafouri is no stranger to the world of coffee shops. One of the first Starbucks employees in the Middle Eastern region, Yaafouri started as a barista and progressed to a managerial position over the course of six years. Upon coming to Colorado to join his brother and work toward his masters at DU, Yaafouri already knew that he wanted to open a coffee shop. He took a job as a shift supervisor at the Ritchie Center and began to form a business plan.
When the market was right and he found his S. Pearl St. location last year, he jumped fluidly into enacting a business plan that had been in the works for three years.
He traveled throughout the largest cities in the United States, looking for just the right coffee to carry, but decided upon a Boulder based roaster, Boxcar Coffee.
“A lot of coffee shops now carry multiple roasters, I don’t believe in this. I like consistency in flavor, and once people get to a level where they’re comfortable in their taste they always want the same thing,” Yaafouri said.
The shop underwent abundant remodeling — adding the signature open windows and patio space, as well as one-of-a-kind lighting.
“I believe in a coffee shop that is clean and nice. I don’t like closed coffee shops and I never feel comfortable in a closed space,” he said, describing the spacious floor plan and always-open windows that ventilate the space.
“It’s a very unique setup for a coffee shop. It’s a beautiful design and it’s an open wide spice. A lot of raw material was used in this building,” said Yaafouri, explaining that the wooden counter was constructed from 150-year-old boxcar flooring. “There’s a really good energy in the shop.”
And he hoped to add to this energy by discouraging customers from merely sitting quietly at their laptops. He hoped to hone the social potential of a coffee shop by building community tables.
“Coffee shops are all about meeting people and that’s why decided to have our main feature as a long meeting table. People are appreciating this change,” Yaafouri said.
And according to Yaafouri, other changes have been met with positivity as well, such as the extremely simplified menu that includes only the basic six coffee drinks as well as no mention of iced options.
The menu sticks to the essentials in order to maintain the highest quality, Yaafouri explains.
“We don’t have any syrups. Sometimes people are confused, but once they taste our coffee they understand,” he said. “If a latte is made at the right temperature, no sugar should need to be added because it will be naturally sweet.”
Yaafouri’s personal favorite is the latte, but he prides himself on the quality and consistency of his products, as well as the fresh influence that he believes Steam Espresso Bar represents in the Denver coffee community.
“People like change, especially when change is good,” he said.
