"I think we've just scratched the surface for the potential at this location," said Romero, who is backed by 18 investors, both individuals and partnerships. Some industry veterans agree.
The Latino market "hasn't really been served very well at all regarding specialty coffee, and it's a community that has a long history of having a deep coffee culture," said Martin Diedrich, who founded the Diedrich Coffee chain before leaving in 2004 to open Kean Coffee shop in Newport Beach.
"I think it's an absolutely fabulous idea," said Diedrich, who grew up on a coffee plantation. He let Romero work at his shop, shared his business plan and helped refine the start-up's strategies, he said.
Romero considers Tierra Mia one of the so-called third-wave coffee retailers. These business owners label Starbucks, Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf and other chains as the second wave, an improvement on, say, instant coffee or mass-market brews, but not delivering top quality and flavor.
"I think it's probably not dissimilar to wine or microbrewery beers where maybe category leaders that are much larger in size, like Sam Adams, helped define the context. Then you have the other folks who come in after that and refine it and take it to another level," said Doug Zell, founder of Intelligentsia.
Superior coffee, he said, can be had for less of a price increase than is required to step up to a quality microbrew or a specialty wine. In fact, Zell believes quality coffee drinks are underpriced, even at the third-wave shops such as his Silver Lake location where prices are higher than at his Chicago locations.
Those prices are a leftover from the days when he had to compete with Starbucks during its expansion boom, said Zell, who is opening a location in Venice.
Although that means Tierra Mia's potential customers may not balk at his prices, which include a $1.95 16-ounce brewed coffee and $3.95 for the same-size specialty coffee drink, Romero acknowledged that his fledgling business faces several challenges.
His coffee may taste great, but Tierra Mia has no brand recognition. Most of his business now comes from first-generation Spanish speakers and is concentrated in the evening. He is just beginning to attract the morning commuters who whiz by his busy intersection off the 710 Freeway. Many are on their way to one of the four or five Starbucks locations within a few miles of Tierra Mia.
