Fresh beans brewing at new coffee shop in Ludlow
LUDLOW — Three best friends who, early on, didn’t know beans about what life had in store for them are now partners in Ludlow’s newest coffee shop.
The owners of Ludlow Coffee Co. skipped the traditional “soft opening,” in which businesses hold off on special promotions and quietly begin serving customers.
The trio ditched the trial run, opening their cafe with a ribbon cutting, speeches and a full house of customers on Tuesday.
“We’re super fortunate to have this many people here. I think it’s a great omen for the future,” said co-owner Steph DeFina.
DeFina is in business with couple Kayla and Matt Gates, whom she met when they were all going to college in Boston about a decade ago.
Their bond is deep — Kayla performed the ceremony when DeFina was married, and DeFina was a bridesmaid in Gates’ wedding.
The Gateses have known each other for 13 years, beginning when they were high school sweethearts, growing up in Chicopee. They got married just over a year ago.
“It’s amazing (how) the stars have aligned, and we all met each other,” said Kayla Gates.
The coffee shop features a large menu of hot and cold drinks, including coffee, tea, chai, espresso and latte. The business is open from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday and is closed on Mondays.
Kayla and Matt Gates handle the weekday crowd with the help of part-time baristas.
With a Monday-to-Friday job as a financial services director in New York City, DeFina helps her friends remotely, with strategy, communications and social media. She stays with her partners and works at the cafe on weekends.
“I’ve got my own couch in their home,” she said.
Ludlow Coffee Co. co-owner Steph DeFina serves a cold drink to a customer on Tuesday. (Staasi Heropoulos / Special to The Republican)Staasi Heropoulos / Special to The Republican
Kayla Gates got a taste of the corporate life, working in finance and marketing before concluding she has an appetite for running a business. Tired of spending hours each day commuting in and out of Boston for his job as a manager and audio engineer, Matt Gates was happy to join his wife in her dream.
“I was originally going to become an electrician, but one day I came home after sitting for two and a half hours in traffic, and I said, ‘Let’s do the coffee shop,’” recalled Gates.
Because they spent so much time visiting family on weekends, the couple decided to move back home from Boston and build their business in Ludlow. The plan came together pretty well, and when there were problems or unforeseen events, they counted on their friendship to get things back on track.
“We knew we might run into challenges or adversity, but we’ve always been good about overcoming them together. We’ve had sad times, stress times, joyful times, and we’ve been able to lean on each other,” said DeFina.
Tariff reverberations
One of the biggest problems the partners had was finding machines to grind coffee beans and make drinks. Much of what they needed was made in Italy, and coffee shops across the U.S. were snapping up equipment in advance of President Donald Trump’s tariffs on products manufactured abroad.
“We couldn’t get a coffee grinder to save our life,” said Matt Gates.
With their grand opening fast approaching, the business quickly had to pivot, he said, and find different suppliers.
“This was a little stressful,” said Kayla Gates. “A lot of coffee shops nationwide knew the tariffs were coming and preemptively bought machines, and a lot of what we wanted was out of stock. We had to either go with different brands or do new research.”
This month, Trump declared he would slap a 50% tariff on goods from Brazil, including coffee, which economists said would drive up the cost of java in the U.S. Much of what Ludlow Coffee Co. sells comes from Costa Rica and Guatemala, which also face tariffs.
DeFina said she and her partners are trying to limit the effect of Trump’s taxes.
“We wanted to align our prices with the area. We’re not going too high; we’re not going too low. We want to meet the expectations of people and what they’re used to buying,” she said.
Read the original article on MassLive .
