A patron gets a latte during Red Bay in Oakland, California
Photo by Red Bay Coffee
It was roughly an collision that Keba Konte got into coffee, though a attention is improved for it. Before he schooled to roast, a San Francisco Bay-native was a documentary photographer, initial covering a 90s hip-hop stage and afterwards romantic movements around a Bay.
Today, Konte runs several cafés as good as a roastery: Red Bay Coffee in Oakland, California. The innovative spit brings black-owned business to a traditionally white industry; additionally, 65% of a company’s managers and leaders are women. Grab yourself a juicy crater of joe and learn how Konte grew his business.
Kenny Gould: Where are we from?
Keba Konte: we was innate to an interracial integrate and lifted in a Haight-Ashbury area of San Francisco, right in a center of a 1960s. You can suppose a scene. My father was a carpenter and had a truth grade from San Jose State. My mom was a photographer who complicated underneath Ruth Bernhard.
KG: That sounds wild. What was your immature adulthood like?
KK: we became an contestant and went to San Francisco State, where we was on a wrestling team. we also became a teenage father. we started picking adult photography and complicated print journalism. In 1994, we went to South Africa and photographed a initial all-race election, that is when Nelson Mandela was elected. That was an implausible believe on so many levels, usually training about a enlightenment and a music. Then, right in that cluster of a early 90s, we was in Cuba photographing Fidel. we photographed Nelson Mandela. we was in Japan and Senegal. That was a infirm time for me, usually study photographers and mural photography.
KG: How did that rise for you?
KK: The early 90s was a hotbed of activism on a campus of San Francisco State. There was anti-apartheid movement. There was a overthrow around a violence of Rodney King. There was a Iraq War. Certainly, there was no necessity of causes that we were out in a streets organizing and protesting.
KG: And we were sharpened that?
KK: we was mostly a documentary photographer, though we was there organizing. Through that, we met all these implausible people from South Africa, Sri Lanka, etc. Half a time we had my daughter on my shoulders or tagging along behind me.
KG: How did we go from photography to coffee?
KK: In a late 90s, we started exhibiting and detected a technique for copy my photographs on tender wood. It was a watershed impulse for me. I’d find aged dresser drawers or ironing play or wooden objects. I’d deconstruct them and refurbish them and impregnate black and white photos on them with a pellet of a timber display through, roughly like skin tone. People responded unequivocally good to those. And a whole time, we was in an artist collective. A integrate of us found this event to open a cafeteria in North Berkeley. we hadn’t spent most time there though there was this aged timer named Ned who ran Smokey Joe’s Cafe. It was a initial vegetarian grill in California. He was prepared to daub out so we bought he cafeteria from him. When we simulate back, it was such a material decision, though my crony called and said, “Hey, we have this spot.” And we pronounced to my wife, “Should we open a cafe?” And she said, “Sure, let’s do it.” we suspicion I’d offer coffee and have my art on a wall. At a time, it was a approach for me to enlarge my audience.
KG: What was a café called?
KK: Guerrilla Cafe. The sign was “Art. Coffee. Vibes.” We founded that in 2006. we had a crony that was a cook during Chez Panisse. He said, “If you’re gonna open this, we have to call this man James and get his coffee. He’s going to be a subsequent large thing.” Well, that was James Freeman of Blue Bottle Coffee. It was approach some-more costly than a alternative, and we didn’t know a difference, though Freeman certainly did. He worked with us. Later, we came to find out that we were his unequivocally initial indiscriminate account. Until then, he was usually during he farmer’s market. So we were unequivocally a initial café to offer Blue Bottle Coffee.
KG: Was a café a success?
KK: We were a strike from a beginning. We did unequivocally critical art exhibitions. We embellished a walls each 4 to 6 weeks. Eventually, there was substantially an in. of paint on a walls. One artist came in and accepted that. He used a millstone to get into a walls and exhibit opposite colors. But it wasn’t a large moneymaker since there were usually 20 seats and no one wanted to leave. So we was removing a small antsy, wanting us to grow. Eventually, we got an event during City College of San Francisco. That as going to be Guerrilla Two though my dual partners weren’t meddlesome in holding on a buildout. And they didn’t wish to conduct something opposite a Bay. So we took it on myself and called it Chasing Lions Café.
KG: So now we had dual cafés. How did that spin into your possess brand?
KK: Some of a relations we had in a universe of coffee were starting to feel colonial. The bulk of a backbreaking labor was finished by farmers and producers and they got a smallest square of a dollar. The roasters and cafes were white and hipster and withdrawal people out. That didn’t lay good with me. It was my dream to start roasting my possess coffee and build relations in some of these countries we had trafficked to.
KG: Where did we learn to roast?
KK: It’s not like there were a lot of places to usually learn, unless we had a pursuit somewhere. I’m not a worker form so we had to figure it out. That meant YouTube, a Ethiopian lady on Telegraph who had a prohibited image and a wok. It was one of those moments where we was like, “Wow, that’s unequivocally all it is.” we combined this small garden room off my garage here in a Fruitvale district. we privileged it out, lifted about $20k from friends and family. Finished a room and put in a penetrate and a gas line. Some lights. we combined what we called The Coffee Dojo. we was wrestling in college and after that was doing martial arts. This was where we train, we whet a craft, we get improved and stronger in a skills. That was 2012, maybe 2013.
KG: How prolonged was it until we had a product?
KK: It took me about a year and a half before we was like, “I have something here.” Finally, we had 3 coffees we felt good about, and but pushing we introduced them to a dual cafés. We launched Red Bay in Feb 2014.
KG: You seem like someone who appreciates a challenge. Do we devise to start something new or continue building Red Bay?
KK: we conclude an moving challenge. Red Bay was a challenge. But it’s unfounded — or maybe topless. It can continue to grow. And it’s a height — that’s a thing about a brand. It’s not just, “We’ve got a cafeteria and here’s another comment that will sell a product, and another.” Red Bay gives us total opportunities to tell stories, to emanate new products, to emanate experiences.
KG: Can we give me an instance of that?
KK: Sure. we did a roastery, afterwards a shipping enclosure store in Oakland. That was unequivocally most like my art work. we took an intent and done it into something. Then we got a outpost and incited it into a mobile coffee bar. We have a cart, a bike. We have stores. The creativity in pattern and building has been a low source of impulse for me. But afterwards there’s a people. The team. We have 57 people now, maybe 60 by a finish of a month. Most of a specialty coffee shops are white-owned and run. We’re one of a few that’s black owned, run, and operated. And 65% of a managers and leaders are women. We’re employing before incarcerated, people in wheelchairs, people with disabilities. This is on purpose. It’s intentional. It’s a anti-hipster expel of characters. That’s deeply moving to me. Six years have left by and there are people who we hired during 18, 19, 20 years aged that have grown and come into adulthood with us. Just saying people grow has been wild. They come in with no coffee knowledge, during risk of re-offending and removing sealed up, and they’ve been means to rise careers. Now we’re removing into revelation some-more stories. We’re going to start a podcast and we’re sketching a small documentary series. So to answer your question, there’s still so most in Red Bay as a height to keep me totally confident and curious.
-Interview edited for clarity and brevity.