Interview: Octane Coffee co-founder Diane Riffel

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INTERVIEW CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS PAGE

Octane Coffee was already one of Atlanta’s most ambitious specialty coffee companies when I visited the Westside location in 2009. Since then, they started roasting their own coffee, opened a Grant Park location and downtown Pocket Bar, began Birmingham expansion efforts, and added a full bar, complete with coffee cocktails. Diane Riffel co-founded Octane with husband Tony, and on November 25, she discussed her connection to coffee.

JL: Why was it important for you to start roasting your own coffee, instead of continuing to source?

DR: Well, a lot of it is we want to be able to make just a different connection with our customers. With roasting our own and understanding that process, it allows our staff to be more involved in the whole process from the beginning. It just creates a different kind of engaging factor with our customers, and that’s just really important to us.

JL: What’s the biggest challenge about expansion, and managing multiple locations?

DR: Just the consistency factor is probably going to be a continuing – I don’t know that it would necessarily be a challenge – but it’s just something we’re going to always have to be mindful of, just to be sure we’re always delivering a consistent product throughout all of our locations.

JL: Would you say you’ve had any coffee mentors over the years?

DR: So many. We started out using Counter Culture when we first opened the Westside location, and they still continue to be a tremendous resource to us. Peter Giuliano – who I know is no longer with Counter Culture anymore – he’s been incredible. Really all the people at Counter Culture have been just tremendous. And then just different coffee people we’ve met along the way. We’ve been fortunate enough to have had really good conversations with people like James Hoffmann and Annette. Just other people that we’ve worked with. Even people that we’ve hired who’ve moved on to other things, they’ve all been at some level, mentors to us.

JL: Was it tough to come up with the name Octane, or did you consider other names?

DR: It was. We started with the name Octane. We were sort of thinking along the idea of something to fuel your day. That sort of led to Octane. Then the building we went into over the Westside was many years back a filling station and gas station. That kind of helped us make the decision on that…It’s a fun name. People ask us about it a lot.

JL: What do you look for when you’re hiring somebody to work behind the bar?

DR: Just that they’re really passionate. It doesn’t necessarily have to be coffee right off the bat, but that they’re passionate about something, because I think that kind of lends to being really involved with what they’re doing on a day-to-day. And customers that are just genuinely interested and generally nice. We just want to create an environment that’s just fun to be in.

JL: What’s a typical coffee consumption day for you, from when you wake up to when you go to bed?

DR: I generally start off with something from the pourover, and I will actually finish with either a macchiato or cortado and just a little bit of milk. I – unlike Tony, Tony can probably drink 10 pots of coffee a day and be fine – I have a little bit lighter of a tolerance.

JL: Do you and Tony brew coffee at home ever?

DR: We do, yeah.

JL: Using what sort of brewing method?

DR: We usually toggle between a Chemex at home, or right now we’ve got a Clever dripper as well that we’re playing around with. Usually one of the two, on an everyday basis.

JL: Finally, if you could only drink one more shot of espresso, who would you let pull it for you?

DR: Wow, that’s a tough one. You know, I’ve never had a shot of espresso pulled from…Tim Wendelboe, maybe.

JL: That would probably taste pretty good.

DR: That would be pretty amazing, I would think.

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Joshua Lurie

Joshua Lurie founded FoodGPS in 2005. Read about him here.

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