CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — A cup of joe from the nearest coffee shop is how some people like to start their day.
Unless you’re Curt Flowers.
Being an avid tea lover, Flowers is the proud owner of Coral Bean Café. The café opened just two months before the pandemic.
“The pandemic likely saved this business,” Flowers said.
And although there were moments where Flowers felt their doors could close, he said the pandemic allowed him time to create their brand identity.
“Quality. That is likely the reason we have survived the pandemic. We make almost everything from scratch,” Flowers said.
According to Flowers, many of the ingredients at Coral Bean are made in house.
“We have vanilla. It takes almost two months. We make our own caramel, simple syrups. Our lavender, we make it here,” Flowers said.
While other establishments have experienced supply shortages because of the pandemic, Coral Bean has managed to curb that issue.
“When you have bigger companies that have their supply chain issues that doesn’t affect us as much,” Flowers said.
By making certain ingredients in house Coral Bean has managed to limit how much product they have to purchase.
“Because there are warehouses full of flour and warehouses full of sugar that we can get pretty readily available, and we just have to do the manual labor here,” Flowers said.
Due to the pandemic, Flowers has had to make tough decisions and keep on his toes to predict the future of his business.
“We said if staff don’t want to come back to work, or most people aren’t coming back to work, we need to make sure our systems are efficient enough that it takes the minimal amount of people to work,” Flowers said.
With the pandemic still impacting Coastal Bend residents all Flowers want’s to do is please his customers.
“It’s about the experience and I want you to experience the best cup of coffee possible,” Flowers said.