When Baristas Take the Stage: How One City Built a Coffee Scene

A Nervous Start

Preparations for the first gathering organized by the San Diego Coffee Network were underway, and honestly, nerves were high. The inaugural pour at Coffee & Tea Collective, a craft roaster in the area, was set to begin in forty-five minutes. Seven people were drifting around the room—four of them were the network's own founders. The obvious questions hung in the air: Where was everybody? Would enough baristas turn out to make a bracket work? What was the point of all the planning if nobody came?

Then the doors opened, and the crowd came in waves. Before long the space was overflowing; unless you arrived early, you were standing. More than one hundred attendees turned out to see the San Diego Thursday Night Throwdown return, watching nineteen baristas from the local scene battle down to a single champion. The demand, it turned out, was far larger than anyone had imagined.

Four People, One Vision

The network was started by the two of us along with Mike Helms and Jared Wardle. Each of us loves coffee and brings a different perspective on the business. For Mike and Matt, the spark came after attending a coffee trade show in Boston, where they talked with baristas from across the country who had already built thriving communities. Their own scene felt sluggish by comparison, and they wanted to change that. Over several months, the four of us met weekly, laying out what we hoped the San Diego coffee community could become and working through ideas for getting there.

Reviving the city's TNT—a bracket-format latte art tournament—drew strong enthusiasm, both among the four of us and among the handful of industry professionals we asked. It had been two years since San Diego's coffee lovers, professionals and everyday drinkers alike, had gathered to watch baristas showcase their skills and compete for bragging rights and prizes. Matt proposed borrowing a page from other cities and setting up a season of competition. The Bay Area Coffee Community had run such a season and, by its third installment, attracted coverage nationwide. Los Angeles had done something similar with its TNT, and the previous year the two cities had squared off to settle which had the better baristas—Los Angeles took the win.

Five Nights, Growing Buzz

Each of our five TNTs took place at a different host café, one per month, and each drew well over a hundred people and generated notable attention online. We have not reached the level of press that San Francisco or Los Angeles has, but the groundwork is in place for barista participation that should keep building community spirit and, in time, improve the local coffee on offer.

Baristas hold influence, but TNTs are also a great way for them to blow off steam and have some pure, unadulterated fun.

Why barista competitions, rather than cuppings or tasting events? Putting time and energy into baristas pays off. The kind of barista who is passionate enough about coffee to enter a TNT tends to be the best ambassador for coffee in any region. Customers pay attention to baristas, visit the places baristas suggest, and purchase what baristas endorse. Promotion and growth for brands follow naturally from these events, much as they can from regional and national contests such as the USBC.

Baristas hold influence, but TNTs are also a great way for them to blow off steam and have some pure, unadulterated fun. The format shows their professional craft in a personal light and lets them display skills they have earned. Add the public to the mix and you get a kind of organic energy and enthusiasm no conventional marketing can produce. Anyone with a camera or a phone might capture the shot of a barista landing a winning rosetta, and that image can travel widely. When so many people turn to the internet to decide where to spend their money, earning genuine brand traction online is invaluable. It is raw, uncontrolled, authentic engagement.

A Catalyst, Not a Cause

The network's role was really that of a catalyst. The excitement already existed; we simply connected to it and gave it a stage to shine on. Yet however much coffee communities stand to gain from events like these and from their organic growth, TNTs do not organize themselves. We understood early that a committed team matters. The more organized your team, the simpler it is for roasters, cafés, baristas, and local coffee fans to lend their support.

San Diego, like many cities, was eager for an active coffee community, and the network formed at exactly the right moment. Had it come any later, someone else would have taken hold of the momentum and the backing. Our hope is to channel the energy these barista competitions generate into encouraging and inspiring participation across the whole industry. Your city probably has excellent coffee and skilled coffee professionals. With the right effort, you can support that work and be rewarded, as we were, by an eager crowd straining for a glimpse of something special.