Engineering a Coffee Culture: The Story of Phil & Sebastian in Calgary

Phil Robertson and Sebastian Sztabzyb first crossed paths in 1997 as engineering students at the University of Calgary, more absorbed in calculations than in cafés. Neither could have foreseen the path they would eventually take together. Coffee began as a post-graduation hobby for both, then grew into something far more consuming.

“We became complete coffee geeks,” Sebastian recalls. He was especially drawn to the coffee bars around his hometown of Buenos Aires.

After years of complaining about the scarcity of specialty coffee in Calgary—and after travels to coffee’s origins—the pair launched Phil & Sebastian Coffee Roasters in the city of roughly one million residents.

When the two left their engineering jobs in 2007 to start the eponymous company, neither had a single day of foodservice experience behind them, and Calgary offered nothing resembling the concept they had in mind.

Phil and Sebastian.

“We were trying to create a café with real knowledge behind the coffee—the origin, flavor, profiles, and processing,” Sebastian explains. For a startup shop, it was a risky bet by his own admission, yet Calgary’s coffee drinkers responded with genuine enthusiasm.

Today Phil and Sebastian operate three full-service cafés, run a kiosk at the Calgary Farmers’ Market, and have become names associated with good coffee in Calgary. In a country long dominated by Tim Hortons, where carefully sourced beans and enthusiastic baristas remain relatively novel, sustainable practices and a contemporary image are helping the roaster reshape how residents of Alberta’s largest city relate to their daily cup.

Inside a Phil & Sebastian café, modern furniture and abundant clean wood give the simple setting a natural warmth. Customers drawn by the two names above the door find farm-direct roasts, photographs of pickers at origin, an inventive food menu built on local artisan ingredients, and consistently friendly baristas serving lattes in cups printed with an ampersand.

Beyond the café, Phil & Sebastian’s baristas bring home trophies from regional and national competitions year after year. Behind the scenes, a forward-looking purchasing program and an engineer’s precision applied to roasting underpin the company’s retail success.

During early trips to origin, Phil and Sebastian saw promising opportunities to work with small, often overlooked growers. That observation led them to establish the project-based purchasing initiative that now forms the backbone of the business.

Through a sustainable purchasing ecosystem centered on higher quality, they seek to build, sustain, and grow collaborative relationships with high-potential growers, millers, and exporters. In some cases the company pre-finances changes at the mill against its coffee purchase, reducing the grower’s risk and deepening its own commitment to the partnership. Phil, Sebastian, and one other employee make roughly fifteen origin trips each year.

“We don’t believe in going to origin, cupping various producers and switching back and forth every year,” Sebastian says. “We want to find producers and foster ongoing relationships that are mutually beneficial.” He describes green coffee as the “life blood” of the Phil & Sebastian enterprise.

On the roasting side, the founders draw on their engineering training for a methodical, scientific approach centered on measurability and repeatability. The company uses seven data probes in its roaster and infrared probes on each cooling tray. These science-driven methods, which Sebastian says diminish the “black magic” common in roasting, are helping Phil & Sebastian investigate questions such as fermentation in Guatemala and the potato defect found in many Rwandan coffees.

“Roasting is often approached as a craft and that has gotten us so far, but we can approach it scientifically and systematically to take it to the next level,” Phil says. He largely leads the firm’s roasting and wholesale operations, while Sebastian oversees the cafés.

Seven years after the company’s founding, the isolation of Calgary’s specialty coffee scene had given way to competition. With roasters and cafés arriving in numbers, the Canadian city’s coffee climate shifted from modest to thriving, and healthy competition continues to push the company forward.

Later this year, Phil & Sebastian will take its next step by beginning renovations on a century-old former mattress factory along the Bow River. The new headquarters—shared with one of the city’s best bakeries and an elite, chef-driven restaurant—will house a training lab, a cupping room, roasting facilities, corporate offices, and another coffee bar.

It is a future that excites and energizes the co-founders, who through a simple passion for coffee have come to embrace coffee culture in its entirety, from international relations and science to interior design and customer service. They remain committed to exploring coffee’s potential and bringing tastier, more sustainable coffee to a wider public.

“There’s so much we can unleash and we are still so far from the ceiling that can be reached,” Phil says.

Sebastian adds: “We still have a lot to learn, test, and develop to change the way coffee is presented to the guest … and that’s what gets us out of bed in the morning.”