UNIQUE SPACES
LOCATION: BARRINGER CROSSING II 14141 AIRLINE HIGHWAY, BUILDING 4, SUITE U BATON ROUGE, LA 70817 225.407.0080 WWW.CAFECITEAUX.COM
Cafeciteaux
Chris Peneguy began roasting coffee in his garage in his spare time several years ago. Using a Whirly Pop popcorn maker, he and his neighbor experimented with coffee roasts for themselves and friends. But once a friend bought 40 pounds of coffee — requiring 48 consecutive hours of work for hand- turned coffee beans — Peneguy and his friend and business partner, Stevie Guillory, decided to make the leap and take their business commercial.
Cafeciteaux is now a roaster and commer- cial supplier of high-quality coffee out of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Cafeciteaux sells their coffees as well as wholesale equip- ment such as coffee makers, espresso machines, grinders and other items to their café clients. They also assist in the initial set-up of the bar for new café customers. The majority of their restaurant and café customers are in the New Orleans and Lafayette areas, but their products are also available online.
When it comes to their coffee, Cafeciteaux takes their clients and their sourcing very seriously. “We do primarily single origin coffees, which means one coffee from one farm. It’s usually traceable back to that farm,” Peneguy explained. “And we’ll name a lot of our coffees after the person or the family that actually picked it and processed it.” One of Cafeciteaux’s specialty coffees, Don Pepe, comes from none other than a farmer named Don Pepe in Costa Rica. “We’ll work with farms to give them a fair price, and usually that’s above whatever the market price is for coffee,” Peneguy said. “And that in turn gives them the ability to actually take the money, upgrade their machinery.” A lot of farmers cannot afford an organic certificate, he explained. “That’s why we pay that higher price, so eventually they can get to the point where they can get that certification.” All of Cafeciteaux’s coffees are specialty, rat- ing in the top one percent of coffee that’s produced in the world. “We focus on qual- ity coffees, and that’s what we do,” Peneguy said. Cafeciteaux also offers specialty blends of coffees. These blends can be a special offer from Cafeciteaux or a special recipe for a café or restaurant’s specialty house blend.
All of Cafeciteaux’s coffees are specialty,
rating in the top one percent of coffee that’s produced in the world.
Peneguy and Guillory, both owners of Cafe- citeaux, went from a small garage space to an entire flex-space warehouse when they began their lease with St. John Properties in 2014. “Our first commercial wholesale was on July 4, 2014, to Alexander’s High- land Road Market,” Peneguy said. “St. John has definitely given us the space that we needed when we needed it ... It’s also been a big help to have the other tenants around,” Peneguy said. Cafeciteaux’s space is the one-stop site for their office, roasting and storage facilities. Peneguy looks positively toward the company’s growth in the future. “All in all, what we’re really about is just offer- ing really good, sustainable coffee … and helping out the farmers to be able to produce that and grow and help their local economies grow.”
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