At the 2024 International Petrochemical Conference, held last month at the Grand Hyatt San Antonio, ExxonMobile hosted a specialty coffee bar.
The multinational oil and gas company’s logo covered a pair of mobile coffee carts at the end of a long, light-filled hallway in the hotel. Baristas in denim shirts and leather aprons pulled shots and frothed milk for a line of suit-wearing executives in between sessions on the future of the fossil fuel industry.
Only a small logo on their sleeves hinted at the origin of these caffeinated concoctions: Barista Kats, a San Antonio-grown mobile espresso bar company that creates “coffee experiences” for clients large and small.
Founded by Leonor Ramirez, a Julliard-trained classical pianist who discovered a passion for coffee and entrepreneurship as profound as her love of music, Barista Kats has grown steadily — save for during the pandemic— since she first started learning the coffee business in 2014. They’ve gone from one cart to six, added an office in Houston and now serve clients across the state and beyond.
At that time, food trucks had become the fastest-growing sector of the restaurant industry, including retail coffee trucks. In Europe, mobile cafés had long been a part of the landscape. But few — and none in San Antonio — were doing what Ramirez envisioned: a mobile way to offer high-quality espresso drinks at events of any size.
The company now serves its handcrafted coffee drinks at weddings, conferences and corporate events, with the carts becoming brand extensions for clients like ExxonMobile, USAA, Bulgari and Tesla. Even the foam on top of a drink can be customized, with logos, emojis ‚ even selfies. They’re an addition Ramirez said has been popular.
Catering companies and hotels also hire Barista Kats, Ramirez said, but the business has made little headway into the one place Ramirez would gladly tell you she covets the most: the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center.
Barista Kats has been hired by clients a couple times to work inside the convention center, but Ramirez is hoping for something more permanent. The RK Culinary Group holds the catering contract for the convention center, partnering with several smaller local businesses. Ramirez is convinced that adding Barista Kats to their lineup would enhance visitors’ experiences.
“They don’t do what we do. They do push-button machines like Starbucks,” she said. “We will make them look great, make San Antonio look great. That’s what we do for all our clients. They’re always like, ‘Oh my gosh, we love everything you do.'”
The ‘a-ha’ moment
Ramirez was born in McAllen and raised in Mexico, leaving for Julliard when she was 13. She came to San Antonio for further study at UTSA and immediately felt at home in this majority Hispanic city. “I loved it, and I’ve been here ever since,” she said.
She had already realized she wouldn’t be able to make a consistent living as a musician and had detoured into real estate when she experienced the “a-ha” moment that would ignite a new passion and change her career trajectory.
A longtime coffee lover, Ramirez had connected with Susan Jaime, a local roaster who began teaching her the ropes. She found deep satisfaction in the roasting process. At one point, she agreed to help serve espresso at a medical conference at a local hotel.
She found herself alone behind a rickety table frantically working an espresso machine as a line of doctors formed in front of her. Within minutes, the grinder got stuck.
“I was freaking out, because the line was huge,” she recalled. “But at the same time, I was thinking, cha-ching, cha-ching! This is something I would love to do. I see the need, and I see that this could work.”
Ramirez immersed herself in the coffee business, first in Oklahoma through the Specialty Coffee Association, a nonprofit that represents coffee professionals from producers to baristas, and later in Italy, under the tutelage of Gianni Cocco. She and her partner, co-owner and fellow musician Nina Rodriguez, invested in well-made equipment, like Unic espresso machines from France. Ramirez roasts her own beans, which she sources from Ethiopia, at the company’s warehouse on Fredericksburg Road. She buys milk from Mill King, which produces low-temperature pasteurized, unhomogenized milks.
“I love Mill King. It’s the most expensive milk out there, but I don’t care,” she said. “My product is most important. I want my customers to say, ‘Wow, this is the best cup of coffee I’ve ever had.'”
Rodriguez, a percussionist who curtailed her touring schedule to take on business development for the fledgling company, called Barista Kats “Leonor’s brainchild — she just asked me if I wanted to join her on this adventure. And when she says she wants to do something, I believe in her vision.”
They hire a core group of loyal, well-trained baristas like Gustavo Sanchez, a roaster and musician in his own right who has been working Barista Kats events since 2019. He said he appreciates the quality of the work they do, and the women’s openness to collaboration.
“I just love the environment we’ve cultivated as a team, the relationships we’ve built over the years,” he said. Sanchez will be traveling with the Barista Kats to New Orleans this month for an event with a repeat client.
The pandemic was a painful detour off their trajectory. They pivoted to delivering bagged coffee, buying pastries from local places to couple with their coffee deliveries. Grants from LiftFund and the City of San Antonio helped them survive, and now bookings are almost back to pre-pandemic levels, said Rodriguez.
On the advice of friend and mentor Lisa Wong, Ramirez secured certifications proving that she was a small, Latina-owned business, so that it would become eligible for large public contracts that require partnering with certified companies such as hers — in service of continued local growth, plus that all-encompassing convention center dream.
“I did the same, and it opened doors for me early on,” Wong said, including helping her get Rosario’s into the San Antonio International Airport. “So I always make that recommendation.”
Ramirez spent the past year trying to get her certifications renewed. The applications got caught up in the dysfunction of the South Central Texas Regional Certifications Agency, which certifies small and minority-owned businesses.
“It was affecting my health,” she said before the certifications were finally renewed. Even after, Ramirez is skeptical of their value. “I don’t know that they’ve helped us,” she said.
What she does believe in is her product, and her ability to grow the business no matter what.
“Never underestimate the power of coffee,” she said.
