PCC business student becomes successful business owner

Adapted from an article by James Hill of Portland Community College:

(JANUARY 7, 2022) The fair trade coffee industry isn’t always fair to small farmers like Hector Mejía Zamora.

Hector is the owner of Café Zamora in Southeast Portland. He has made coffee growing and roasting his life. He grew up working on a small family farm in Guatemala . He harvested beans and sold them to suppliers. He knows first-hand how hard it is for smaller farms like theirs to break into a coffee market. It often leads to a cycle of poverty.

Hector followed in the footsteps of his mother and other members of his family. They immigrated to the U.S. for a better life. He was asked by his family to immigrate as well. The goal was to get an education in order to grow the business. So in 2014 Hector enrolled at Portland Community College.

“It was an interesting experience,” recalled Hector, who also learned to not worry about his accent. “It was very diverse, and I got to know people from all over the world. Speaking my mind with no fear of how it sounded to people was very helpful. The college was a door to a new progressive world.”

While at PCC, he purchased a bicycle from Goodwill for $15. He fixed it up so he could travel the city and get to his job at a fast food restaurant cooking hamburgers. Nine months later, he transitioned to a job as a washer in an optical lab.

“Soon, I was able to buy a car and started driving for Lyft,” he said. “I met a wonderful lady who, after hearing my story about my dream of distributing my coffee in the U.S., helped me to get in touch with a local roaster who later introduced me to a Guatemalan roaster.”

He used his business training at PCC to make a deal with that Guatemalan roaster to sell green beans from his family farm. This experience eventually led Hector to find an opportunity to open a store in Southeast Portland. There he could sell his roasted beans, and coffee, locally.

“I then met another passenger, who after hearing my desire of opening a coffee shop, told me that there used to be a coffee shop at a building he owns. [He asked ]if I was interested in checking it out,” said Hector. He jumped at the opportunity. “We went to the building that same day instead of going to his house to drop him off. And while being there I realized that there also was the equipment to open a cafe,” he added.

On May 15, 2019, Cafe Zamora was born. Hector is now building the business to accomplish his father’s dream of selling high-quality coffee directly to the final consumer and assisting his fellow small farmers. He is helping to improve the lives of his family and employees, and he credits PCC for opening that door to opportunity to achieve his dream of building his family’s coffee business.

“After a year on business, and while dealing with a pandemic, the foundation of my business is getting stronger,” said Hector, who had to shutter his cafe for 40 days due to COVID-19 in March 2020. “Many challenges have come already, and surely, many more will come. The growth has been significant, and the purpose and the vision of what the coffee we serve can be for, has turned out to be more than what I originally imagined.”