...with Sebastian Sztabzyb

When Sebastian Sztabzyb and Phil Robertson graduated from engineering school together at the University of Calgary, they never imagined that years later they’d be running one of Calgary’s most beloved coffee shops. After working engineering jobs out of school, the duo’s passion for culinary endeavours grew, and they began exploring coffee more deeply in their free time.

“In 2002, when Phil and I first became interested in coffee, it was really hard to get information. You couldn't find coffee shops that were doing high-quality coffee. There were a handful in North America, and so it just became this kind of dark web search. And so, we became really nerdy about it. And we would try to go visit a cafe in Seattle and drive there and see what this coffee thing was all about,” says Sztabzyb.

And the more they started researching coffee and investigating different methods, the deeper they fell down the rabbit hole. “It became this thing where I had a nice machine at my house and my neighbours would randomly knock on my door at 6 pm and be like, can I have a cappuccino? I was like, all right, let's do a cup. And I enjoyed it. So I became like this community café at my house,” laughs Sztabzyb.

In 2005, with no formal experience owning (or even working in) a café, Sztabzyb and Robertson took the leap and bought a coffee shop at the farmers’ market previously known as Bit O Beans, owned by Bob Whitworth, owner of Simple Simon Pies.

“I showed up with a six-pack of beers, and I put it on the counter, and I said, Hi Bob, my name is Sebastian, and I want to buy your coffee shop,” says Sztabzyb. “We created an agreement where we paid Bob for his business over time. He took all his equipment, we brought in all new equipment, and we sort of remodelled the space. We obviously renamed it and everything. But from the very beginning, he was very proud of playing a role in our story - in a very fatherly way,” says Sztabzyb.

And Bob should be proud, as Sztabzyb and Robertson now have nine Phil & Sebastian locations around Calgary. Sztabzyb says that their focus has always been on providing the highest quality coffee and building strong relationships with their suppliers around the world - from Colombia all the way to Ethiopia.

“I think for us, we don't have any big plans when it comes to expansion. I think we want to continue to reach more people. One of our goals is to get more people drinking good coffee, however that happens,” he says.

“My hope is that someone drinks a certain coffee and goes, ‘well, now it's kind of hard to go back’. Large-scale coffee production is kind of gross. It's sort of a factory beverage that you're drinking that has little to no regard for quality. When you go there and you see how it's handled, you're like, ‘I'm drinking that?’ And then you see how a small producer in Colombia who's really committed to quality, how they treat their coffee, and you go, I want to drink that every day of my life,” says Sztabzyb.

And the bottle that this king of coffee has been saving for a special occasion? Well, it's a bottle of 2008 Barolo from the Italian winery, Barolo Mascarello.

“So this was in 2012,” Sztabzyb explains, “Phil and I were invited to be part of the Canadian delegation to Terra Madre. And so, my wife and I went a week early and we stayed in a little tiny village right around Barolo and just visited different wineries.”

Sztabzyb bought two bottles of 2008 vintage Barolo and was confused to hear that he had to wait 20 years to open them so that the flavours could properly mature. When he opened one of the bottles six months later, he understood why he’d been told to wait. “It was borderline undrinkable,” laughs Sztabzyb.

After learning his lesson, Sztabzyb says he will be saving the next bottle to open in 2028 in honour of his third son, whose arrival was announced right after he and his wife returned from that trip to Italy.