Member Spotlight: An Interview with Gene Lemos
/By Hylan Joseph
Gene Lemos was one of the founding board members of the Coffee Technician Guild. Gene has been in the industry since disco was king and Jimmy Carter was president. Gene has been a friend for over 20 years. He has great stories about our industry and is an astute observer to the changes that have occurred over the last few decades. When the Guild was founded, he was at the top of our list as an initial board member. His input and industriousness early on helped shape what the Guild has become.
This interview was conducted in early April 2020.
Hylan Joseph: Tell us about yourself.
Gene Lemos: My name is Gene Lemos. I'm the CEO for Rebel Espresso Parts and Vannelli's Inc., which is a coffee roasting company.
HJ: How long have you been in the business?
GL: I've been repairing espresso machines since 1979 and roasting coffee since 1978.
HJ: What was the first espresso machine you repaired?
GL: I repaired a two-group compact. I think it was called a Pub. It was the square one. I can't even remember what the name was.
HJ: What made you decide to get into coffee?
GL: It was a fluke, getting into coffee. I met somebody at a party and visited with this gentleman and he was just starting a roasting business in South Lake Tahoe. I was finished with school; I had skied for three months and I was just moving back to the Sacramento area to get serious about work and I thought I'd give it a shot. I told him I'd try it for a couple of months and if I liked it, I'd stay, if not, I'd let him know. I kind of had a knack for roasting coffee and actually fixing espresso machines.
HJ: How long has Vannelli's been around as an official roaster?
GL: Vannelli’s is my third company, and it has been around since 2002.
HJ: Where does the name Vannelli come from?
GL: When I roasted coffee in San Francisco, I did a lot of business in North Beach, the Italian section of San Francisco. And the Italian guys all called me Gino. And then we were all invited to restaurant openings, which we probably opened one or two restaurants a week. And they'd have the pre-party and we'd all go and drink and eat and joke. So, they started calling me Gino Vannelli.
HJ: After the singer?
GL: Yeah, after the singer. And the name stuck. Gino Vannelli. I was single then and dating and some of the girls that I dated always thought my last name was Vannelli. I corrected people for the first year and a half at parties and stuff. I said, no, my last name is not Vannelli. And I got tired of it. I just said forget it. If you want to call me Gino Vannelli, I'm Gino Vannelli. So, I was Gino Vannelli for about 10 years in San Francisco. And I figured if I ever had to leave town in a hurry, nobody would be able to find me. And I decided during that time that one day I would put that name on a business. So, when we opened the next roasting plant, that's what we called it, Vannelli's.
HJ: You've been in the business 30 years. You've actually been in the business longer than me. What are your key takeaways from this business? What's really like, “oh my God, this is what I've learned from coffee? “
GL: I've learned there are a lot of great people in the business. There are a lot of passionate people in the business. The business has grown and has become much more refined I think in the past 10 or 15 years, and it's more precise now. It's not as artisanal as it used to be, at least for me. People are exact-pouring water, pouring shots, and all that. Where, in the past, we adjusted things really for taste. And you could tell when an espresso looks good. Still today, you've been in the business, you know when a shot pulls correctly and when a shot does not pull correctly. But today everything is done by weight and it's a little more precise.
But what did I take away? What was the original question? I think the business has evolved. It was pretty rough when I started. I mean there were really no rules in anything, and we went out and did things. We were competing with companies like Farmer Brothers and Superior and it was fun to compete with those people. Today, there's really good competition in the market, and it's actually more fun to compete with them today. But in those days, it was kind of easy. It was easier than today.
HJ: You're like me, you come from the pre-Starbucks era.
GL: Correct.
HJ: What do you think of, over the last 10 years, of the rise of specialty coffee and the rise of third-wave coffee?
GL: I think the specialty coffee industry is taking more and more of the market from institutional coffee. But I think that, to me, what I see is the third wave is softening a little bit. I think it's waning. I think a lot of people we talk to, they just don't want sour coffee. They want coffee that when they are finished drinking it, it leaves a pleasant taste in their mouth. And sometimes – and I'm not speaking of all third-wave coffee – but some third-wave coffee is, for me, in my personal opinion, under-roasted. It's too raw still, it needs a little more time in the roaster. But I think that it's developed a whole market of younger people and it's gotten younger people to come into the market and drink coffee, I think is what the third wave has done.
HJ: I'm of the mind that third-wave kind of saved coffee when it came about in 2006. It opened a lot of new doors for roasters, service techs, and baristas and gave a lot of personal ownership in specialty coffee. What do you think of that?
GL: I think that that has some validity to it. I don't know if it necessarily saved specialty coffee, because I think it was still increasing in popularity. But I'm just not sure. I think that there are a lot of people that like third-wave coffee. And I think it gave ownership, you're right, to some of these things. I think the biggest thing the third wave has done for the industry is they have gotten people to standardize so many grams of this or so many grams of that and we've standardized what we are doing for brewing methods, whether it's espresso or drip coffee. I think they've helped standardize it so that more people can do a good job.
HJ: Do you think third-wave coffee was beneficial to the rise in barista culture?
GL: Oh, for sure it was.
HJ: Why do you think that?
GL: I think third-wave coffee gave a lot of baristas an identity, now you see baristas doing it for a longer period of time. In Europe, a barista – or barman, or whatever you want to call them – it's a lifetime job, for the most part. You do it your entire career. Here, a lot of baristas, it was while you were going to school or it was a part-time job. But I think this has given them a place to be and a place to be proud of where they work and I think it's helped the overall market, and it's stabilized the employment part of it.
HJ: Because the future of our business with COVID is changed, what do you think the future of your business is as a roaster? What do you think the future of the business is as a parts supplier? And what do you think the future of the business is as a service? Because you serve three roles in our industry and each role is going to change dramatically. Do you think they are going to change the same? Do you think they're going to change differently?
GL: As a service provider, I don't think that the role is going to change a lot with the virus. I think that today, and maybe for the next two or three months, people are a little bit skittish still with this virus. And I think the social distancing and some of the other things that are happening will continue. But I think, in time, that will fade as this virus goes away. I don't think the service industry will be affected as an industry.
I think where the service industry is going to become affected is every day that this pandemic goes on, I believe that there will be a number of cafés and restaurants that will not survive to the end of it. That does two things. I think some of our cafés are going to close and I think some of our restaurants will close. It will give new opportunities to other people as things settle, but it's a shame to see that happen. But I think with every passing day we are losing people that just can't hang on until this thing is over.
And then roasting, I think it's the same. We're going to lose some customers. But I don't think that the roasting – at least our style – will change. And I've been speaking to customers over the last few weeks and many of them are excited and ready to come back to work. I don't think that that will change.
I think initially we are going to have that social distancing thing. But cafés are usually pretty close, pretty tight, and I think people go to a café for the social interaction and they want to be together, they want to communicate and all that. I think that'll come back. I think that's going to take two or three months, four months before that fully returns.
HJ: How far have your businesses dropped since his whole thing began?
GL: I don't have exact numbers because, really, we went from probably, in one of the most robust economies, to probably the worst economy in a period of three weeks. Maybe four weeks, but I'm going to say three weeks. And I bet I'm pretty close. And so, March for us was a moderate month. We lost two weeks in March, but things kind of trickled down. Really the last week of March and the first week of April, which we are in now, have been the worst for us. I mean as far as business goes. We reduced staff by probably 70% in both businesses, I would think. A little bit less in the roasting company because we have projects and the people want to work. So, we're actually catching up on things that, while we were busy, we couldn't catch up on. But probably we have dropped staff wise 70% from both companies. I communicate with everybody weekly and we are hoping to get them back to work in the very near future.
HJ: How did you communicate with your staff concerning the loss of work?
GL: I just sat down with them and explained. They knew what was going on. We went from hustle and bustle to trying to get it done in a day to looking at the end of the day for projects to stay busy. So, everybody knew that it was coming.
Once we got down to a certain point, we furloughed people. We furloughed some people sooner because we had a couple of people that were waiting… And I don't know what will happen for them now. They're waiting for operations. Not life-threatening, but things that needed to be done. But they needed to be healthy for that. And I visited with them and they left probably five days earlier than the rest. And then we have a gentleman that works for us that is 82 now, and we sent him home. He calls daily though. He only worked two days-a-week but we had coffee two days a week. That's one of the reasons he works here is we sit and visit and have coffee in the morning. And he still calls so we can visit and have coffee in the morning. He's just not here. But I try and communicate with everybody. Just to let them know that we are still here.
Rebel, I don't know if other places have closed or not, but we have reduced hours, we are here from 7 to 3:30, or 7:30 to 3:30, but we are here every day because if people need something, we want to get it out. We consider ourselves a critical business, an essential business. People need coffee.
HJ: So are you going to utilize any of the state and federal programs offered?
GL: We are attempting to do that. I'm not sure how it'll go. The paperwork isn't terrible, but it's not great either. And we are working with our current financial institution. But if those programs are available, it's not, in my opinion, a great benefit for the business. It's a benefit that the employees can receive their full wages for two months. And I'm trying to figure out still how all that works. But I don't think they have to work, I think they just get paid for two months. And so the main reason for signing up for that is to be able to pay them. Because I think by June, or thereabouts, we are going to see movement again. And I think the country will come back
HJ: We are applying and we are actually going to put them to work. We are going to clean house.
GL: I'm doing that right now with fewer people. I don't know all the laws, but if I can bring them back to work, as you know, in any business, there are plenty of projects that don't get done because there are not enough hours in the day. And we will make everything really nice so when we go back to work, we won't know how to do it because it'll be nicer than it's been in the past.
HJ: Has your company participated in any community volunteer events or roundtable discussions during this time period? And if so, what were they?
GL: We have not participated in any of that, any of those types of events. The only things we have done is we have taken coffee to our local fire stations and just dropped it off to keep them going. Besides that, we have not been out in public much. Our service person gets out in public, but besides that, we quit delivering, we are shipping to people that need things. The only thing that we did probably to help the public with the coffee roasting is we have a special. We call it shelter in place. You've got to put that in for the code. But we pay the shipping on 12-ounce bags of coffee just to keep people in the house and keep them in coffee if they want coffee. But we are actually selling quite a bit of coffee that way. It's not very profitable on a 12-ounce bag when you pay the shipping on it, but we're not really doing it for the money, we're doing it to kind of keep everybody going.
HJ: From the beginning up until today, how have your employees been reacting to it? What's been the feeling of your staff?
GL: Well, I think we are all cautious. I think handwashing has become a more regular event. But I think we still have people come into the office to purchase coffee and we have sold some home espresso machines as well because people are making their coffee at home. But we practice social distancing. But I think everybody's been pretty calm. We haven't had anybody panic and I think everybody's been reasonable. There's always a possibility people can get sick but I think we're doing what we can to avoid that.
HJ: How do you think this event is going to alter our industry? Or do you think it's going to alter our industry?
GL- It's going to alter 2020 in our industry. And not the whole year, but I think you're going to see three months, four months it's going to alter the industry. And then, like I said, some restaurants and cafés will not make it. We will see that. That will hurt several industries deep.
So, I don't think it's a long-term effect on our industry, I think it's a short-term effect. I think the places it's going to hurt the most will be the manufacturer's that make espresso equipment. Because the people that fall out, and this happened in 2007 and 2008, is a lot of cafés closed and there was actually a lot of relatively new equipment on the secondary market. And so, the manufacturers had a rough go. Even we had a rough go. We didn't sell much equipment in those years. We sold rebuilt equipment and fixed a lot of equipment. But I think that we are going to see that happen now and I think it will affect some of the manufacturers for six months to a year and then I think it'll level out. But I do not believe there will be a long-term effect. This virus could happen again in the future and I'm hoping that the government learns to deal with this. You can't foresee it, but it would be nice if we had a little more warning from foreign governments.
HJ: What have you learned so far in this event? What crucial lessons will you walk away with for the future?
GL: I don't know. I think that in my lifetime I have not seen the economy and the robustness of it, and with that, there's prosperity and people are happy and not concerned. I don't think I've ever witnessed anything like this where everything was just amazing and then it just dropped so quickly. I guess something like that could happen. In World War II there was probably that kind of panic and uncertainty. But in my lifetime, I've not experienced that. I think there are many people that have not experienced the uncertainty and maybe the fear in such a short period of time. And I think, for me, I don't know if it's a life lesson, it's a lesson, I'm hoping we don't have to go through this again.
HJ: Right. Anything you want to add before we wrap it up?
GL: No, I just wish everybody well. Stay safe and be positive. All things shall pass.