Jose Parada thinks it’s time more people put espresso machines in their homes.
To help make that happen, the 42-year-old owner of Jacksonville Coffee Co., which he founded in 2019, intends to open a retail store and coffee shop this fall in St. Johns Town Center North.
Parada said Jacksonville Coffee Co. will be a coffee shop and a showroom for espresso equipment retailing to homebuyers.
The machines cost from about $1,000 to $10,000.
The combination coffee shop and showroom will be in a former Starbucks at 4413 Town Center Parkway, Suite 221, between the Publix Super Markets Inc. grocery store and next to Peterbrooke Chocolatier.
“I’ve been in the industry so long, we feel like the home equipment market is just booming,” Parada said.
Consumers know what they want and would like to replicate that at home.
“They’re looking to purchase these high-quality machines that reflect what you get at a coffee shop setting. We deal now with a high level of calls on the home market so it’s perfect timing to go into retail,” Parada said.
Parada also owns First Coast Espresso, a wholesaler of commercial and home espresso machines throughout the Southeast.
Parada has been a distributor for First Coast Espresso since 2012 and was in the industry before working for what would eventually become Lucky Goat Coffee Co.
He opened a Lucky Goat Coffee Co. shop in 2020 at 12620 Beach Blvd. in the Kernan Square shopping center.
He has partners in his business with Lucky Goat Coffee.
The Jacksonville Espresso Co. has many of the machines on display at Parada’s First Coast Espresso office at 3653 Regent Blvd., Suite 203, in the East Park Business Park.
He also has commercial espresso machines that cost $5,000 to $30,000 for professional shops and restaurants.
“These are not Mr. Coffee machines,” Parada said, noting a growing number of customers want the espresso machines for their homes.
“We get about 15 to 20 calls per week on home machines,” Parada said. “People know who we are.”
For Parada, his business is a reflection not only of his career back to 2005, but his life in America.
Parada is a native of San Salvador, El Salvador, and remembers the revolutionary troubled times in his home country.
His family moved to New Jersey when he was 11 years old and he made his way to Florida.
He initially was an engineer in the coffee industry in 2005 and then branched out on his own.
The Town Center location presented an opportunity because it was a former Starbucks.
Parada said he signed the lease in May, though it had been vacant for several years.
The Starbucks relocated to 4474 Town Center Parkway.
Parada plans to spend about $200,000 for renovations but it will not be a complete overhaul.
He said most of the necessary infrastructure is at the 1,600-square-foot facility.
Parada said his First Coast Espresso Co. is taking off with about $2.5 million in revenue in 2021 and he projects a 30% increase this year with the hybrid coffee shop and espresso machine showroom that could open as early as October.
“Obviously, it’s a unique concept that no one has,” Parada said.
“But we feel very good about the direction of the industry as a whole, especially the home market.”