Dillon Cafiero: Experiences, Advice, And Thoughts On Running A Coffee Business

3 years ago

Coffee is undoubtedly one, if not the most beloved drinks in the entire world. That’s why many entrepreneurs are drawn to its strong aroma and start their own coffee business. This is exactly what Dillon Cafiero had in mind when he founded Edgar Allan Joe. Sitting down with Dr. Kevin Pecca, he shares how his deep love for the drink, combined with experiences in the hospitality industry and a bit of mentorship, allowed him to start his own coffee delivery business. Dillon also discusses the top three equipment coffee enthusiasts should invest in, his most favorite brews, the places he wants to visit to delve even more into his love for the drink, and his transition plans for Edgar Allan Joe into a proper coffee shop.

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Dillon Cafiero: Experiences, Advice, And Thoughts On Running A Coffee Business

We have Dillon Cafiero. He is the Founder of Edgar Allan Joe Coffee Company. If you follow me on Instagram, I do a bunch of coffee reviews. Edgar Allan Joe is one at the top of my list and it is one of my favorite names for a coffee company. Over the past couple of years, I have become a coffee enthusiast and love talking with people that are extremely knowledgeable in brewing, roasting, the different types of beans, blends and flavors coffee has to offer. Not only is Dillon a coffee connoisseur, he has an amazing, inspiring life story that is a perfect fit for the show. He started his own coffee business during the pandemic and is thriving. He is the essence of following your dreams and letting the rest fall into place.

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We have a very special guest Dillon Cafiero. Dillon is the CEO and entrepreneur of Edgar Allan Joe Coffee Company. He makes a phenomenal cup of Joe, phenomenal coffee. I've tried it myself, did a coffee review on it and it is lights out. I'm very excited to have him on the show. Please welcome Dillon Cafiero, Dillon, how are you?

Thanks, Kevin. I'm doing good. How are you?

I'm doing great. Coffee is one of my favorite subjects. It is my favorite part of the morning and I love picking people's brains that are master brewers like yourself. I'm very excited about this. What I'm also fascinated with is I love seeing how people get from A to B, what their story is. I know you have a pretty good one. You started a coffee company during a pandemic. I know a lot of good things have come out of this for you and I'm excited to jump into it. Dillon where are you from originally?

I am born and raised in Farmingdale, New Jersey.

What were you into growing up, Dillon?

I was into playing soccer, my dad was a big fan of soccer, I had that influence. Didn't do much besides that like every other kid in the ‘90s who grew up. The Pokémon and all that fun stuff that seems to be making a comeback. It's crazy. Over the years I jumped late on the whole coffee bandwagon. I didn't start drinking coffee until college I wasn't really into it, the majority of my life or younger life. I played sports in high school to track all that stuff.

I jumped on the coffee wagon myself in college. I didn't drink in high school. It wasn't like my parents were like, “You probably shouldn't drink coffee.” Kids are already wired to begin with. I probably didn't need any at that time, once I started studying for finals, it was one of my favorite things. Still not as a necessary morning thing. It was more for like studying and getting amped up in college.

You've found a reason why coffee was important.

What were your plans after college?

I didn't finish college. I was in and out with college. Probably about a year or so into college I did an internship program at Disney World and that's where I transitioned into working at Disney World for a little bit, get experience working for a big corporation. The gold standard of hospitality while working their made me realize I enjoy pleasing the world with whatever business I'm in or wherever I work. I love the idea of customer service making people happy and all that. I never completed college. I did leave back in 2015 to pursue a job that I was doing the focusing on that and I never got back into it.

What did they have you doing down at Disney world?

I worked at bell service. I was the dispatcher. I was in charge of making sure all the bellmen are taking care of check-ins, checkouts, delivery of luggage, picking up guests, the whole nine yards. There was a sub job as well where it was called luggage greeter. If you go to a lot of higher end resorts, they have something called a Porte-cochère, which is like the landing of when you pull up your car and some, it usually helps you with your bags. The luggage greeter was role was to greet people off of the buses that came from the airport and help them with their bags and also help people put their bags and tear up their own personal cars just to get a full experience while they’re there.

Did you enjoy your time there?

I grew up always liking Disney stuff and being down there, you got a whole different side of it. I feel like if you know anybody who's worked at Disney, they say they loved it or they hated it. I feel like if I worked in the parks, I probably would have felt otherwise but my experience personally, I loved every second of it. Working in the hotels and the resorts with that hospitality feel to it. It made so much sense to me. I blossomed completely in that role.

Did you meet some good people while you were down there too?

I had five roommates when I was there, which a few of them I still have to keep in touch with. Some people who went back to their original home stays I still keep in touch with. It's actually funny. One of the girls that I met down there who lives in California, she has the same exact birthday as me, same year. She was born at the same exact time as except I was Eastern time and she was Pacific time. It was still June 9th, 1992 7:00 AM. I have lasting relationships with these people that I'm never going to not talk to. I'm appreciative of it.

What did you decide to do after you were done with Disney World?

It was a temporary internship. I came back, went back to my high school job that I was doing because I couldn't find a job when I came back. I did that. Shortly after that, I fell into banking for a little bit. I was in there for a few years and that's where I transitioned there. Over the years after that went from like other jobs, worked in wireless, worked at AT&T for a little bit. The more recent job was I was working at T-Mobile into the pandemic.

Where does the love of coffee fit in?

It made sense in college, it helps you study, it helped you do all this stuff like helped you to focus on a lot of things. As you drink more of it, it grows on you in other ways that you go from wanting it in a sense like the actual product instead of needing it for the caffeine or anything like that. You enjoy the cup. It was enormously interested, mildly interested in different ways of making coffee and understanding of what's the difference of light roast? What's the difference of dark roast? I was always under the impression that dark roast was stronger. That's not the case. The dark roast may taste stronger, it technically has less caffeine than light.

That was one of my questions for you. I was going to ask if that was a myth or not. Does light roast coffee have more caffeine in it?

It does because in its natural state, the green coffee bean has the most concentrated amount of caffeine. As you roast it and the longer it roasts, the more caffeine can burn off. It’s different with some places like, for example, Starbucks makes sure that if you walk into a Starbucks and they have their medium roast on tap and their dark roast on tap, it’s going to have the same amount of caffeine level because the way they level their scoops, they make sure the caffeine levels stay the same across the board. It's clever. I only know that because I used to work at Starbucks.

How do you feel about Starbucks Coffee?

Indifferent.

It tastes good, to be honest with you. It definitely has the caffeine bump. I don't think it tastes relatively good.

It's overrated, I'll definitely say that it's expensive. Everyone else thinks it is but they did also start as a small business at one point too. I'm sure it was an incredible brand and coffee at one point but once it got so commercialized to the point where it is now that it's a worldwide phenomenon.

How can you even keep up with it?

The quality control sounds like it could be diminished at that point.

You worked at Starbucks. What was that experience like for you? Did you learn a ton about coffee, how to roast it, how to brew it, all that?

That's where my coffee knowledge and more like the love of its exploded for me. Roasting, not so much. They teach you certain things while you're in the job but you don't have a hands-on thing because they don't have roasters in the places delivering, making the product. I did learn a lot of different things. I figured out what the difference of a latte was to a cappuccino, to a flat white, to a macchiato. You learn so much even as a commercialized coffee shop, you still learn more than you would not work in a coffee shop. I learned the whole light roast, dark roast thing. That's where most of my information came from learning different brews, different ways.

When I worked there because once I like something, I want to know everything about. It's an obsessive thing that I have. There's this program that Starbucks offers called the Coffee Master. Have you ever been to a Starbucks with an employee that has the black apron? They went through a program called Coffee Master where they teach you the ins and outs of every brew they have. You then have to help educate your team to understand the flavor profiles and the weight of the coffee and how it is in the pallet that goes into it. I attempted to go through that program, circumstances told me not to stay at Starbucks anymore. I am grateful for working with them because I learned so much about the industry and coffee itself. I don't regret working there. I do enjoy the fact that did because maybe I wouldn't be where I am now.

How long did you work there for?

About a year and a half.

You were working for T-Mobile during the pandemic.

Yes, that was from 2017 to the middle of the pandemic.

You get laid off during the pandemic. What's going through your head? I'm sure there was a lot of ups and downs feelings of being scared, fearful, things of maybe I got some freedom now. Maybe this is a good time to jump on some things I've always wanted to do. What is your thought process as T-Mobile came to an end?

It was a lot to take in because she put in a lot of work and time into the company and that it happens out of nowhere. I had a lot of emotions. I was relieved at the same time, scared, unsure of what the future was going to hold. What do I do? Many people in the country are having a hard time getting a job. Are other places even hiring? You go through a lot. You stumble across old ideas and I've had this dream of starting Edgar Allan Joe for quite some time. I gave myself a week to just reflect on what happened and everything. I thought to myself, “Do I get another job, keep pushing off the dream, keep pushing it off? Maybe one day I’d be on my death bed and I'd regret not opening it or starting out at all.”

The thing that I had hesitance to start the company was I wasn't ready to open a shop yet. I was not prepared for that. I was not ready to do that nor did I think it was appropriate to open up storefront in the middle of the pandemic because we get hit with another lockdown and I lose everything. I had to reevaluate the world we're living in, the type of business I'm trying to get into. I wrote down a business plan and try to brainstorm on ideas and I'm like, “Why don't I deliver coffee?” I can't deliver a cup of coffee because health reasons and health laws and all that. Why don't I make a delivery company? I don't know if you know Eat Clean Bro.

I've seen the billboards.

They started making meals and delivering them within a certain range. Why can't I do that with coffee? I was really getting the ball rolling on that idea. This makes so much sense. If I do free delivery, that's appealing. I don't have to charge people to hand deliver because it gives me that competitive edge almost to let's say DoorDash or something. It may be a pain point at first because it's a new business, it’s adding convenience to people and it was a clear idea for me. It made so much sense. I ship coffee too. I figured this would be a good way to create the brand, one. Two, create a following at the same time because as I transitioned from this to the next parts of my business, it’s going to come natural to people to follow the parts that they love what I'm doing.

Dillon, where does the name come from? I'm not just pumping your tires here. That is one of the best names for coffee I have ever heard, Edgar Allan Joe.

Thank you. It means a lot. In Disney, for a while since high school, in my life I was never into literature. Once you get into high school, you start learning about Edgar Allan Poe and all these other authors. The only one that stuck stood out for me was Poe. His writing attracted me to it a little bit more than the other ones. It made more sense. Everyone knows The Raven, that's obviously the most infamous one and it was easy to read to me compared to the other ones. I always enjoyed reading stuff about him, he's American literature. It was from our country. It was nice to have all that together. When I worked in Disney, one of my roommates was a huge Poe fan. It’s enormous, overwhelmingly. I was making coffee, something like that. He asked me to go get him a cup of Joe. I haven't heard someone call something a cup of Joe in years.

Last time I think it was when I was a kid and my dad had got a box of Joe at Dunkin’. After five minutes, it came over. It was like a light bulb just came into my head. I’m like, “How's the language on here? Is language good, bad? Is this family-oriented?” It was like a fucking light bulb in my head clicked. I'm like, “That is a nice name. It flows and made much sense. It's clever.” I stored that in the back of my head. Here we are. There are a lot of events that led up to telling people this idea over the years and to the people I trust because I don't want anyone to steal the idea. When I worked at AT&T years ago, one of my coworkers who loves throwing up, I told him the idea and ten minutes later he shows me this drawing. It was a rough sketch of Poe holding up a cup of coffee. That was the first moment like, “This could be a real thing.” He then designed the shirt.

Did he really? It's funny too because everybody from high school whether you're into literature or not knows who Edgar Allan Poe is and sticks out in their brain. I love the drawing because it incorporates the book, the cup of coffee. It makes you want to drink a cup of coffee.

It adds a modern twist to it as well. It relates to younger people and to the hardcore Poe people who read Poe in the ‘50s in high school, it hits almost every single demographic.

You have a great idea for a coffee company. Where do you go from there? Where do you get the beans? What's your thought process after you're like, “I'm doing this.” How do you get the quality you want, the roasting you want? You haven't done that before this moment. Tell me about that.

I don't roast my own coffee. I use a roastery out in Marlboro, New Jersey. The company is called Clover Hill Coffee. Before starting the company, I was going through researching on different roasters in New Jersey. If it's local domain that's too far and everything and trying to see who their clientele base is, who they sell their coffee to. From there, see if those places one, have good compliments for their coffee. Two, if they typically have reviews often about the business itself, if it's a successful business and everything. One business that might sound familiar is Turning Point, a breakfast and lunch place in New Jersey. They use Clover Hill and they're wildly famous. People love their coffee. Reached out to Frank, the owner of Clover Hill. We discussed some things and he gave me twenty different coffees and was like, “Blend stuff together, figure out what you like. We'll come up with something.”

He gave you roasted beans ready to go, twenty different ones. It was up to you to make Edgar Allan Joe beans however the way you wanted it to do it.

Correct. Over the next few weeks, I was testing different coffees together. I would do 25% Sumatran with 75% Colombian and then so much trial and error. I would do a lot of blind tests with obviously the family who can be biased. For example, my second youngest brother, he's the most opinionated person ever. If he didn't like something, he would tell me simple as that. He was like, “This is good.” As I started narrowing things down before I launched the actual products I have now, I did a pre-release of two different medium roasts, two different dark roasts, to a bunch of people on Facebook. I did a raffle online, try to get the most non-biased answers and then whatever the highest results were, I was going to base it off of that. That's where I got The Gold-Bug Roast and The Raven Roast. They are pretty much proprietary to my brand. From Frank, for the Clover Hill Company, no other client that uses those combinations of coffee.

How did you brew the coffee at home when you were testing the beans? What's your favorite way to be like, “Let's see if this is the real deal?” How did you brew it?

I did two different ways depending on just what I had with me. The most common way of brewing it, I did a pour-over. I did it with the Hario V60 Pour Over and I felt that was probably the best way of doing it because it has the cleanest type of brewing method almost if that makes sense. Compared to a French press, it's a full-bodied brew and you're getting a lot of flavor going on. I want someone to be able to test, taste a cock and they can see through the individual flavors that you get with it. It just makes a little bit easier to understand what they're drinking.

Would you say you get a little bit more of a flavor profile from a pour-over rather than a French press?

I'd say definitely. Especially on the lighter roasts, it's easier to distinguish things amongst each other on a pour-over but the end of the day, like the one I ended up doing and the most accurate way of testing coffee is called a cupping process. You basically get ground coffee, pour hot water in there, let it bloom in this cup. You scoop the grounds on top of it. It's like a testing spoon, also tasting spoon. It's got a dip to it. You get a little bit and you sip on it where it sprays your palette. That's how like, professionals really test coffee.

Do you have a little bit of the liquid coffee and the grounds and you sip it all together or just the liquid?

The liquid because you want to scoop all the grounds off when you're done.

You scoop the grounds off and then you drink it out of the cup. You put the grounds in.

You drink it out of the spoon. You'll have two spoons per cup, essentially. One to get the grounds off. The second spoon will be where you take a little bit and taste it. Doing all that got to where I am.

When did the first batch go out? When was that?

First official batch, I launched my business September 14th. The coffee was brew or roasted a couple of days right before that.

What are some of your goals for 2021 with the coffee? Are you looking to do storefront eventually?

Yes. That is the angle. I'll give you almost in a way a five-year plan. In 2021, what I want to do is just expand on product that I have now. I want to introduce light roasts. I want to introduce more flavored coffees, even though I'm not into it but I know the consensus is that people love flavored coffee, appeal to the masses thing. I also want to create a sample box where I have a light, medium and dark at smaller sizes so people can pick what roasts they like going forward instead of playing Russian roulette with coffees that they're not sure. They buy the box, try them three out and they determine which ones they want or they can get all three if they want.

That's going to be my goals in 2021, expanding on my products and my inventory, also expanding to other stores. I am working on possibly a deal with this donut shop in Freehold. A few months ago, I also approached Whole Foods to try to get into their stores. They were like, “Not a good time. Check back us.” That's going to be another thing I'm going to be approaching again as well. Trying to get more exposure of my brand out there. That's pretty much to the T what I'm going to be focused on mainly in 2021 down the road.

Unless it happens earlier down the road, the next phase that I plan on doing with my business before shopping then happens is going to be a coffee truck. A food truck where those are popular everywhere. I feel like a coffee truck. I think that one is an incredible idea. Two, it's great exposure and three, I feel this is probably the most important part of it. I feel like it's going to be a nice transition to go from the business model I have with what I'm doing now to be able to sell individual cups of coffee and get familiarized with doing that before I open a full fledge store. It's a in between of what I'm doing now.

Coffee trucks are a great idea too because your overhead will pretty much just be the truck. You don't have to put an oven in there. You don't have to get all fancy cooking equipment. You need whatever you’re brewing. Obviously make it look good in the setup. You can go to town.

It’s the matter of dealing with townships.

Dillon, what beans do you like? What are the differences between the beans? There's Papua New Guinea, Colombian roast. There's just a ton of different beans. Which ones do you like to go for? What's the difference between the beans? There’s Ethiopian.

There are so many. I think African coffee is some of my favorite because it tends to be a little bit more bright and fruity almost compared to the more savory taste you get in Latin American coffees. You get a lot of nuttiness, chocolateness from Latin American coffee and even comparison to the Asian area where a lot of that's earthy. Sumatra is a very earthy type of coffee. I'd say Kenya is probably one of my favorites. It depends from farm to farm and how it's grown and the wash process. There are many factors that go into the tastes but on average, most Kenyans have a very chocolaty yet fruity note to it. One of also my other favorites are Papua New Guinea and that's why I put it in some of my coffee. I feel like as earthy as Papua New Guinea can be, it also has a very bright aftertaste almost.

I think what contributes to that is a lot of the plants from Papua New Guinea came from Jamaica. As a lot of people know, one of the most expensive coffees in the world is Jamaican Blue Mountain, averages around $60 a pound, which is insane. It's such a hard coffee to harvest. That's why it's so expensive. Years ago, there were people that took the plants from Jamaica and shipped them to Papua New Guinea and planted them there because they have almost similar environments. For some reason, it grows and tastes much better in Papua New Guinea that it does in Jamaica. The other benefit is that it could be sold a lot cheaper Papua New Guinea. That's probably two of my favorite places. It's either Kenya or Papua New Guinea, maybe Costa Rica because it's got a very nice balanced taste to it.

Is there anywhere you can go in New Jersey or anywhere in the country where you can go and taste a bunch of different coffees? Is that an option?

There are some coffee facilities that you can go do a taste testing if you want. There's a place up in Plainfield, New Jersey called Royal New York coffee. They have a coffee lab facility next to their normal building. They do these group events where they can teach you and educate you on coffees and do tastings and everything like that. Obviously with everything going on they stopped it. Starbucks has their reserve roasteries across the country that you can go and visit and they'll give you tours and explain certain things and everything like that. It's accessible, just a little harder now with the pandemic.

Was there an inspiration of coffee that made you want to start your own? We were like, “This coffee is so good. I would like to make something like this.”

I used to work out in East Windsor which is Western New Jersey. There was a little coffee shop called Grover Mills Coffee Shop. The theme is probably close to mine because I think I'm going to have the best theme ever. A cool theme to it. Grover or the East Windsor area. If you heard the movie War of the Worlds or the book, it's based off of that area of New Jersey. It’s alien-themed and everything like that. You have little flying saucers on the ceilings and it's very unique. I walked in and was old-looking in there and it seemed like a lot of random stuff in there. When I had that coffee, I was blown away on how good it was. At that time, it was around the time I started drinking black coffee and I was getting accustomed to it. What's good? What's not good and in-between? Now it’s probably one of the best cups of coffee. I’m like, “Wish I could make a cup of coffee like this too.” Now I am.

There's something special when you get a good cup of Joe and it hits you differently. It's like, “This is it.” It stops you in your tracks.

You have to double-take your coffee.

Another question I wanted to ask you was what do you recommend 2 or 3 pieces of coffee equipment for the at-home brewer? Somebody likes a French press, a drip, a pour over. Are there any equipment brands you that you recommend?

I think for the average consumer because there are many different coffee brewers out there and equipment that it can get overwhelming. I think probably the simplest and the easiest thing for the average consumer would be a French press because honestly there's not a lot equipment that goes into it and it's relatively cheap. Brand-wise, I'm not partial to any brand. Bodum is probably easily the most successful because you can find them at Target's, Amazon, everywhere. There are a lot of other brands that you can find on Amazon but a glass French press is ideal. A gooseneck kettle. Filtered hot water is probably one of the most important things when it comes to coffee. I say a gooseneck kettle, instead of a typical Tico you see on the stove, it looks like a gooseneck almost.

The importance of that is control. When you're pouring, let's say pour over or even a French press. You want to make sure you're getting all the coffee evenly wet and distributed. With a gooseneck, you have worlds of a difference of control with that water, how much you're pouring in and pouring out. It's incredible. You can either find one that you put on the stove or you can find electric kettles. They range in price too. They can be affordable or you can go crazy and buy a $250 one. The third piece of equipment I highly recommend for any person who wants to make coffee at home is a grinder. Mainly because holding coffee stays fresh for months. It's a world of a difference. If we're getting into technicalities, if you bought pre-ground coffee, one, let's say you go to a supermarket and you buy pre-ground coffee. You have no idea how long it's been sitting there. It could be sitting there for over a year.

You probably could find an original Folgers in the supermarket and it gets ground caught. Once you grind coffee, it expires almost immediately. The shelf life drops dramatically. You can get away with like a couple of weeks and not notice enormous difference unless you have a very good palate to coffee. Pre-ground coffee is hit or miss. Getting a grinder avoids that. You can grind everything at home. It's an investment but if you're going to be drinking coffee all the time, you might as well put that money to good use and invest in something in quality and always get a good cup of coffee. Why go spend $150 on Keurig if you could spend $150 on a good grinder and make a significantly better cup of coffee.

Now there are different levels to that too. Brewing equipment requires a different ground for the coffee. When do you use a more coarse, thick grind to a nice, fine, as small as sand grind?

There are different types of grinders. There's a blade grinder, which cuts up coffee beans until you tell it not to. I still think that's a better option than getting pre-ground but it's not the best grind option. If you get a burr grinder, which is the type of blades that are inside there, that's where you can start dialing in different grind sizes. For example, if you wanted to grind or under the core setting, the typical brewing methods that go into that are French press, cold brews, brewing like that because it extracts better. The way that you're brewing it in the medium range is where you can get into a Chemex pour over, a V60 pour over, more on the medium fine. You could even do a mocha pot, which is like those stove top espresso makers, the old school.

If you're Italian mother made decades ago. It’s that very aggressive-looking thing that you put on the stove. It's metal-looking. It's got the two pieces on the top and then it comes out through a fountain like this. I know from my Italian ancestry that a lot of Italians always did that and they called it the espresso but it's technically not but regardless. Once you get a little finer, you can get into the espresso. When you go to a cafe or let's say you have an espresso machine, the coffee that's in those pods or you go to a café, the ground is just like sand or even finer than sand.

If you rubbed it with your fingers, it would get caught into your fingerprints. That's how fine it is. The reason why that's important because once you get into espresso, you put the coffee under a certain amount of pressure and it extracts just well that way. At the most extreme end to it, the finest typical coffee that you can grind is Turkish coffee, don’t tell the Italians this, Turkish is technically a much stronger cup of coffee than even espresso. The reason is because you're at the point of the coffee being so fine that some of the grinds are dissolving into the hot water that you're absorbing even more caffeine into it.

That's a whole other cultural thing like Middle East and everything especially Turkey use that method. It's such a unique process of making it because you have this big vat of hot sand. I think it's called an ibrik. It looks like a little cup with a handle. You put the ground coffee and hot water in there and you just rotate it in hot sand. The point of that is it evenly heats up the coffee and the water at a consistent temperature and it bubbles up. That's how you make the cup. It’s really unique. Those are typically the standards of extra fine, fine, medium and coarse when it comes to burr methods.

Dillon, if you could travel to any part of the world, any country, not to the farms or anything but just to enjoy the coffee culture of a country, what are a couple of places you'd like to visit?

One is Turkey because I want to get that full experience of how the culture just handles that type of brewing method. That side of the country, the coffee's handled differently. Honestly, Ethiopia probably for me because, one, that's supposedly there's no way to pinpoint it but supposedly it's the origin of coffee which is a very interesting story. I feel like it being where the coffee came from, there's got to be some amazing culture there with maybe shops or not. Outside of those two, I would definitely say either Italy or France. You always see those picture-perfect cafes and the small little street in Italy or France and someone enjoying a cappuccino with a croissant with the Leaning Tower of Pisa or something like that. It seems picture perfect almost that it may not be like an everyday thing but you’ve got to experience it like once in a lifetime thing.

That's another question I wanted to ask you too. Sometimes just a cup of coffee in a beautiful spot almost puts you in a meditative state. You got the great cup of Joe, you're in a beautiful place. It's just hitting all the right spots and feels. Is there a spot where you like to have your morning Joe or a place you've frequented where you're like, “Everything is just coming together?”

It's not an everyday thing but on my house, we have this little porch with a swing almost. When it rains or snows, you will always catch me out there every single time. I find rain and snow peaceful and relaxing. It's so chaotic out there but where you are, you're close to that. It makes so much sense. I feel at peace a little bit more.

My days are significantly better when I could do something like that for 15, 20 minutes, enjoy the cup of coffee and then start my day.

It's a morning ritual and that's it. Everyone has their own little special thing but coffee brings everything together in the morning for you.

How many cups of coffee do you drink a day?

There's no clear-cut answer. I will never have zero, always have at least one. There are days where I'll have one cup. There are days where I'll have four. It depends. If I'm busy, I'll have my morning cup of coffee but if I'm busy throughout the day, there's more coffee definitely involved. If I have a calmer day, I'll stick with the one in the morning and I'm pretty much good.

Dillon, where can people find you online, company name, website, where you're located? How do we get these people a fantastic cup of Joe?

Website would be EdgarAllanJoeNJ.com. Social media is @EdgarAllanJoeNJ, for the most part for both Instagram and Twitter and Facebook. We are located in Farmingdale, New Jersey. It's not a physical location that you come to. If you're looking to get it hand delivered or anything like that, if you live close by, I got you. That's the best way you can get the best cup of coffee because we will guarantee that if not in your top three, number one.

Can people from out of state get it, email it out?

Anybody in the 50 states of the United States can get it.

Dillon, at the end of every show, I like to ask all my guests what is one piece of advice that has resonated with you over the years that you would like to gift the audience? It could be absolutely anything.

Don't give up, as cliché as that sounds. Life has really kicked me on my ass quite a few times in my short life so far. There are so many reasons to let yourself just stay down but you need to always know there's never a reason to give up. It is so much easier to give up than not but the rewards of not giving up are incredible. I could have given up on the idea of like, “I'm going to get another job. I lost my job. I got fired,” or whatever the case might be. Stay the comfortable life, keep on getting a job. I didn't give up on the idea and you got to just go for it. You cannot settle ever in life. You only got one life. I It’s easier said than done but you have to keep convincing yourself every single day.

You’ve got to be your own best fan for sure.

When everyone else isn't, you have to be.

There's such a beautiful slice of happiness when you go through all this stuff to make a company, make it successful, you hit so many roadblocks, up and downs. When you get that little sliver of, “This is coming together.” There is nothing quite like that true piece of happiness. You can't bottle up the feeling. It's overwhelming joy for you.

It is, I won't lie. Since starting this business, there have been quite a few times where you feel like you want to give up and you have bad days where you haven't gotten any orders or you don't feel like your business is progressing. You talk to somebody about your business and they just complimented up and down and they're like, “We're so thankful that you exist. You brought us coffee and this, that.” It’s another reminder and you have to remember those moments are the reason why you shouldn't give up. I'm not just giving up for my own sake. I'm not giving up from my customers. I'm not giving up for the people that believe in me and the people that want to see this business turn into something even bigger. People love this brand. I don't want to fail them either. They almost become your business as well. Keep going. You got to keep trucking forward.

It was a pleasure meeting with you. Thank you for sending the coffee. It is a phenomenal cup of coffee. I'm not just saying that. I was shocked. You reached out to me like, “Send me coffee.” I tasted it and I gave it to my girlfriend too. She's got a great pallet for coffee. We both absolutely loved it. It was an honor to have you on the show. You're very knowledgeable about coffee. You love what you do. You're doing big things and I appreciate you taking the time and laying out your story.

I’m grateful to be here. I appreciate you inviting me.

Go get a cup of Edgar Allan Joe NJ. You will not be disappointed. He's got the couple of roasts there. He's got a medium and dark roast.

Medium, dark and to those who enjoy decaf, we have that too.

Thank you for coming on the show. I would love to have you back anytime. Maybe we'll do it in a couple of months.

Thank you for inviting me.