Coffee is an essential for most New Yorkers, but quality coffee can be tricky to find. Cesar Vega is a Tisch alum and the founder of Café Integral on Elizabeth Street —  just a few blocks away from Broome Street residence hall — which serves specialty coffee imported from Nicaragua, where his family is from. Vega’s business started in 2012, after he quit his photography job and graduated from NYU. What started as an at-home roastery in Vega’s apartment has grown into a fully operational coffee bean distribution business based in Brooklyn, as well as three locations in New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles.

Vega went to NYU for photography and economics, graduating in 2010. He initially worked as a food photographer and studio manager, but his longtime love for coffee pushed him to pursue his dream career, building his own business and roastery.

Vega spoke with WSN about how he successfully turned his passion for coffee into launching a business.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

WSN: How has New York City shaped your career?

Vega: I just really wanted to work hard and be in New York and be in a big city and be where the action is, in a way. Growing up in Miami just gave me so much drive to leave. That sounds maybe awful for Miamians, but I just couldn’t wait to get out and be excited and be in New York, which I’m sure is the experience of so many people who end up at NYU.

Vega was born in Nicaragua and moved to Miami, where he was surrounded by a large Hispanic community. Coffee is a large part of Latin American culture and also a main export from countries in the region to the United States. When he moved to New York City for college, Vega noticed that specialty coffee imported from countries like Brazil and Colombia were growing popular, but he did not see much Nicaraguan coffee available on the market. 

As someone who fell in love with drinking coffee at an early age, Vega wanted to bring a taste of his heritage to a wider audience in the city. After graduating from NYU, he left his position at the photography studio feeling burnt out. Seeing that mainstream coffee chains like Starbucks were starting to integrate more varieties of coffee, he still believed that there was demand for even more high-quality coffee. 

WSN: What was your vision for Café Integral?

Vega: I’ve come to believe that hospitality is at the core of almost any business. What I want to sell, in a way, is care and hospitality. What I love so much about Nicaragua, the culture and the relationships that I have, is the way that you feel so welcome in a home. They’re always trying to feed you or take care of you. Café Integral is so much about how we wanna take care of our customers. You can always improve a bad coffee, but you can’t make up for a bad experience.

On a family trip back to Nicaragua, Vega traveled around and scouted for coffee producers in the country, establishing relationships and eventually rallying enough support to start his own importing business in New York City. He rented a place in his friend’s clothing store, American Two Shot, and set up a coffee cart that brewed beans from a small roastery in his apartment.

He also established a larger roastery in Brooklyn, still importing coffee from a plantation in Nicaragua. He has kept the operation organic and small, believing that sustainable supply chains where people are paid fairly are crucial to maintaining the quality, as coffee harvesting operations typically have high costs. 

WSN: Where does your passion for coffee come from?

Vega: I was raised in a community of Nicaraguan immigrants. There’s always that passion for the place — it’s a pretty unscratchable itch, especially with the way the social politics have been there. As Latin American coffee drinkers, every country that grows coffee thinks they grow the best coffee and is very passionate about it. But more specifically, I was falling in love with coffee as a product in general, not necessarily just Nicaraguan coffee. In New York, I was studying and learning to be more informed about coffee. 

By 2017, Vega had opened his brick-and-mortar location in Lower Manhattan. Featured in the Financial Times and Eater New York, Café Integral has been called one of the best independent coffee shops in the city. Vega said that his time at NYU allowed him to build a strong network in New York, establish connections with his customers and develop a memorable identity for the cafe.

WSN: How has NYU shaped you?

Vega: NYU being so in the city and downtown — I don’t know if this was encouraged or not, but as soon as I got to New York, I hit the ground running, I instantly had a job and always had one or two internships. You’re instantly interacting with the city and meeting people outside of the university. As a result, I started to make so many connections and learn so much about new things. The exposure to food, culture and specialty coffee — all these things that were really amazing.

Contact Kaitlyn Sze Tu at [email protected].