Look Out Starbucks: Sambalatte Packs Them In

By John V. Donovan
Las Vegas Is Talking

Now this is a coffee house.

When the first question I asked the owner, Luiz Oliveira, was what type of fuel he was using, that should be a hint this is not your typical cookie cutter coffee shop.

I cringed when Doug Taylor, Manager of Bet On The Farm Farmer’s Market, suggested we meet at this Boca Park coffee house out in Summerlin for a quick business meeting.  It’s about 30 miles from my location in Southern Anthem.  When I say Southern, my neighbors are two big horn sheep. But hey, why not, tis’ the season to be jolly! It’s late December, it’s dark out, the wind is blowing about 50 knots and the rain is coming down in buckets.  I just love a nice Sunday drive in Vegas.  But no doubt it’s better than being stuck in London’s Heathow Airport right now where 200,000 people are stranded due to, ‘inclement winter weather’ and few will reach their holiday destinations.

I’d heard rumors about this place and that it was already packing in a great supportive crowd, even though it’s been open for only three months. Believe me, they’re not rumors.

My first thought when entering and scanning the crowd is that this was not Vegas. It has a New York or San Francisco look and feel. Third sense perhaps, or maybe it was the young crowd reading the Sunday Paper, playing chess and some even using those, oh, what do we call those things that our parents used to use a long long time ago way back in 2009? Oh, my memory is so bad. Now I remember. They were called books. That’s it. They were reading books, real books, you know, when they were actually made out of paper. Imagine, they didn’t even have lithium batteries in them!

So I arrived early to scout out a table near a power plug for my PC only to find that 90 percent of this crowd had the same idea, but only they arrived before me. Near the front entrance is a cool bench-like arrangement with multiple power outlets with eight people, facing each other, all plugged in. I soon got lucky and found a table open up near the back of the store on the first level. This was perfect and would save me some embarrassment. This place resembled a mini Apple store, so slinking to the back with my Toshiba PC still hidden away and out of site was a great way to save face. Actually, I think this whole PC/Mac thing is a bunch of bull. OK, my PC did unexpectedly decide to reboot twice in the next 45 minutes, but who’s to say this isn’t a technological advantage?

Luiz serves coffee from Colorado River Roasters, which is located out in Boulder City. An amazing operation, CRR purchases only the finest and rarest of beans from international suppliers. If you visit Bet On The Farm farmer's market on Thursdays, you can usually find Don Anderson, a warm, entertaining and very knowledgeable individual with a display of his high-end product. They’re packed in one pound clear plastic-like containers that have a neat built in air valve. Just one push on that bag expels that delicious aroma and you’ll be in coffee heaven. …and become another CRR customer.

So, Doug orders one of Don’s blends and Luiz sets up what looks like a chemistry experiment on our small table. Four young customers at the adjoining table notice what’s going on, immediately pull out their mobile devices, and begin streaming live TV to the world. First, a container of clear pure water, about three inches in diameter, is suspended in a metal base over a small high-tech butane powered burner. A larger glass container roughly 3 inches in diameter by 5 inches high contains the ground coffee beans and is securely attached to the lower water filled bowl via a rubber stopper. The fun begins when the burner is lit and, after a few minutes, the pressure of the expanding gas above the water forces the water up and into the container of coffee. With the burner still chugging away and with the all the water now in the upper chamber, Luiz uses  a wooden stick about twice the width of an ice cream stick to gently stir the mixture. As he did, we could see three separate and distinct layers of various viscosities almost magically appear. Then the heat source is turned off, the lower bowl cools just a degree or two, creating a vacuum, and the pure dark coffee makes its way to the lower chamber and is ready to be poured.

I did mention that this was not your typical cookie cutter coffee house, didn’t I?

The marketing plan that Luiz developed using his years in the restaurant and hospitality business is very simple: Offer the best possible quality of product and service, nothing but the best, spare no expense, and those who appreciate the best will find you and support your business. 

They have and they are.

Sorry, I didn’t mention the amazing pastries and other goodies.