Five Leaves Coffee House

Imagine growing up in a house, only to come back a decade or so later to run your own business from the very same place where your family once lived. This is the situation for Todd and Rebekah Verrastro, who now run their coffee shop, Five Leaves, from what was once Rebekah’s childhood home in Englewood, CO. Her family has lived in the house for several generations, and now Todd and Rebekah have been fortunate enough to call it their place of business as well.

The turn of the century house originally belonged to Rebekah’s great grandfather, Leo Hollberg, who surrounded the home with numerous greenhouses and became known in the Denver area as the “Carnation King” through his business “Colorado Carnations.” Photos of Hollberg and the land as it was in the 1940s and 50s are hung around the coffee shop to pay homage to the house’s history. Rebekah and Todd knew each other back when she was a teenager growing up in the same home she now works out of. In fact, Todd cheerfully recounts trying to get Rebekah’s attention back in high school, when she lived in the house. “I used to come over late at night and throw little pebbles at her window.”
Todd has had several career transitions over the course of his life. He has a degree in molecular biochemistry and spent the first part of his life working in the field of biochemistry. He then transitioned into IT and worked for Sun Microsystems for many years. Then in the spring of 2009, the idea for a coffee shop took root and the couple started talking about opening their own business.

Rebekah was running her floral design business, Rebekah Designs, from the basement of her childhood home, which had been sold to a new owner and zoned for commercial property some time in the past, but she still rented space there. The space on the first floor had been a teahouse for several years, but had closed for business and sat vacant for quite a while. The couple decided that there would be no better space for a coffee shop than Rebekah’s childhood home.

The dream became a reality when Todd and Rebekah opened Five Leaves in November 2009. There was a little redecoration done to give the place the feel of a coffee shop, rather than the tea house it once was. “One room was pink, one was purple and one was green,” explains Todd. Now the walls of the house are painted more neutral tones of brown, to match the beverage being served. Rebekah’s family’s company, MD Builders, also helped build the counter and add some accessibility ramps to the front of the house.

For the most part, the house has maintained its original construction. The walls are solid plaster and the ceilings are decorated with elegant crown molding. Everything about the coffee shop makes you feel like you are stepping into a home, which was really the intent that Todd and Rebekah had from the beginning. “People love the house,” says Rebekah. “A lot of people are like ‘Wow, we didn’t know you could come in here.’…they love the charm.”

“We hear a lot of people say, ‘It feels like home’,” adds Todd.

Another positive aspect of the old mansion are the wonderful acoustics. The solid walls and ceilings do not absorb the sound. Rather, they send it cascading throughout the coffee shop, resulting in excellent acoustics for musicians.

“We really do love music; all kinds of music. We are equally happy to have bluegrass or Led Zeppelin going on in here, and anything in between,” says Todd. The music seems to have been the best marketing tool for the couple to use to get the existence of their coffee shop out into the community due to the amount of artists they have been able to book in a short amount of time. Thankfully, it has also been the aspect of the coffee shop that has been very important to them. “From the conception [of the shop] that’s been the one thing that has been important to Todd and me,” explains Rebekah.

From the beginning, Todd and Rebekah knew that music and live entertainment would be a central part of their coffee house, and soon after they opened, Todd placed an ad on craigslist.org looking for talented musicians to come play there. The response was overwhelming, and one musician in particular stood out among the rest. Ron Sanchez answered the call for musicians and not only brought his own music, but has also helped to organize an open mic Saturday morning and afternoon at Five Leaves.

Due to Sanchez’s reputation in Denver, he has been able to get some very good local musicians to come and play during open mic. “Our Saturdays are really picking up…I think it’s mostly people that live around here that know we’re around and you can come and get a breakfast burrito and a coffee and listen to great music.”
Along with a varied menu of musicians, the Verrastros also have a very good selection of coffee and other drinks for customers. Todd asks his customers, “Where do you want to go today?” when they are trying to decide which type of coffee to order. Five Leaves carries Novo coffee from almost every continent, from Sumatra to Kenya, creating an intercontinental journey that can be had in the bowl of a cup. They also carry Teatulia herbal tea and Bhakti Chai tea for their customers that my want a beverage other than coffee. “We pride ourselves on carrying local [vendors],” says Todd.

Besides tea and coffee from local vendors, the Verrastros buy all of their pastries and food from local companies as well. “Our pastry is Tastes of Denmark… and we use a pie company out of Niwot called My Mom’s Pie.” For a while, a local vendor, Larimer Hothouse, supplied the coffee shop’s breakfast burritos, but the company recently went out of business, so Todd has taken over the task of making the delicious morning meal every day. “I love to cook. I’ve always been the cook in the family, and so I had a little consultation with the Larimer Hot House chef and now we have our own burritos that are really selling great.”

As well as breakfast, Five Leaves also has daily lunch specials, consisting of sandwiches and a soup of the day. Rebekah takes on the job of making the sandwiches, while Todd makes the soup, which they rotate every week. The soup ranges from exotic Curry Confetti to the standard Chicken Noodle Soup to give customers a wide variety to choose from. “We really do like to be able to cater to what people want,” says Rebekah.
 
Along this vein, the Verrastros have set a suggestions jar right next to their front door to try and get as many ideas from their customers as they can. Occasionally, they will actually sit down with customers to ask them if they have any ideas on what they would like to see in the coffee shop. Music was one of the first suggestions, along with punch cards, which Todd says have been a great success. “We’ve already got 100 punch cards,” he explains.

Another suggestion they are attempting to implement is hanging local artists’ work on the walls of their coffee shop. They also purchased a couch based on the suggestion of another customer. “We had always wanted [a couch], but with this style of house, you have to be somewhat particular. You can’t just throw in a comfy couch like you could at a more industrial style site that is more contemporary. We’ve tried to bring in the contemporary, and also keep the history. You don’t have to do a lot with this house because it’s so beautiful,” explains Rebekah.

The one thing the house didn’t have was the equipment needed to make coffee and espresso. When selecting the equipment, the Verrastros consulted heavily with Novo Coffee to make sure they had the equipment that was going to complement the coffee beans they were selling. They settled on a Rancillio espresso machine for the important job of pulling shots of espresso and, while they do brew a large pot of a selected coffee blend each day, the couple has chosen a unique approach to making their customers a cup of coffee.

Instead of only offering one or two coffee types a day, like many coffee shops, Todd and Rebekah have set up a pour-over coffee station on their counter, where the barista can make a single cup of whatever type of coffee the customer wants. “We are really big on the pour-over coffee because we can feature coffee from all over the world. The artisan pour-over gives us an opportunity to educate the general populace about what we’re doing here. Once they have it, they don’t go back,” Todd says.

The couple believes they have developed a good core of regulars, and most of their customers tend to come back once they have discovered Five Leaves and tried the coffee. However, they have had their work cut out for them as far as getting the word out about the coffee shop’s existence. “Marketing has really been a challenge for us. We’re a house in an industrial zone. We’ve flyered the neighborhood, and we’ve offered corporate discounts. It’s hard to get all the wood behind one arrow from a marketing perspective.”

While Todd and Rebekah’s love of the coffee shop is apparent, and their marketing is starting to pay off, Todd explains that it’s so much more than just making coffee. “As a mom and pop shop…it’s exhausting because you love coffee and you love flowers, but a lot of what you do is not coffee and flowers. You do accounting, you do a lot of dishes, you do a lot of cleaning and you do a lot of marketing. You do a lot of just getting yourself out there.”

The couple is beginning to see the results of their labor of love. With great local musicians such as Ron Sanchez and Kate LeRoux playing on a regular basis and bringing even more talent, Five Leaves is starting to become a destination, rather than a stop off for morning coffee. How fitting that the home Rebekah Verrastro was raised in has now become the place for Todd and Rebekah to raise their business.