EATS + DRINKS MEET THE MAKER: THE KING OF BEANS
When Peter Izzo ascended to the throne of Cappuccino King he made some important changes. As a result the family business remains a frothy enterprise.
When Peter Izzo ascended to the throne of Cappuccino King he made some important changes. As a result the family business remains a frothy enterprise.
when Vince Izzo moved to Canada in 1968, he quickly found that coffee in Calgary wasn’t quite what he’d been used to back home in Italy. “There wasn’t any good espresso,” says his son Peter Izzo. “It was just dirty coffee, dirty water, things that Dad didn’t really appreciate.”
Vince set about changing that. He tracked down fellow Italian immigrants in Toronto who were bringing in good beans, and then he set about importing espresso equipment from manufacturers in Europe. “It wasn’t really about creating a business,” Peter says. “It was more about bringing in what he wanted for himself and for his friends.”
But news travels fast and over the past 50 years, the business has grown continually. This past December, the first Cappuccino King standalone cafe opened inside the Calgary Co-op in Crowfoot.
The cafe is a big step for Peter, who grew up in the family business but never intended to take it over. When he was still in high school, he worked on various railway projects across the prairies, and he helped to build Calgary’s LRT system, including the Brentwood, University of Calgary and Stephen Avenue stops. “My mom’s family’s side and my dad’s side, they all worked the railroad,” Peter says. “That’s just what we do.”
During the day, Peter would be sitting in the classroom; at night, he’d be repairing cables and laying track. “I’d go to school, come home, do my homework, go to bed, get up at 8:30, have dinner and off I’d go to work,” he recalls. “Every night we’d be fixing something.”
He’d probably still be doing it, if it hadn’t been for his father, who, in the 1990s, gave him an ultimatum. “Dad had decided I had to get into the business, or we’d have to close it,” Peter says. The younger Izzo assumed the man- tle with one proviso: he could change the company to suit what he saw as the next generation of coffee drinkers. “We had to reinvent it, to bring it to the next level,” starting with a proper payroll and a real retail location, Peter says.
These days, Cappuccino King distributes and sells some of the world’s top coffee equipment brands, including Elektra, Franke, Jura, Rancilio, as well as Cappuccino King-branded espresso beans. And, of course, there’s now the Calgary Co-op cafe, a white-and-chrome space that of- fers a taste of Italy in the city’s northwest. Stop by in the morning, and you’ll see a steady line of coffee lovers looking for their morning lattes or espresso shots.
Despite its success, Peter admits with a laugh that he still isn’t crazy about how many of us North Americans drink our coffee. “They get this 20-ounce latte and they keep it with them all day,” he says. He, on the other hand, takes more of an Italian approach to his caffeine consumption, which centres on espresso, enjoyed quickly and frequently throughout the day. “I probably drink a dozen. That’s it,” he says. “I’m not one of these guys who can drink it all day.”
But get this guy talking about coffee, and he can do it for hours. “I am one of the luckiest individuals on the planet,” he says. “I go to my job every day and I just love what I do.”