Story & Lesson Highlights with Cliff Young of Coachella Valley

Cliff Young shared their story and experiences with us recently and you can find our conversation below.

Cliff, so good to connect and we’re excited to share your story and insights with our audience. There’s a ton to learn from your story, but let’s start with a warm up before we get into the heart of the interview. What is a normal day like for you right now?
At about 4 AM, I start the coffee maker and do the chores around the home, which is feed the cat and then I sit on the outside patio for about 15 minutes enjoying my coffee. I then head into work and start up the roaster at about a quarter till five; while roasting I’m able to check emails and make my roasting schedule for when my apprentice arrives. I then can delegate other tasks to my front office employees. I’m usually done roasting by 10 AM, and then we can move onto processing online orders. While my staff is doing that, I’m usually answering emails or following up on some of their marketing plans. I try to be out of my office by noon, and begin heading around the valley stopping by some of the resorts, seeing my Chef friends and customers. Then I’m home by two, unless I have a chamber meeting then I’m home by five. If there is a concert at our local arena, where we operate a kiosk, then I’m home by 9pm.

Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I started my hospitality/food service career at the age of 13 making a $1.35 an hour working the concession stand at a small movie theater in Kansas. I then started as a dishwasher at the truck stop. I eventually started working my way through different restaurants chains as a server and then into management positions. I finally migrated back out to California in 1990 and started working for PepsiCo, managing multiple KFC restaurants in San Diego. While at one of those restaurants, I walked up to a Kaiser hospital and I saw this little coffee stand outside and began talking with the owner. 6 months later, I had my own coffee cart at the Kaiser Permanente in Fontana California. Over the next couple of years, I ended up opening multiple locations at Kaiser Riverside, Anaheim Hills and West LA. I also ended up with my first freestanding store in Redlands, California called Grounds for Enjoyment (GFE). For many years we were voted best local coffee house in the Inland Empire. I made many trips up to the Bay Area and to Seattle to hang out with some of the old-time roasters where I learned right away how to keep my mouth closed and my ears open. Standing next to icons of the industry like Alfred Peet and Michael Sivetz we’re definitely some of the highlights of my early career. In 2004, I started a roasting company in the Inland Empire called Inland Empire Coffee. I roasted for about four years until I started doing a local PBS television show called Out to Eat, which ran on Southern California stations for about six years. In 2017, one of my craft beer friends called me and said Modern Times beer, down in San Diego, was starting a coffee program and they needed a director of coffee; somebody that had traveled to coffee farms and knew coffee from the ground up. I put together a resume and hounded them for two months straight. Finally, I got a generic rejection email and was furious because I suspected they did not hire me just because of my age. Right then is when I decided to start another coffee company, and Coachella Valley Coffee was born. In 2018, our first year of operation was a financial hardship. But I was confident that the Coachella Valley residents would understand what I was about and what I’m doing. It took a couple of years and little by little the business picked up. I started roasting on a 5 pound fluid bed air roaster. Now we are getting ready to install our newest air roaster which will produce 120 pounds per hour, uses half the energy, and all while reducing our smoke emissions by 90%. For the first three years of operation, I was a one man show. Now I have a very good team of ten working with me, all of them are people that understand coffee and are absolutely just as passionate about the product as I am.

Thanks for sharing that. Would love to go back in time and hear about how your past might have impacted who you are today. What did you believe about yourself as a child that you no longer believe?
As a child, I was physically and mentally abused by my father so I never thought I could be anything because I was always told that I was nothing and I was never going to amount to anything. For years even though I didn’t want to believe it these horrible things that were told to me troubled me for the first 3 decades of my life. I didn’t know how to how to get around it until I went to a life coaching class when I was about 30. I was listening to the coach laugh as he was speaking about being abused as a child. It infuriated me, so I cornered him during a break and I said there is nothing funny about this topic as I had gone through similar abuse in my life. My father would beat me every day when he got home. He would call my name and if I didn’t come, he would search me out and I would get beat even harder. The coach stopped me and asked me a simple question. He asked if “he was still hurting me” and I said “no absolutely not I could kick his ass”. He then proceeded to tell me “Cliff this is always going to be a wall in your life. You have to acknowledge it and walk around that wall”. So that’s how I live my life. I understand if I see or hear something about a child being abused it troubles me and I maybe I even have flashbacks, but I learned how to get around that wall because otherwise it could consume me.

Was there ever a time you almost gave up?
When I first started the company 2018 I was barely making ends meet. At the time I only had a few bills to pay and was living in a simple apartment. Then something that shifted the lives of people around the world including myself occurred, Covid hit. I found myself not being able to pay any bills, and had to move into an extra storeroom in my warehouse. At the time I remember calling my friend Lisa, who is my coffee broker, and crying to her on the phone saying this isn’t what it’s supposed to be like when I’m 59 years old. About two months later, I started getting phone calls from a company that was taking over all of the food service at our local airport. They asked if I would be interested in roasting the coffee for the coffee house that was planning to reopen. This was an immediate blessing and huge opportunity for my business. We now roast coffee for airports all over the country, and have a branded Coachella Valley Coffee location at the Palm Springs airport with a 10 year contract. I think the moral to this story is don’t give up because if you do they win, don’t let them win.

Alright, so if you are open to it, let’s explore some philosophical questions that touch on your values and worldview. Is the public version of you the real you?
I don’t know if it’s sad or good, but yes. Whether it comes to attending a chamber meeting, conducting a coffee training class, or a dinner with friends. I live my life authentically as myself. I am sometimes sarcastic, quirky, and love cracking jokes even in times when it calls to be more serious. Some people may not understand me and my sense of humor, but I always say that if I can get somebody to laugh then they will have something to remember me for.

Okay, so let’s keep going with one more question that means a lot to us: What is the story you hope people tell about you when you’re gone?
I hope people just tell a story about how I was a dork, funny, passionate about my craft, but also somebody who was absolutely loyal to the people I loved. He loved without question.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://coachellavalleycoffee.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coachellavalleycoffee/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CoachellaValleyCoffee