Stéphanie has been addicted to coffee since her days as a university student in Montreal in the early 2000s. Co-founding Esperanza Café in 2012, an artisanal roasting house based in both Barcelona and the Parisian suburb of Saint-Denis, in 2017 after putting heads together with event veterans Alain Chanavaz and James Debos, the idea to create the first festival in France devoted exclusively to coffee began to arise.
Armed with an infectious energy (and a touch of self-confessed recklessness), they embarked on this somewhat crazy adventure by quickly surrounding herself with an unbeatable team ready to take on the challenge with them. Their guiding principle? Promote speciality coffee and highlight all players in the industry by creating a hybrid event that would appeal to both professionals and the general public equally.
After a lot of work – and countless coffees – the CAFÉ! Festival & Expo was born two years later. The magic began immediately. Set beneath the magnificent glass windows of the CENTQUATRE-PARIS, a cultural beacon in the east of the city, the event found its audience from its first edition in June 2019 thanks to a festive and eclectic programming imagined by Stéphanie.
Encouraged by this success, Stéphanie and her friends quickly got down to organising a second edtion. They responded favourably to the proposal of Allegra Events, organiser of the London Coffee Festival, to join the adventure for its second edition. The original team is getting stronger, now benefitting from the experience of Allegra and its international network. In 2020, CAFÉ! Festival & Expo will become Le Paris Café Festival.
As for Stéphanie, she hasn’t changed much, and still drinks too much coffee.