Serving People Serving Coffee Since 2005
Issue link: http://baristamagazine.epubxp.com/i/659497
anything. But no one would give me a job." He recalls clearly the first time he went to David Schomer's Espresso Vivace. "I was blown away by the milk texture, how smooth the coffee tasted in context. I'd never had a drink like that. I was really blown away," he says. Prior to that experience, "I didn't think there was anything to know about coffee." He started exploring more of the city's famed coffee shops. On a whim, he gave one of his 1,000 printed-out resumés to Victrola Coffee, then an up-and-coming third-wave shop, but he didn't expect anything to come of it. "I was so intimidated," he says. "The staff was so good-looking!" Kyle was shocked when Victrola called inviting him to interview. "I went into the coolest place and I got a call back!" he says. Just like that, he had a job—but not as a barista. As he would learn, it took training—a lot of training—for that. He worked as a bar back and cleaner at Victrola, all the while begging to train on bar. When the opportunity came, he says, "I took to it right way. I liked the customers and I liked the way they liked me." After a few years at Victrola, he and his coworker Tony Konecny, or Tonx, were hired away by Intelligentsia to help launch the Chicago-based company's Los Angeles operations. While there, Kyle became interested in competitions, and in a remarkably short time, he went from novice competitor to national champion. He competed in the World Barista Championship (WBC) in 2008 in Copenhagen, and placed an admirable seventh. Like Kyle, Charles rose to fame in the coffee world in part because of his notable barista-competition success. In regionals and at the USBC, he would always place high, but for years, the title he sought—USBC Champ—was always just out of reach. When he finally won the honor in 2015, he took it and ran with it, placing second on the international WBC arena. On stage, as in real life, Charles is at once friendly and knowledgeable, entertaining and skillful, so naturally so that you'd think he'd always had such command over an audience. He'll be the first to tell you though, that wasn't always the case. Feeling unchallenged and bored by high school in Colorado Springs, Colo., Charles dropped out. Like so many dis- illusioned and intelligent kids looking for adventure, he headed for New York. "I wasn't a shy teenager," he recalls, "but I did basic things like talking really low and not making eye contact. I had no custom- er-service skills. I was a particular brand of doofus that most people would have referred to as a terminal case." While working at a Manhattan cof- fee shop in the early 2000s, Charles was drawn to the things he now loves most about interacting with patrons and ensuring them a good café experience. "You get strength behind the bar," he says. "Customer service is the thing that matters to me. It's the connection to the customers." In New York, he became more and more interested in coffee, and would spend his days off at veteran third-wave spots like Ninth Street Espresso in his quest for the best the city had to offer. After a few years, he moved to Chicago, where, based on a tip from one of his customers in New York, he landed a job at Intelligentsia. Like Kyle did when he started working for Intelli L.A., Charles found a supportive environment for his 80 barista magazine