Smithfield • Saul Mejia and Jennifer Espinoza love three things — their family, their community, and coffee.
At Qué Chilero Café in Smithfield, the couple combines them, sharing pieces of Guatemalan culture through a small drive-thru window.
“All the coffee that I sell here is exported from Guatemala,” Mejia said. “We have met with the farmers. We have met with the sellers. We have met with the roaster.”
Mejia said their customers are becoming regulars, and his regulars are becoming friends as they enjoy specialty lattes, cappuccinos, and other caffeinated concoctions — alongside soda mixtures and Guatemalan pastries.
“There’s not a lot of coffee places here in Smithfield. A lot of people have been loving it,” Espinoza said. “We just wanted to show a little bit of Guatemala in our drinks.”
The couple started sharing their country’s culinary culture by selling food and coffee from their home in Logan.
After Mejia — who also owns a construction business — learned that the Smithfield roadside drive-thru at 965 S. Main St. was for rent, the couple jumped at the opportunity to move their small operation out of their home kitchen and into something they hope they can further expand.
“The coffee was selling so good from home that we thought, ‘Hey … why don’t we create a business,’” Mejia said.
They opened their doors — or drive-thru window — on March 14.
Though Espinoza said she had to stop selling food because the shop doesn’t currently have room, she hopes to one day expand enough to bring back the dishes she said people grew to love.
“It was pretty heartbreaking,” she said, “because people were like, ‘But we’re going to miss your food.”
But for now, the couple is leveraging the popularity they gained through selling food to help grow Qué Chilero — Spanish for “how cool” — and bring a splash of Guatemala to Cache Valley.
“I drink coffee all my life, because my little town in Esquipulas, most of the money coming for the people, it’s from farms — coffee farms,” Mejia said. “So you spend the whole year trying to take care of these farms.”
Normally, Espinoza added, everyone in Guatemala will have some coffee each afternoon.
“When we were kids, with my brothers, my mom didn’t have money to buy milk,” Mejia said. “So instead, she gave us some coffee.”
Espinoza and Mejia met in Guatemala 12 years ago, though Espinoza’s parents had moved to the United States before she was born. She was visiting the country when Mejia saw her at a dance and asked her to join him.
“He tells me his dad’s name, and I was like, ‘He just took pictures for my quinceañera,’” Espinoza said. “Turns out, our parents have known each other since they were kids.”
Years later, after Mejia moved to the United States, he found Espinoza.
Now with a 10-year-old son and 7-year-old daughter, the couple is hoping to help families spend time with each other.
They want to expand to a building where customers can hang out, but for now, they put chairs on the drive-thru building’s small lawn, and plan to add games so people can hang around rather than just collecting their drinks and leaving.
“My kids are phone kids, tablet kids,” Espinoza said. “We’re trying to change that, so we’re trying to do something to help other families as well.”
Mejia added that he also looks forward to connecting with more people through Guatemalan coffee.
“I love serving you,” he said. “Qué Chilero, to me, is not just, ‘Oh, let me call you by your drink, let me call you by the car you drive.’ Instead, I will call you by your name, and I will remember what you drink, and we’re going to have a conversation.”