Laura Flores's father has been growing coffee in El Salvador for most of his life. He started in the business in his 20s, worked and went to school, and by his 50s had saved enough to buy his own farm. That farm — about 20 manzana, roughly 35 acres on the east side of El Salvador — is now 30 years old and still producing. Laura grew up knowing that coffee, and the tradition it represented, was something worth carrying forward.
What she didn't expect was that carrying it forward would lead to a coffee roastery. Or a café. When Laura and her husband retired from law enforcement — she after 10 years, he after 32 years with the sheriff's office — they wanted to do something different. Something they were both passionate about. The plan, at first, was simple: import green coffee from her father's farm, roast it, and sell it. Small. From home. Nothing complicated.
The café came later — and, characteristically, it came because of paperwork. The permits they needed to roast commercially required a commercial food establishment. So they found a space near the Frost Bank Center on the east side of San Antonio and built one. Flor de Cafe opened in November 2024, about eight months after they started the business on paper.
Coffee from the source
Flor de Cafe serves two coffees, both from El Salvador. The first is Cuscaleco, the variety Laura's father grows on his farm. The second is Pacamara, sourced from the same region. Both come in medium roast, which Laura settled on early as the best fit for her café drinks — and which her customers have responded to clearly.
When people taste the coffee from El Salvador, they always say that it tastes different, that it tastes clean and fresh.
“People really want to know that the beans that they're getting are roasted fresh.”
Laura Flores, Flor de Cafe
That freshness isn't incidental. Laura roasts in-house, right in the café. The Bellwether Shop Roaster sits where customers can see it, and they notice it. "They think it's really cool, just the way that it looks. But they also like that it's fresh. People really want to know that the beans that they're getting are roasted fresh." The El Salvador coffees she works with carry chocolate and vanilla notes that come through during the roast as a sweet, baked aroma — the kind that adds something to the café's atmosphere rather than demanding anyone open a window.
Why a traditional roaster was never an option
Neither Laura nor her husband came to this with coffee industry experience. Law enforcement was their world for decades — not roasteries, not café operations, not green coffee supply chains. When they started looking at how to roast, they needed something that worked without any of that background. A gas roaster requiring venting, ductwork, and complex installation was out of the question. It wouldn't have worked in the café space. It wouldn't have worked at home, where they started.
“All you gotta do is plug it in.”
Laura Flores, Flor de Cafe
The Bellwether checked every box they needed it to: electric, no gas lines, no complicated buildout. Single-phase 240V, 30-amp circuit — a standard commercial electrical connection.
All you gotta do is plug it in.
That simplicity wasn't just a convenience; it was what made the whole business model possible. Without it, roasting from home in those early months wouldn't have happened. And without those early months of home roasting and weekend pop-up markets, the path to a café might not have been clear enough to take.
From eight months of groundwork to opening day
The timeline from idea to open doors was longer than Laura anticipated — and more iterative than most people realize when they picture starting a coffee shop. In March 2024, she and her husband formed their LLC and started the formal business. A few months later, they ordered the Bellwether — a four-to-five month delivery window. While they waited, they started importing pre-roasted coffee from El Salvador and began testing the market through weekend pop-up events.
By summer, the business had outgrown the house. Bags, packaging, inventory — it was all piling up. They started looking for a commercial space in June or July, signed on a location around August, and spent the next few months navigating the city's permit process. Electrical work alone requires finding a licensed electrician, filing a permit with the city, completing the work, and then passing inspection. That process took roughly two months. The café had its grand opening in November 2024.
"I didn't expect it to be so many permits," Laura said. It's the most consistent advice she gives to anyone thinking about opening: budget more time than you expect for the city requirements, and start those conversations early. The steps aren't impossible — they're just more numerous and slower than the business planning stage makes them look.
Learning to roast without a roasting background
Laura took classes and trained on traditional roasting machines before getting the Bellwether. She describes the experience honestly: monitoring temperature, watching the beans' appearance, tracking smell, adjusting manually throughout. "It's a little bit intimidating because I didn't really have any experience or knowledge roasting." The traditional process requires attention and expertise that doesn't come from a few classes.
“The coffee beans come out perfect.”
Laura Flores, Flor de Cafe
The Bellwether gave her a different experience entirely. The machine comes with preloaded profiles — light, medium, dark, espresso — and for both the Cuscaleco and Pacamara she works with, the results have been exactly what she needed without modification. She selects medium, confirms the dates, waits about 20 minutes for preheat, and lets the machine run. "I haven't had the need to make any type of adjustments," she said. "The coffee beans come out perfect." She plans to experiment with custom profiles over time, but the defaults gave her a strong foundation from day one.
Laura also manages the roastery entirely on her own. Her husband, who still works full-time Monday through Friday, isn't there during the week. Every roast, every maintenance step, every cleaning — she handles it herself. When asked during the webinar whether someone with no mechanical background could manage the machine, her answer was immediate: "Absolutely, yes." And then she went further:
“I don't have to rely on anybody else.”
Laura Flores, Flor de Cafe
It's actually really cool to be able to do it yourself. You learn something and then you feel good about yourself that you're able to do it. I don't have to rely on anybody else.
Maintenance that stays in the background
After every two or three roasts, the machine prompts a quick cleaning. Laura's routine: empty the water from the shaft, pull out the two filters and vacuum them with a shop vac, and wipe down as needed. Once a week or every two weeks, she removes the glass — the El Salvador beans produce oils that build up on it — and cleans the inside. The glass comes off with an Allen wrench. "When I first saw it, I was a little bit scared because I thought I was gonna have to take the whole thing apart," she said. "But it's actually very, very easy."
The longer-term maintenance item — replacing the carbon and HEPA filters — happens every 600 to 1,000 roasts depending on roast style. Laura hasn't reached that point yet, but it's the kind of infrequent, clearly signaled task that fits the rest of the machine's maintenance philosophy: simple steps, prompted by the machine itself, manageable without specialized knowledge.
Three months in, and building
At the time of the webinar, Flor de Cafe had been open for about three months. The roaster is visible in the shop. A barista works the espresso bar. The space has the kind of personal detail — a guitar on the wall — that tells you someone thought carefully about what kind of place this would be. Laura sells coffee in the café and online, with bags that she designed with a friend and prints through VistaPrint.
After roasting, she lets beans rest in containers with loosely fitted lids for a couple of days before transferring them to retail bags equipped with one-way degassing valves. The whole workflow — roasting, resting, packaging, selling — runs out of the same space where customers sit and drink coffee.
Her advice for anyone thinking about starting a coffee business is the same advice she wishes someone had given her: ask questions, have a plan, and lean on people who have already done it. "Everybody in the coffee community is super friendly and always willing to help." She offered her own email for anyone who wants to reach out directly — a generous gesture from someone who is still, by her own description, in the early stages of learning.
Looking ahead, Laura wants to expand the coffee selection beyond El Salvador — staying within Latin American origins, with Colombia already on her radar through a friend who works with coffee from there. For now, the focus stays on what brought her to this in the first place: a farm in El Salvador, a family tradition, and coffee roasted fresh on the same day someone walks through the door.
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