Meet Ben Garcia | Entrepreneur & Mad Scientist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Ben Garcia and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Ben, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?

I’ve never really been the best at keeping my feelings to myself. This of course, gave me much varied experience in the work force. Respect means everything, and you give what you get, that goes double for me. So when faced with a pandemic, skyrocketing costs, and a strike in the film industry, I had enough. At the worst possible time, I quit my job as a VFX Coordinator, at one of the busiest post production studios in the world, and decided it was time. I’ve always had ideas, brands, designs, products I have created over the years. Been screwed over by business partners, had ideas stolen, put faith in the wrong people. This time I was going all out on me.

I had to do something that was going to last myself and my family for years to come. I am building generational wealth, something I do not come from.

I started The Drippy Bean as a homage to the things I value. Tradition, quality, uniqueness, family. I’ve been making espresso for myself since I was 15. That was the year I got my first espresso machine. Nothing fancy, bare bones K-Mart quality. The love never stopped. Over the past 25 years I have worked every level of the service industry, and spent the last 7, prior to my retreat, working in the film industry. It was time to go back to my roots, and share with the world my ideas and bring them something truly special. There is no doubt, The Drippy Bean, will blow your mind.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?

I started working in the back of a hotel restaurant when I was 12. I would wash dishes and bus tables. My mother of course was the F&B Manager, so I wasn’t really “working”, but I was working, my mom didn’t mess around. From there, assistant manager at Cold Stone at 17, while working the night shift and the mall movie theater and the list goes on. I had a quick wit and a smart mouth, these combinations did not serve me well in the classroom, or when spoken to by authority. From 19 until I was 32 or so I worked in restaurants, bars and nightclubs. I moved from California to Arizona to California to Finland to California to Oregon to California to Arizona to California… In between those last two, got married and had a couple kids. Quit bartending, and started working in the film industry, in post production. All of this travel and experience gave me incredible insight into the human lived experience. I am a chameleon, I have learned to empathize and understand all points of perspective with an open mind and listening ear. I have taken all of this, combined it with my un dying love of a good facking cup of coffee, and bring to the world, The Drippy Bean.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?

Being rather new to Georgia myself, I always love when I get a chance to show people around because I discover things too. But if we kept it close to home, I would take them to the places I have found and enjoy. Fridays in Duluth is always great in the summer. Simply Done Donuts, is always a win there, and their coffee ain’t to bad either. While we are there in Duluth, might as well hit Maple Street Biscuit Company, cause ya gotta have biscuits. Lets be honest, I eat, that’s what I do when I go out of town, that’s what I do when people come visit. We would for sure be going down to Little 5 Points to hit the shops down there. Ponce all day. Walk the Beltline to the park from Ponce. If timing is right Atlanta Jazz Fest is incredible to experience. Sushi on Pleasant Hill, heck all the good Asian markets and restaurants on Pleasant. Three Blind Mice in Lilburn for a nice lunch and great wines. If they are West Coasters and don’t know, we hit the Waffle House. We could shoot up north to Helen for a day, hike waterfalls, eat bratwursts. Then of course the classics, World of CocaCola, Stone Mountain you know the gist.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?

I want to give all my love to my family. They truly supported and still support this insanity I drove everyone of us into. My mother and father, flying all the way from California over and over to give me some back up with the kids so I could focus on our goal. My wife for her endless words of encouragement, even when I was ready to give it all up when faced with constant obstacles and hardships, that just seemed to keep pushing us back. Even after the first coffee trailer I purchased, was completely destroyed, insurance stiffed me, lawyers gave me no help because I couldn’t afford them, that was it, that was everything, I had no money left, all the equipment and no where to use it. They all picked me up, dusted me off and told me to keep pushing, that my dream was worth it. And it is. Family is everything to me, and all of this is for them in the end.

Website: www.thedrippybean.net

Instagram: @the_drippybean

Image Credits
all photos and artwork is owned and created by me.