Cafe 211 Owner Shares Culture Over Coffee

For Guatemalan native Mauricio Guerrero, the owner of 211 Café in Bentonville, coffee is much more than a beverage.

“I always joke that I think my mother must have given me coffee instead of milk in the bottle as a baby,” said Guerrero, conceding the truth is not far from that, as he doesn’t remember an age when he didn’t drink coffee.

In fact, growing up in Guatemala City, Guerrero had coffee time every day at 5 p.m. His mother would often pull him away from his homework to sit and share a moment with his family, even if he only drank a sip or two.

“Coffee time was when I would hear the history of my family,” said Guerrero, recalling his particular fascination with his grandfather’s stories, which often took place in the “fancy, suit-and-hat” era of the 1950s.

“The moment of coffee, to me, is a moment to talk,” Guerrero said.

That was his philosophy in founding the 211 Café last November.

It was a longtime dream of Guerrero’s, one his wife insisted he follow after he supported her by moving to Bentonville last April. He quit his job at Citibank in Guatemala City for the move, so she could work at the Wal-Mart Stores Inc. home office.

211 Café is a place where Guerrero can showcase a major commodity of his home country by using Guatemalan beans, which he roasts himself.

With a college degree in chemical engineering, Guerrero has a deeper understanding than most of the roasting process. Three hundred chemical reactions take place during the roasting of a coffee bean, he said.

211 Café has one employee, in addition to Guerrero. He plans to keep his staff small for now, only hiring people that share his passion for coffee.

He can be found daily at the café, serving and interacting with customers, explaining the nuances of the different pour-over brewing techniques he uses — a skill he honed last year at Texas Coffee School in Arlington — or telling stories.

“Coffee is an icebreaker,” Guerrero said.

He wants 211 Café to be a place to celebrate all types of culture and art, both from his country and here locally. That’s why he does not charge artists to display and sell their work in his café and encourages musicians of all types to perform.

Music is another passion of his. In fact, the shop’s name was taken from the title of a Johann Sebastian Bach operatic piece, BWV 211, known as “The Coffee Cantata.” Guerrero says the composer wrote it to poke fun at the fact that there was a social revolution around coffee in the 18th century.

211 Café is located at 106 S.W. Second St. and is open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m Monday through Friday, and 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Saturday.