SPARTAN SPOTLIGHT
“We want to inspire people of color to open businesses — to dream big.”
— Oladapo "Dap" Ashaolu
Finding Nirvana
By Julia Halprin Jackson
In fall 2008, Oladapo “Dap” Ashaolu, ’05 Management, then a registered financial advisor with a brokerage firm in downtown San José, watched CNN in shock as the economy crashed in real time.
Within weeks, Ashaolu’s firm had been acquired, then acquired again. He pivoted quickly, applying his skills in sales, business and finance to technical recruiting, financial advising and the management of professional athletes. Though it was challenging to navigate the Great Recession, Ashaolu thrived, thanks to his entrepreneurial spirit, which he discovered at San José State. What kept him going? A desire to serve.
“It’s pretty hard to be an entrepreneur if you don’t really care about the customers and the people you serve,” Ashaolu says. “No matter what business you’re in, you’re serving customers or vendors or clients. I want to help people to feel better off after working with me.”
A decade into his career in finance, Ashaolu is now serving a new product — coffee. In 2019, he partnered with his wife Be’Anka Ashaolu and her sister Jeronica Macey to seek retail space to open their own business. They scouted locations in their hometown of San José and closed escrow on the former Caffé Frascati on South First Street in June 2020 — three months into the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Jeronica has been in coffee for almost 20 years, and she’s always had the dream to start a coffee shop,” he says. The shop, which they named Nirvana Soul, is the sisters’ brainchild, while he serves as chief financial officer and head of product.
“Be’Anka is vice president of marketing at a tech company, and I had always wanted to open a restaurant. We figured that opening a business is hard no matter what. If we can get through the pandemic, we can overcome any challenge.”
Dap Ashaolu, ’05 Management, chief financial officer and head of product at Nirvana Soul coffee shop, sits with co-founders Jeronica Macey and Be’Anka Ashaolu. Photo: Robert C. Bain
Creating a joyful space
For the family of entrepreneurs, their coffee is not simply a drink. It is a viable, thriving business spearheaded by women of color. They envisioned Nirvana Soul as an inclusive, welcoming space that celebrates Black joy.
This became even more important to highlight following the murder of Minneapolis resident George Floyd in May 2020. In the weeks after his death, as San Joseans demonstrated in support of Black Lives Matter around the corner from Nirvana Soul, the Ashalous and Macey began renovating the coffee shop.
“We want to inspire people of color to open businesses — to dream big,” Ashaolu says. “When the George Floyd incident happened, it made our goal even more necessary. It made us even more vocal. We want Nirvana Soul to be very authentic. We do not want to dim our light for any reason. We wanted to showcase the fact that we are a Black women-owned business.”
“We were very transparent about our business process because we wanted to show that we could push through, despite all the hurdles. Often, the story of African Americans and Black people is about struggle, and we want to be rooted in joy and possibility. We want to offer an alternative story.”
Their story includes growing their business vertically, even in the height of the pandemic. Before their shop opened, Ashaolu and the sisters began selling Nirvana Soul coffee beans through an online store. This offered them an opportunity to generate revenue, familiarize customers with their brand and generate excitement for their grand opening in the heart of downtown San José’s South First Area (SoFA) district.
Their efforts paid off. On Sept. 26, 2020, Nirvana Soul opened its doors to a line of customers down the block, eager to try specialty drinks like the Celebration (house-made cake batter syrup) latte — or to get their hands on the shop’s savory chorizo-and-cheese waffles, one of Ashaolu’s original recipes. Those first few weeks were a blur for the new business owners, who often had to double as baristas to meet customer demand.
Amazed by the outpouring of support, Ashaolu and his team solicited art from their community on social media to adorn the walls of the café. They hired baristas and team members with passions for music and poetry who could emcee events, once COVID-19 protocols allowed it. And Ashaolu, when presented with supply chain challenges, decided to open the Nirvana Soul Roastery to help them expand their brand. By working with their new head roaster to identify and prepare the beans, Ashaolu hopes to introduce the Nirvana Soul community to the nuance of specialty grade coffee.
“Often, the story of African Americans and Black people is about struggle, and we want to be rooted in joy and possibility.”
— Oladapo "Dap" Ashaolu
Jeronica Macey, Dap Ashaolu and Be’Anka Ashaolu enjoy a busy morning at Nirvana Soul. Photo: Robert C. Bain
Brewing the future
One year into business, Nirvana Soul has served 25,000 customers and counting in the shop and cultivated an email newsletter following upwards of 15,000 people. In addition to drinks and waffles, they have sold sweatshirts, hats, tea, artwork and wholesale coffee. They grew from a team of three to 17. They experimented with new flavors, recipes and approaches and shared their progress with their community, both online and in person.
Their pie-in-the-sky goal — or, perhaps, waffle-in-the-sky goal? To expand into multiple locations across the world, starting with a new Cupertino location, which they announced on Instagram in October.
“This past year has been an opportunity to really understand that we are more resilient than we believe,” Ashaolu reflects. “There are all kinds of reasons why we should have failed. But we realized that as long as we keep pushing forward, most of the time things will happen to help keep us going. Our motto, which is painted on our back wall, is ‘we can do hard things.’
“Our opening showed us how much talent and art we have in San José. It’s important to support local businesses because they are what keep San José vibrant and alive and accessible to those who live here. It showed us that if you build it, they will come.”
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Top photo: Robert C. Bain/“Sisters,” a mural by Ricardo Gonzalez
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