Blind Tiger Coffee Roasters welcomed Fox 13 Tampa Bay on July 5th at its Ybor City location. The Chamber Member shared his entrepreneur story with the always-curious Charley Belcher. A native of Panama, owner Roberto Torres, arrived in the U.S. as a college student. "I went to Florida State University. Go Noles!" said Torres on live tv. Majoring in accounting and working as an auditor for 8 years, Torres was smitten with the entrepreneur bug and pivoted his career to open his own businesses - in merchandise, not accounting! He started designing apparel and later added his other favorite thing - coffee! "So you come up with this marketing idea - an apparel company. Then you think, maybe a good way to sell shirts is to add coffee?" asked Belcher. Torres nods with a broad smile. "Come in for a great cup of coffee and while you're here buy a couple of shirts!" said Belcher, setting the scene for what happened at this the first of 7 Blind Tiger coffee shops. To the delight of Torres and coffee customers that early morning of July 5th, the broadcaster topped it off by saying "Turns out you made your coffee pretty good!"
Blind Tiger Coffee Roasters is part of the Chamber's Minority Empowerment Program this year and will reach it's ten year milestone in November 2024. Since joining the Chamber, this MEP entrepreneur has opened locations across the Tampa Bay area, most recently at One City Center in Downtown Tampa and St. Joseph's Womens Hospital in West Tampa. He's not stopping at seven locations either. In addition, Torres has launched his own brand of coffee including its Tigre Ciego and Tigre Cego, which, respectively, mean Blind Tiger in Spanish and Portuguese.