Aliyya Swaby Photo
Have you had your coffee this morning? Onyeka Obiocha, co-owner of the “The Happiness Project” coffee shop at 756 Chapel St. with Vishal Patel, has.
So has Shafiq Abdussabur. The two bean-aficianados sat down to seriously talk coffee on Abdussabur’s “Urban Talk Radio” on WNHH.
Abdussabur told Obiocha (pictured) he has been passionate about since he was 4 years old and living with his grandmother. If he woke up early enough, the two of them would share steaming cups of coffee on fine bone china, silver trimming at the edges. That ritual still gets him up every morning to start the first pour.
Seeing families and friends across New Haven practice that ritual was ultimately what pulled Obiocha into running a separate “A Happy Life” retail coffee business with Patel, who roasts the coffee himself in Wallingford; and then opening the Chapel Street shop at the Grove. Obiocha ultimately quit his job to start the shop, which opened at the Grove in May of this year.
“I’ve gained a beautiful respect of the coffee industry after being in it so deeply,” he said. “It’s very interesting, people’s love affair with coffee. I respect it a lot.”
It’s also, he added, the perfect melding of his interests,. The child of entrepreneurial-minded Nigerian immigrants, Obiocha was business-focused from the get-go — but worried that something was missing from his aspirations.
Lucy Gellman Photo
When he was growing up, Obiocha recalled, “my mom had Suzie Orman tapes in the basement. My dad sold little candy machines to barbershops. They were both very entrepreneurial. I always knew I wanted to do stuff in business. But corporate law, Bain & Co. … that’s not where I saw myself. A social enterprise like a happy life takes care of me the business side of me as well as the activism side.”
“Even though we have great coffee, our mission is to build a happier New Haven,” he added.