Alum brewing up success

Stevie Hasemeyer (’10) and four business partners opened the first Arcade coffee shop in Riverside in 2017. The second location opened in 2021, and the next one in 2022. Then they bought Backstreet, a popular Riverside cafe, in 2023.

All that work culminated with the Greater Riverside Chambers of Commerce naming Hasemeyer, the majority owner, Entrepreneur of the Year for 2023.

“It was overwhelming. I was not expecting it at all,” Hasemeyer said. “It was really cool to be affirmed by my peers and people to say what we’re doing is meaningful. For a long time, I thought it was just my parents and my friends supporting us, and so to have that outside affirmation was really cool.”

But being a business owner was not Hasemeyer’s plan when he attended California Baptist University. He planned on being a missionary. He started as a pre-nursing major and then changed to Christian studies.

After college, he lived in China for three months, spending time with missionaries to see what the future could look like. While there, he met some missionaries who roasted coffee for their visas. When he returned to the States, he learned more about coffee and started roasting beans. He and his wife, Ashley, still wanted to be missionaries, but life, including a baby, happened. Meanwhile, the coffee hobby grew into something bigger.

A friend explained to them that even if they stay in the States, they can be a “rope holder” — providing financial support to missionaries.

“That for us was very impactful — we got to be a part of mission work and still build the business here,” Hasemeyer said.

He also came to another realization.

“For a long time, I thought the mission field had to do with going. It took me a couple of years, but I started to realize that the mission field actually is here,” Hasemeyer said.

That led to his desire to support Riverside, his hometown, and going from roasting coffee to having a café. Arcade still roasts its own coffee, which comes from all over the world.

“We had more of a heart for our city and wanting to get young people and people with all these talents to stay in the city,” Hasemeyer said. “I wanted to create a place where people felt like they belong to this community.”

Arcade’s purpose statement is “to enrich lives by inspiring others to create shared moments, relationship and a sense of belonging for all.”

“That is why we’re doing it. Coffee is not the end of this for us, food is not the end of this,” Hasemeyer said. “It’s creating a meaningful place where people feel like they belong. I love it when people don’t know each other, and they meet in line or sitting next to each other in the cafe and they strike up a conversation and then they become friends.”

He also feels that his purpose is to inspire others, especially the young adults on the staff. He seeks to show Christ’s example by living out what he believes, treating people fairly and praying for opportunities to be able to share Christ.

“I love getting to meet the young people and challenge and encourage them and do the stuff that my business partners and my mentors have done for me, getting to help them and inspire them to become the best version of themselves,” Hasemeyer said.

Hasemeyer does not have a specific plan for the company; he just wants to take one faithful step at a time. He and a partner have sons about the same age. They are hoping their sons will run the business together when they’re older.

“I don’t know if there would be anything more fun than getting to watch them enjoy the fruit of our labor and the years of work that we’ve put in and getting to labor alongside each other,” he said.

QUICK TAKES FROM STEVIE

ADVICE FOR ENTREPRENEURS: Start right away. Get your product out to market to find out if people like it or not. Don’t be afraid of failure. You’ve got to learn from your mistakes.

BEST ADVICE RECEIVED: Don’t do this alone. I have great business partners. I have an incredible wife. I have an incredible team. I have a support group because it is a very difficult journey, and the world beats you up a lot.

FAVORITE COFFEE DRINK: Gibraltar

FAVORITE AFTERNOON DRINK: Iced Airecano (on the secret menu)