Houston's Coffee-Centric Sisters
Greenway Coffee team’s latest venture showcases Indonesian roots
“Behind every successful woman is a substantial amount of coffee,” says American cartoonist Stephanie Piro. When applied to sisters Ecky and Niken Prabanto of Houston’s Greenway Coffee, this quote is definitely on point.
At the end of 2019, Greenway Coffee launched Susu Kopi and Boba located in Politan Row, the new Rice Village food hall. It’s an enjoyable Indonesian take on the traditional American café. For a decade prior to this opening, Niken and Ecky have worked with partner and foremost coffee guy David Buehrer, opening many different ventures and outlets, including Blacksmith, Morningstar, Prelude, Coral Sword and in May 2019 Tropicales.
“In 2009, Greenway Coffee was started in the underground food court at Greenway Plaza office complex as a simple kiosk.” said Ecky. “I had no prior experience in the coffee industry. The business focus on coffee really came from my business partner, David, who was into coffee in a big way.”
The Prabanto sisters’ Houston history began when Ecky moved here from Indonesia in 2006. Niken followed her to the States a few years later, via Seattle. Both sisters graduated from the University of Houston, Ecky with a degree in finance and Niken with a degree in psychology. “In 2009, David was training the previous owner of Greenway Coffee kiosk, but he decided to exit the business and gave us the opportunity to take it over,” said Ecky.
Niken joined Greenway with Ecky and David helping them out when they were starting up Blacksmith and things were really busy. Niken said, “With their growth and project opportunities, they needed some help.”
Since 2009, the team combined a series of high-paced rollouts of coffee-centric yet varied ventures. They also started a coffee business that placed their coffees in many of Houston’s best-loved restaurants, including Paulie’s, Coltivare, One Fifth and State of Grace, to name just a few.
Why has Greenway’s coffee gained this popularity? “Greenway’s coffee is special,” explained State of Grace’s General Manager and Certified Sommelier Matt Crawford. “It has a crisp tartness that I really enjoy. It rides a beautiful balance with richness and great silky texture.”
Ecky admits her initial coffee experience started with “Starbucks-style coffee” with all kinds of syrups and flavors. She was not yet focused on what is known in the industry as “specialty coffee”—a term for the highest grade of coffee available. To qualify, it has to meet specific requirements that include traceability and evaluation along the supply chain from farmer/estate through processing and roasting, and service to the consumer using single-origin or single-estate coffee (see sidebar).
According to Ecky, “I was originally a tea drinker, but once in the business with David, I traveled around and looked at other coffee shops where I experienced specialty coffee. I learned what specialty coffee was, all the steps that it requires and how good it tastes. That’s when I really fell in love with coffee.”
That was also when Ecky started roasting coffees. Her mentor was New York–based barista Ed Kauffman, then roasting at Stumptown. “I got to watch him roast,” she said. “I started self-taught, but watching Ed was my first real roasting experience. I had so many questions on the process and techniques. In many ways, I found it like baking.”
Now, many batches later, Ecky has learned that every region has a particular way of roasting to bring the best out of their coffee. Growing elevation is important, as are bean size, density and moisture content. Once she knows these details, she can select the right roasting recipe.
From their 2011 start-up of Blacksmith through their long run of openings around Houston, they needed a break. The team didn’t want to open any new shops for a while. But, Politan Row reached out to them for a concept to fit their new ethnic-inspired Rice Village food hall and wanted an experienced coffee vendor.
At Susu Kopi and Boba, the Prabanto sisters are front-and-center embracing their Indonesian culture featuring susu (milk), Ecky’s roasted kopi (coffee) and boba (tapioca milk tea)—hence the new shop’s name. They also offer soft-serve ice cream in several Asian flavors and one from their childhood, and mine too: Ovaltine. Another not-to-be-missed house specialty is Bajigur (Indonesian coffee) that includes coconut milk, ginger and a stick of cinnamon for swirling.
“Ecky and I always wanted to open our dream place, a boba shop,” Niken said. “We grew up with it. In Houston, we had to drive all the way to Chinatown to get good boba. However, we knew that boba alone wouldn’t pay the rent. When we combined it with coffee, softserve and a food element or two, it all started to make sense. So much for our break. It came together very fast, only four months from concept to opening.”
For the venture at Susu Kopi and Boba, Ecky acknowledged, “Buying specialty coffees like those I wanted from Indonesia can be difficult. Only about 10% of all coffee is rated high enough to qualify as specialty grade. I appreciate the idea of specialty coffee because it is so focused. It tries to treat the farmers and others in the supply chain the proper way. While it can be very technical, we try not to make coffee too complicated. Most people just want a good-tasting cup of coffee.”
It’s true that, in all Greenway Coffee ventures, what they do is coffee. They are known as a coffee company, but their businesses aren’t a chain or a franchise merely replicating the same experience. Each shop brings something else to the table, making each concept unique. At times, however, they surprise customers by weaving in a familiar item from another venture—like doughnuts from Morningstar or a BLT sandwich from Blacksmith—to add a bit of familiarity and comfort. I bumped into David at Blacksmith and mentioned that I noticed this feature about their shops. He quipped, “Nice, you’ve broken our Greenway code.”
Niken and Ecky have learned many of the more subtle aspects of business. “We’ve learned no matter how good of a concept or plan you may have going into a venture, customers will tell you what they really want at that location,” Ecky said. “We’ve learned to listen to them and be willing to make adjustments for what they are looking for. In business, you can’t be stubborn and be successful.”
Niken added, “I’m a dreamer and a people pleaser with an operational perspective, and Ecky is very logical and a problem solver with a financial background. I think that we balance each other out. What seems to make things work is we both realize that our success only comes when we successfully serve the community while keeping an eye on the budget.”
The Greenway team is now working on two new projects. One is Audrey’s, a student-run coffee shop in the Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice University. The other is a collaboration on Malk, a plant-based beverage bar inside Snap Kitchens … and so their story continues.
