If you care where your coffee comes from, there’s a glossary’s worth of terminology you can look for to suss out a bean’s origins: fair-trade, direct-trade, single-origin, shade-grown, organic, monsooned. At La Finca Coffee Co. in St. Francis, you can add another: grandfathered. 

Since opening their cafe  at 3558 E. Sivyer Ave. in 2017, sisters Lizeth and Janeth Zorilla have sourced their coffee beans from their grandfather Horacio’s farm in Oaxaca, southern Mexico. To appreciate the full story of this family affair, though, you have to go back a ways. 

Lizeth and Janeth’s parents brought them to the United States when they were children, and they grew up undocumented. They were able to remain and work in the U.S. through the 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy. In 2016, through DACA, they had the chance to visit Mexico again and meet many of their family members for the first time.

This included their grandfather, who gave them some of his coffee beans to take home. Lizeth wasn’t a coffee drinker, but back in Milwaukee she began learning how to brew. At the same time, the sisters were toying with the idea of starting a business together.

“I had this little balcony in my apartment,” Lizeth recalls. “I invited Janeth over, made her a Oaxacan pour-over, and was like, ‘Now imagine this by the lakefront.’ She seemed interested.” 

Janeth remembers it slightly differently: “No! I laughed because someone who doesn’t even like the taste of coffee was suddenly saying, ‘Hey, let’s start a coffee shop.’” 

Eventually, big sis’ vision won out, and the two created a space that reflects their heritage. Drinks are accented with Mexican favorites like tres leches and Abuelita brand hot chocolate, and the sisters’ mom’s recipes have found their way onto the menu. There’s even the Lake Michigan view Lizeth dreamed of.

“This really is a representation of how we see our culture and how we’re trying to share it with the rest of the community,” 

— Janeth Zorilla 

The complications of growing up in a family with uncertain legal status – one where its crops but not always its people could cross borders – has inspired the sisters to ensure that La Finca isn’t just a place to grab coffee. They’ve also made it into a thriving community space that hosts maker pop-ups and story sessions for kids.

A portion of sales from La Finca’s monthly specials go to charitable organizations that support DACA recipients, incarcerated mothers and other groups in need. Soon the sisters hope to bring these efforts, and their grandfather’s coffee, to a second cafe, as plans to open a West Allis location in the fall are currently in the works. 

Despite brewing with her grandfather’s beans from the start, it was only after the cafe had been open for two years that Lizeth was finally able to visit the place where he grew them.

“It was like being among the clouds,” she recalls of the farm, which is high up in the mountains. The sisters’ dad was undocumented at the time and had been unable to return to Mexico since emigrating, but as Lizeth walked around the farm, she put him on a video call. “He’s explaining his usual routes,” she says, “and everything is still where it was from when he was a kid.”