David Schomer is a co-founder of Espresso Vivace. Schomer became known within the coffee industry for his innovations, such as how he customizes his grinders and espresso machines to achieve a more constant water temperature, which ultimately leads to a quality cup of coffee. The Seattle Times said "Schomer is as influential in the gourmet coffeeworld as Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz is in the mainstream coffee industry." His methods have influenced latte making at Portland's Stumptown Coffee Roasters, New York'sNinth Street Espresso, and Los Angeles' Intelligentsia Coffee & Tea. Ninth Street's Kenneth Nye said Schomer's work developing his techniques, "was light-years ahead of the conversation at the time". Schomer thought that when he opened Vivace in 1988, he had "missed the peak" of the espresso explosion, when in fact his scientific exploration of extraction methods was not happening elsewhere. Besides training hundreds of baristas who went on to influence coffee shops across the country, Schomer self published a book on espresso techniques in 1994, while also writing columns for Café Ole magazine in the 1990s. Mark Pendergrast said that Schomer inherited the title of "world's most passionate espresso engineer" upon the death of Italian food chemistErnesto Illy in 2008. Schomer's 1996 Espresso Coffee: Professional Techniques has been described as "the industry bible". Schomer is a United States Air Force veteran, having joined in 1974, and received a BFA in Classical Flute Performance from Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle.
Espresso Vivace
Schomer credits Espresso Vivace's survival in a competitive market to his own "absolute fidelity" to the goal of "making a better cup", together with the sound fiscal and operations management of his business partner and former spouse, Geneva Sullivan. Espresso Vivaces's first incarnation was a coffee cart, at 5th and Union, serving mainly financial industry workers, whom Schomer says did not consistently frequent the same cafes or pay close attention to quality.
