Meet Valeria & Matt Virula & Cortes

We had the good fortune of connecting with Valeria & Matt Virula & Cortes and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Valeria & Matt, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
We’re fortunate enough to have worked together before. We operated a coffee shop together and really loved the way we worked as a team. We thought, why not take this up a notch and build something of our own? During our shifts, we would often bounce drink ideas off each other and slowly started to bring them to life with Lazy Brew. We wanted to build something that allowed us to exercise that creative side of us while also making coffee more approachable. The coffee community can be very niche so one of our top priorities with Lazy Brew is to make it an educational experience as well—for beginners, home brewers, and experienced baristas alike.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
Lazy Brew is a coffee concept centered around pop up activations and hands on workshops. While money might make the world go round, what truly fulfills us are the moments when people connect over our handcrafted drinks or through our classes. That feeling is what keeps us going. Naturally, having worked together in the past, we both knew we had a little fire igniting in us but it wasn’t until we collaborated again that we realized what that fire was for. The creation of Lazy Brew felt effortless and organic in a way. We are go with the flow type of creatives so we’ve also let Lazy Brew grow naturally into whatever it wants to become. We just want to keep showcasing the very thing that gave us passion and purpose. We want people to feel it, connect through it, and experience the same thing that coffee gave us.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Mornings for coffee/breakfast and pastries is so easy…. four, Façade and Tinta y Café always hit the spot. For lunch and drinks, you can’t go wrong with either Flanigan’s or Gramps Getaway; the vibes are always immaculate at both locations and capture true Miami life. Some great spots to check out include The Kampong, Arcade Odyssey, Dale Zine for fun books, PAMM, and of course a good beach day. For Dinner, you can head back to four for dinner service or stop by Tam Tam for the lamb situation and some wine! If something more casual is calling, Fratesi or Miami Slice will definitely do the trick.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
While we believe that the coffee community can be quite niche, there are a few awesome people out there that are breaking those barriers and believed in Lazy Brew when we were just an idea on a piece of paper.

Caroline Bell from Cafe Grumpy. She’s the first person to support us in our journey and helped us share some of our favorite coffee beans at every pop up. We are so grateful for her trust and encouragement.

Joelle from White Rose Coffee, who helped launch our educational program. We really wanted our coffee workshops to feel approachable and affordable and she believed in that vision—making Lazy Brew classes a staple at her cafe.

The team at four heavily inspire us with their creativity. Their drink making process and community building aligns with what we aspire to achieve and it’s so nice to see how far they’ve come.

Oscar Lastra from Façade, he really made us run with the big dogs. He gave us our first big break at his very busy cafe and taught us one of our earliest lessons—to never give up.

Nadia Tahoun from Flowershop Collective, reminded us that Lazy Brew is at it’s core, an artistic process. She helped us see that coffee itself is a form of art—one that should be respected and cared for.

Instagram: @Lazybrewmiami

Other: Lazybrewmia@gmail.com

Image Credits
Antonia Uribe & @danipnzn