Stephanie Vasquez opened Fair Trade Café at Roosevelt and Central Avenue in downtown Phoenix in 2007, building a coffee shop around ethically sourced beans and a mission that would eventually grow into a network supporting more than a thousand Latina-owned businesses across the Valley. The idea took root years earlier, after a trip to Costa Rica changed how she thought about her morning cup of coffee.
According to azfamily.com, Vasquez grew up in Maryvale, attended Arizona State University and worked as a middle school teacher in the West Valley. During a vacation to Costa Rica, she visited a coffee plantation and learned how tough the industry can be on the workers who grow the beans and on the environment that sustains them, the outlet reports. It was a jarring realization for someone the same report describes as a fairly ordinary coffee drinker up to that point, one whose daily habit before the trip included routinely doctoring her latte with vanilla.
From the Classroom to Roosevelt and Central
That shift in perspective led Vasquez to open Fair Trade Café in downtown Phoenix in 2007, according to dtphx.org. The café says all of its coffee and teas are sustainably sourced, Fair Trade certified and shade grown, and it has become known as a gathering place where business owners and community organizations meet for events, per the same account. The café has also served as a gathering place for business owners and community organizations.
Vasquez has described feeling compelled to address a problem in the coffee industry: the exploitation of people and the environment. Later, she moved beyond running a single café and built organizations meant to help other Latina business owners avoid the same struggles she faced getting her own venture off the ground.
Building E.L.L.A. and Amor Collective
Vasquez founded E.L.L.A., a nonprofit established in 2018 with the mission of advancing Latina entrepreneurship and leadership, according to a release cited by prnewswire.com. As of 2025, the organization has supported more than 1,100 businesses and generated more than $1 million in economic impact, the release states. E.L.L.A. is also the nonprofit behind Amor Collective and Mujeres Mercado, according to yourvalley.net.
To help lift up small-business owners, Vasquez opened Amor Collective in August 2023, featuring Latina business owners, per the same azfamily.com report. The program provides a space exclusively for Latina entrepreneurs to grow, according to yourvalley.net's coverage, with monthly meetings where business owners analyze the past month's performance, share struggles and wins, access resources and connect with a community partner. The 2024 cohort of 37 Latina-owned businesses met for its first monthly session on Aug. 29, the outlet reports, and Amor Collective hosted OneAZ Credit Union as its first community partner to offer financial expertise and resources.
Fewer Than 1% Reach $1 Million
The stakes behind that support network are steep. Vasquez told peoriatimes.com, “it's still less than 1% of us that ever reach a million dollars in revenue,” describing the scale of the gap facing Latina entrepreneurs even after they get a business off the ground.
The broader push extends into Mujeres Mercado, another initiative connected to Vasquez's nonprofit work. The marketplace is described as the largest outdoor Latina marketplace in Arizona, according to venturecafephoenix.org. More than 10 businesses that started as pop-up vendors through the program have since become brick-and-mortar operations, the same source notes.
Nearly two decades after she first opened her café's doors, Vasquez has built something that stretches well beyond a coffee counter — a coffee shop, a credential-heavy nonprofit and a marketplace, all rooted in the same conviction that sent her home from Costa Rica determined to do things differently.
