Slayed in Seattle

If you were to walk up to most baristas in your everyday coffee shop and ask them, “Do you know what a Slayer is?” they’d probably scoff and make some off-handed joke about the metal band of days passed. However if you were to travel to some of the higher-end, forward thinking espresso shops in big city settings, you may get a different reaction entirely.

Slayer espresso machines are the brainchild of a Canadian mastermind, Mr. Jason Prefontaine, whom I had the great pleasure of meeting and working alongside for just under a week. The now Seattle based company is growing faster than anyone could imagine, and is tucked away just 10 minutes outside the bustling city streets of downtown Seattle (go figure!). As my partner Ryan and I pulled up to the building to start our preventative maintenance and service training for Slayer, I immediately thought we were in the wrong place. In the most unassuming beige-gray office building, we found one of the hardest working groups of individuals we have ever met. To put this into perspective, it was like driving up to an old boarded up McDonalds building, and finding out they manufacture Ferraris inside. This was truly an incredible experience.

The days that followed were packed with information and hands-on training on every aspect of these custom machines, and it was much more than any of us in the class had expected. Ryan and I were in a small group of 7 coffee entrepreneurs taking the class that week, a group of professionals that I have remained in contact with since. With the amount of overwhelming information we were taking in, it was a relief to have some like-minded people helping us understand and retain the information at hand.

After all was said and done, we all knew we were leaving Seattle with a leg up on the competition we had to face at home, and a completely unique brand to represent. I consider myself an extremely lucky guy to have had this opportunity, using this unique training and equipment every day at Kru Coffee Collective is truly a dream come true, and it sets our staff and product far above the rest without a doubt. Stop in and taste the difference for yourself!