Transcript: Luciano Repetto (1944 - )

Preface

The following oral history transcript is the result of interviews with Luciano Repetto on July 10, 2025. The interview was recorded at Graffeo Coffee at 735 Columbus Avenue in San Francisco, California. The interview was conducted and transcribed by John Doxey, manager of the Telegraph Hill Dwellers Oral History Project.

Format

Originally recorded on an Olympus digital voice recorder. Duration is approximately 22 minutes.

Attribution

This interview transcript is property of the Telegraph Hill Dwellers. Quotes, reproductions and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Luciano Repetto, July 10, 2025, Telegraph Hill Dwellers Oral History Project.

Summary

For more than 90 years, Graffeo Coffee has been roasting beans in the same 735 Columbus Avenue storefront, providing a concise menu of blends treasured by coffee lovers throughout the city. At the helm since 1978 is Luciano Repetto, a North Beach native consumed with a passion to produce the world’s finest roasted coffee. To achieve this goal, Graffeo installed a custom-built fluid bed hot air roaster that controls temperature and ensures each bean is roasted evenly for a clean, consistent flavor. This method aims to remove the bitter, burnt flavors that result from prolonged contact with the hot metal drums commonly used to roast coffee beans. Graffeo is also committed to freshness, roasting beans both in the mornings and afternoons Monday through Friday, and selling their full in-store inventory before roasting another batch. Luciano, now 80, doesn’t take vacations and spends his days at either his Columbus Avenue store or its sister location in San Rafael. Graffeo is named after Giovanni Graffeo, a Sicilian immigrant who opened a grocery store in 1935 that also roasted coffee beans. Luciano’s father, Giovanni Repetto, learned the art of coffee roasting in Liguria and bought the Graffeo shop in 1954. Luciano was 10 years old at the time, and began learning the coffee business while helping his father as he grew up. When his father retired in 1978, Luciano left his job as a wine salesman to take over the family business. In 2025, Luciano sold a majority share of Graffeo to Walter A. Haas III. 

The reader should keep in mind that he or she is reading a transcript of spoken, rather than written, prose.

Interview 

JOHN: Alright. So, yes, hi, Luciano Repetto. 

LUCIANO: Repetto, thank you.  

JOHN: And I'm John Doxey with the Telegraph Hill Dwellers Oral History Project. Today is the 10th of July 2025, and we're here at Graffeo, 735 Columbus Avenue. 

LUCIANO: Yes, we are. 

JOHN: Nine a.m., or a few minutes afterwards. OK. So Luciano, I just wanted to ask you, this business, Graffeo, has always been in this location, right? 

LUCIANO: Right, since 1935. 

JOHN: And it was founded by? 

LUCIANO: John Graffeo. 

JOHN: Otherwise known as Giovanni Graffeo? 

LUCIANO: You know, I don't know if he was Giovanni … but it was John. 

JOHN: OK. 

LUCIANO: He was obviously an immigrant from Sicily, from what we understand. We don't have much information on him, even though we've tried very hard to dig something up. The best we can figure out [is] that he came to America, landed originally in the New York area, stayed there for awhile and then worked his way, one way or the other, here to San Francisco, where he took over this location. Which again, from the best knowledge that I've been able to dig up, it was, the location was, a sweet shop where they sold ice cream and other things. And he took it over. They did roast coffee, and he made it into a more coffee-oriented store. I believe he also sold a little bit of other things, like sugar. This is pre-war, too, you know. Sugar, olive oil, things like that. And he roasted coffee. It was definitely a very ethnic thing for the North Beach area, which was at that time probably 100 percent Italian. And they would have been the only ones that would have been interested in coffee at that, you know, pre-war… 

JOHN: Do you think he brought over some knowledge from Italy of how to roast? 

LUCIANO: You know, he must have. Because the roasters were here, and he used them. And I know that pre-war, this is right after the Depression, he lived in the back of the store. Of course, that was very common in those days. You're talking about very difficult, challenging times. And he lived back of the store, and he struggled for a long time. You know, everyone struggled in those days. And I think with the onset of the war, for some reason, he got a bit busier. Why, I'll never know, but he still lived in back of the store. I do know that in 1944, or thereabouts, he passed on. He was an avid opera fan. He had literally a hundred signed autographs from all the major opera stars. Even from New York, I guess that he brought with him. He had a huge collection of autographed...  

JOHN: They’d stop by to pick up their coffee and…? 

LUCIANO: No, I think he was just a big-time opera fan. And so he passed on. And the store had an interim ownership for about eight years. And that gentleman who took it over also passed on. So the store was shut down. It was closed for, I would say a couple of years as a matter of fact. There was a for sale sign out in the window. I remember being a little boy walking by here. It was shut down. And of course, nobody wanted it. Who wanted to roast coffee, you know? So coincidentally, my father, who had learned not a lot about coffee roasting, but quite a bit about coffee roasting from his father. My grandfather was a merchant seaman who sailed all over the world. This is like in 1905 … even in the late 1890s … he went to sea when he was like 14 years old... 

JOHN: From what part of Italy is he? 

LUCIANO: Liguria. And of course this is another era when those things happened. You went to sea at 14 and that was it. And so because he traveled all over the world, I understand that one of his jobs, for want of a better word, was roasting coffee. They would pick up coffee, green beans, wherever they may be, and he roasted coffee for the ship. You know, I'm sure they had a coal-fired, wood-fired roaster on board. And … that's how he learned how to roast coffee. He did it over and over and over. And then my father picked it up from him. So my father saw that Graffeo was shut down, basically, and he got together with them and he purchased it. 

JOHN: What had he been doing prior to that? 

LUCIANO: Well, you know, we had migrated a few years before from Italy. And he had worked in a pasta factory, most of the time, yeah, and there he was. So he took it over, and... 

JOHN: That was 1954, I believe? 

LUCIANO: Fifty-three or -four, yeah. I'm a little fuzzy on that. 

JOHN: And how old were you at the time? 

LUCIANO: Probably eight, 10 years old 

JOHN: OK. 

LUCIANO: And so he took it over, and a very interesting thing happened. And that was that right after the war, see we all lose track of what happened in those days … because so many persons had traveled to Europe right after war, they were exposed to a different type of coffee. And when they came here, they wanted to replicate it. 

JOHN: We're talking about the returning GIs?  

LUCIANO: And even people who finally got to go to Europe after … so they wanted to replicate these things, and it was happening all over North Beach. They wanted to replicate the food and the coffee and the wine and everything else. So the business got a second start because of that. 

JOHN: So were you involved then as a young boy? 

LUCIANO: Well, yeah, I helped my dad. And then, of course, in my teens I helped him after school always, yeah. 

JOHN: And did you begin developing an interest in coffee then? 

LUCIANO: Well, I'll tell you… 

JOHN: Did you think maybe this would be a career for you? 

LUCIANO: No, I never thought of it as being a career for me. Because I mean I knew how to do it, I was around it all my life … I would, I was not interested in it at all as a matter of fact. I was in another type of work for quite awhile, and corporate life didn't appeal to me. And my father was going to retire, and I hated to see it get sold off. That’s … and I said, “Well, I can't see Graffeo being sold.” So I quit my other job. 

JOHN: Were you in, I think I read wine sales? 

LUCIANO: I was with a very large, probably the largest wine company in the world. We sold imported wines, et cetera, et cetera. I was … anyway, I was in marketing. And here I am. 

JOHN: And getting back to the neighborhood, I mean, you said this was an almost 100 percent Italian neighborhood and there was a growing interest in coffee. Do you think that being part of this neighborhood really influenced your interest in coffee and…? 

LUCIANO: You know, being part of the neighborhood increased your influence in coffee, in food, in wine, in art, in music. This was really a Renaissance neighborhood. Not that it isn't anymore, but it was really a Renaissance neighborhood. 

JOHN: What was it like in those days? I'm curious, the early days in Graffeo after your dad took over in the ‘50s, ‘60s, ‘70s. What was the … what would a typical day look like in Graffeo? 

LUCIANO: [laughter] A typical day was, of course, come in early in the morning, figure out how much coffee you need to roast because we do everything fresh. Do the roasting for the day, prepare the orders, and then of course you had customers start flowing in. And interestingly enough, by the ‘70s and ‘80s, the customers were no longer strictly Italian. They were from all over town. Because in those days, more so than today, North Beach was a shopping destination. Persons came from all over to shop in North Beach.  

JOHN: Yeah … And the kind of … I guess it's an antique roaster that's in the window in the other room … was that still in use? 

LUCIANO: Well, I'm the antique roaster. 

JOHN: [laughter] I see you have a much more updated machine… 

LUCIANO: Right. Well, we used that until about 1977… 

JOHN: And a lot of regulars, I mean, would people come in and...? 

LUCIANO: All the time. Regular trade. Even to this day. Our repeat business is, I'm going to say, literally 80 percent. 

JOHN: And did you grow up in San Francisco? 

LUCIANO: Yeah. We came here, like I said, in ‘53, right around there, ‘54. Yeah. 

JOHN: Did you live in the neighborhood? 

LUCIANO: Yes, of course. 

JOHN: OK. So you could just walk over here then? 

LUCIANO: Well, of course. And I went to school right here at St. Peter's and Paul. [Transcriber’s note: Saints Peter and Paul School is located at 660 Filbert Street.] 

JOHN: Oh, you did? 

LUCIANO: Of course. 

JOHN: And where did you go to high school? 

LUCIANO: I went to high school very briefly, [chuckles] very briefly at Sacred Heart High School. 

JOHN: And later on, I read something where you, I don't know if you still live there, but you were living on Nob Hill. 

LUCIANO: I still… 

JOHN: …and walk to work. It seems like a very nice life… 

LUCIANO: I live on Sacramento Street. Nob Hill … is a wonderful neighborhood, I live there. But I lived in North Beach more than anywhere else, right here … on Greenwich Street.  [Transcriber’s note: Luciano grew up on Greenwich Street in North Beach, and now lives on Nob Hill. He typically walks to and from the Graffeo store on Columbus Avenue.] 

JOHN: Yeah, of course. Alright. And did you have brothers and sisters? 

LUCIANO: No, I'm an only child. 

JOHN: OK. And did you ever think, I mean about as Graffeo began to grow and … that this is a rather small location. Did you expand over time? 

LUCIANO: Oh, yeah, of course. We've taken over … the adjacent rooms, yeah. 

JOHN: OK, alright. And you want to keep it in North Beach though? … you didn't think about … because I know you have a facility in San Rafael. And at one time I think you did in L.A. [Transcriber’s note: In addition to its North Beach location, Graffeo operates a smaller roasting facility in San Rafael. Graffeo previously had two roasting facilities in the Los Angeles area and one in Singapore.] 

LUCIANO: We had one in Beverly Hills for a very long time, yeah. 

JOHN: But you want to keep it centered here? 

JOHN: Look, seriously, Graffeo coffee is a San Francisco institution. It's a San Francisco business which is located in North Beach. Really it is. 

JOHN: That's terrific. As time went on, I've read quite a bit about the technology that you helped develop, with I think in conjunction with an engineer named Mike Sivitz… [Transcriber’s note: Michael Sivetz is an Oregon-based engineer and chemist who founded Sivetz Roasting Machines in 1974 with a goal of designing a more effective and consistent coffee roaster.] 

LUCIANO: Correct. 

JOHN: …if I'm pronouncing his name right… 

LUCIANO: Correct. 

JOHN: …from Oregon. 

LUCIANO: Correct. 

JOHN: And I mean what… did you get together, or did you already know him? How did this whole thing work?  

LUCIANO: Well, I was … quite frankly, I was sitting around one day looking at roasted coffee and things, and I noticed that everyone was doing it the same way. You know, the same … give or take it's always been the same system. And I just couldn't believe that there wasn't a better way to do it. Really I was just actually amazed that the coffee business … even it was always an international business, and certainly a country-wide business in America, I was amazed that there was no one developing anything or making things better. And the other thing that amazed me was that everyone was stuck in the past. They didn't want to hear about any other way to do it. So I asked around and I heard that there was, quite fortuitously, a chemical engineer by the name of Mike Sivitz, who was, believe it or not, one of the world's leading coffee experts. Coffee roasting, technology, packaging, instant coffee processing. And his job … of course, he was a consultant to all the large food companies of the world. He traveled all over the world. So this was the man. But no one ever heard of him, you know, unless you were whoever, you know. And I found out that he lived in Oregon. So I tracked him down and I called him one day. And I said, “Well, what do you got?” And he said, “Well, I have a new way of doing it.” I said, “I'd love to see it.” So, I got on a plane, I flew to Oregon and I met with him. And he showed me what he had, and I was amazed. 

JOHN: Was this the early iteration of the fluid bed roaster? 

LUCIANO: Yeah, very early. But it's exactly the same process. The technology, the ancillary... controls have been improved over the years. But technology is absolutely the same. 

JOHN: Do you want to describe it? 

LUCIANO: Of course. Fluid bed roasting … of course, there's no fluid involved. It just means that the beans, a bed of beans, acts like a fluid moving in a stream of hot air. So first they’ll tell you, “Oh, it's like a popcorn popper.” No, it is not. The actual roasting is in the bed of beans, which is moving around, up and down, up and down. And in that bed of beans we have probes, thermocouples, that read the temperature of the beans. So we roast coffee by temperature. Not by time, not by color, by temperature. Because, without boring you, coffee is endothermic. It retains heat from the inside, so it roasts from the inside out. So if you roast it and you look at the color on the outside, the color is not indicative of what's happening. The color is only indicative of how much damage you've done to the outside. You have to roast it so that the inside roasts exactly like the outside. And the only way you can do that is to roast by convection, which is what we do. A very high rate of heat transfer from one bean to the other. 

JOHN: And it, I guess, facilitates more sort of an even roasting of all the beans, right? 

LUCIANO: That is true. Well, because it's done by convection. 

JOHN: Excellent. Well, the product speaks for itself. 

LUCIANO: As a matter of fact, yes.  

JOHN: And you've decided, and maybe this goes back to the earliest days, to keep things very simple, too. There's only the dark, the light and the decaf. 

LUCIANO: Yeah, and that's done for two very big reasons. Freshness … if you roast 10, 15 different coffees, they don't all sell in one or two days, right? So you're going to have coffee which has been sitting around day after day after day. No longer fresh as far as I'm concerned. And secondly, we make a blend. And the reason for that is, again, very simple. Individual varieties don't always taste the same. Impossible. Apples don't always taste the same, oranges don’t. So the only way you can get consistency is to make a blend. That way you can adjust it if there's any differences. 

JOHN: You have two daughters, is that correct? 

LUCIANO: No, I have one daughter and two granddaughters. 

JOHN: Two granddaughters, OK. Was there ever any thought that they might want to take over the business? 

LUCIANO: You know, no, I never … and I never encouraged it. This is not a business, this is a lifestyle. It’s a dedication. Many, many hours, no vacations. Literally, it's a lifestyle. 

JOHN: So, were you concerned? I mean, I believe … I'm not sure what year you were born, but… 

LUCIANO: 1944. 

JOHN: … but you’re about 80 years old now? 

LUCIANO: I'm exactly 80. 

JOHN: 80, OK. And so were you thinking about what's going to happen to Graffeo, succession planning? 

LUCIANO: You know [chuckles] it's funny. Everyone says, “Oh, you know, succession planning.” You can't plan these things, you don't know exactly what's going to happen tomorrow. You know, maybe if I had many … if I had siblings or more children. But even then you don’t know. So, you know, you have to kind of … yes, you can make short-range plans, but long-range plans are very difficult to make. 

JOHN: You know where I'm leading with this, too… 

LUCIANO: No, please go ahead… 

JOHN: It's to the deal that took place I guess was it last fall with Walter Haas III…  

LUCIANO: Oh, yes. 

JOHN: … purchasing a stake in the business. 

LUCIANO: A great majority of it. 

JOHN: OK, yeah. And so with that in place, do you see the direction of Graffeo changing? Are there plans to ramp up production, things like that? Or… [Transcriber’s note: Eater SF reported in January 2025 that “Walter A. Haas III – grandson of the Haas family behind the Levi Strauss & Co. brand — purchased a majority stake in Graffeo, with longtime owner Luciano Repetto staying on as partner and co-owner.” SFGATE reported that the duo plans to increase partnerships with restaurants and gourmet grocers, with the potential of adding a coffee tasting experience in the future at Graffeo’s Columbus location.] 

LUCIANO: This is what I understand very clearly from Walter: His main emphasis is that the product should always stay the same. He's very concerned about the quality. Because basically if you don't have that quality, you have nothing. Without quality you have nothing. So he's very concerned that we have continuity of product. And that we always have, believe it or not, the very best people working. We have people working for us here who have been here 20, 25 years. Very loyal employees and we're very loyal to them, and they're dedicated to what's going on. 

JOHN: Yeah. Well, I can see why people would want to stay here. It's a nice place to work. Do you think you'll need more space though? Like, I mean, you mentioned that there's a facility, a roasting facility in San Rafeal. 

LUCIANO: It's been there many years, yeah. 

JOHN: And that's, what do you produce there? Is that mostly for the wholesale market? 

LUCIANO: No, no. It's a retail-wholesale operation. It services Marin and the north counties, yeah. 

JOHN: OK. And is there any plan to add any kind of a … as we discussed it's very simple: people come in, buy the bag and then leave. But there's no actual tasting of coffee here. Will that change? 

LUCIANO: I don't know, maybe we'll … if we had the room, maybe we'll do a tasting facility for persons to taste our product. But as of right now, from what I understand from Walter, is that we're so, you know, very busy in just tightening the ship and getting things really well- organized. 

JOHN: And where are the beans sourced from? I think I read three countries primarily.  

LUCIANO: Yes, Columbia, Costa Rica and New Guinea. 

JOHN: And is that becoming, I read about coffee prices, the commodity prices changing. Does that affect the business? 

LUCIANO: You know, coffee is a commodity like oil, like everything else. It sways up and down dramatically all the time. 

JOHN: Mm-hmm. OK. Well, I think we've covered it all … I think you mentioned once before some of the restaurants that serve Graffeo coffee. Do you want to list some of those? 

LUCIANO: [chuckles] Well, you know, here in North Beach we do Original Joe's, we do of course Mario's Bohemian, we do Firenze by Night, we do Piazza Pellegrini, we, you know... 

JOHN: And other parts of the city as well. 

LUCIANO: We do the Zuni Cafe, we do House of Prime Rib, we do Harris' Steakhouse, we do Lazy Bear. And I mean there's many others that, you know... 

JOHN: And do you think there will be a growing number of supermarkets that carry Graffeo? I'm always happy to see it when I do see it. 

LUCIANO: Yeah, I think, right now, we try to be very, very judicious about where we place it. Because if you, by chance, place it somewhere where it's not getting exposure, or where it is not being handled properly, what’ll happen is this: You buy a bag that says Graffeo on it, and it's been there for six weeks or something … and you take it home and it’s not good, you're not going to blame the market, you're going to blame Graffeo. 

JOHN: Right. 

LUCIANO: So we try to place it in places where, first of all, it's the type of outlet that specializes in what we do and gives it the proper exposure and the proper movement. 

JOHN: Well, I want to thank you, Luciano. 

LUCIANO: Well, no big deal. I'm here.

[END]