Enhancing the overall quality of life: In conversation with Sebastian Quistorff, Co-founder and Co-owner of Prolog Coffee
Sebastian Quistorff,
Co-founder and Co-owner of Prolog Coffee
Sebastian Quistorff is not one to settle. Since the opening of Prolog's first coffee bar in Copenhagen's Meatpacking District in 2016, Quistorff and his associates have remained unwavering in their commitment to the coffee they offer, the standard of service, the ambiance, the music, and the diverse events they host. Nevertheless, their overarching goal is to craft an experience that injects moments of quality into the everyday lives of people.
I have often pondered that if we had only established a coffee bar solely for the love of coffee, we would have constrained ourselves. There would have been an upper limit to our growth potential. Once we had brewed the perfect cup of coffee, we would have reached the pinnacle of our objective. But that seems so meaningless. You should make good coffee to share it with others. Showcase the fantastic product. From the beginning, our foremost mission has been to provide guests with a good experience. The guest is the most important, and the coffee is a tool to elevate the visit to Prolog.
One of the main reasons we started Prolog was because I felt there were too many dogmas in specialty coffee. If you walked into a trendy Berlin place, it almost felt like encountering a manifesto on why one should abstain from adding milk to coffee. We aim to avoid imposing restrictions on our guests. If you prefer oat milk in your pour-over, no one will judge you. Our focus is on making you feel at ease, rather than delivering lectures on what we believe is right. When you enter one of our coffee bars, the goal is for you to feel welcomed and to receive the undivided attention of our baristas.
We compare our service in the coffee bars to the execution of a concert. As a guest, your entrance should be something special – it could be a warm welcome and a surprising detail in the decor or atmosphere. We are uncompromising in everything we do. Whether it's the cups we serve the coffee in or the trays they rest on, it's something we have done in collaboration with a carefully selected ceramicist and wood producer. I appreciate that we go a bit beyond the norm. We present milk from a micro-dairy outside Roskilde in a delicate, yet exquisite pitcher crafted by a glass artist, even though it's fragile and could break easily. We use Bernadotte teaspoons to signal our commitment to going the extra mile. There are also some moments of surprise. We play a French radio station that offers all sorts of crazy music – you hear opera, and suddenly it's the Beatles. It creates a dynamic experience.
For me, quality is something that is long-lasting, whether it's ingredients or materials. Our coffee bar in the Meatpacking District is covered in Douglas fir, which really withstands some hits and lasts forever. I also associate quality with specializing in one's field. It's evident when a ceramicist delves deep to perfect the art of crafting a specific type of cup. Similarly, those who supply us with coffee beans have dedicated years to enhancing the quality of a particular coffee bean variety. It's a testament to people investing their time in creating the best possible product.
At Prolog, one of our essential values is quality of life. We talk a lot about how we can create quality of life for our guests but also for ourselves. When you walk into Prolog and order a pour-over coffee that tastes amazing, while the music is extra stimulating, things come together in a higher unity. It can be a wildly liberating moment, and you leave feeling a bit uplifted. If we can offer that to a fraction of our guests, we have come a long way with our mission. We are here to bring quality into people's lives – at least for a while.
A good example is our running club, where we meet in the Meatpacking District every other week and run together with a large group of people. Starting the day with a run, being part of a community, having an interesting conversation with someone you didn't know before, coming back with a bit of cold on your cheeks and getting a cup of coffee and some pastries – it just makes life richer.
“At Prolog, one of our essential values is quality of life. We talk a lot about how we can create quality of life for our guests but also for ourselves. When you walk into Prolog and order a pour-over coffee that tastes amazing, while the music is extra stimulating, things come together in a higher unity. It can be a wildly liberating moment, and you leave feeling a bit uplifted. If we can offer that to a fraction of our guests, we have come a long way with our mission. We are here to bring quality into people’s lives – at least for a while.”
Photos by Lasse Dearman
As told to Ditlev Fejerskov
