Phil & Sebastian: How Two Calgary Engineers Built One of Canada's Most Respected Specialty Coffee Roasters
From a folding table at the Calgary Farmers' Market in 2007 to a multi-cafe specialty roastery with national reach, Phil Robertson and Sebastian Sztabzyb have built one of the country's most…
May 2, 2026 · By Justin Plosz · Calgary, Alberta · Business · 10 min read
Two Engineers, One Folding Table, and a Calgary Coffee Problem
In the mid-2000s, Calgary's coffee scene was, by the public account of the people who eventually changed it, underserved. Phil Robertson and Sebastian Sztabzyb were two University of Calgary engineering graduates with a habit of arguing about espresso extraction the way most engineers argue about codebases. In 2007 they did what engineers do when a market won't serve them: they built it themselves.
The first Phil & Sebastian was a folding table inside the Calgary Farmers' Market — a single espresso machine, a hand grinder, a measured workflow, and a refusal to compromise on green-coffee sourcing. They sourced single-origin beans, dialled the grinder by weight, pulled shots by ratio, and built a small but devoted following almost immediately. Within a few years they had outgrown the table, opened a dedicated cafe, started roasting their own beans, and put Calgary on the map of Canadian specialty coffee for the first time.
What is striking, looking back, is that the founding pair never positioned the company as a barista-driven operation. They positioned it as an engineering operation. The roast curves were measured. The water profiles were specified. The brew ratios were documented. The product, in their hands, was not a moody craft — it was a system, executed by trained baristas, calibrated by the founders, repeatable cup after cup. That positioning is still visible across the company today.
What a Phil & Sebastian Cup Is Built From
The Phil & Sebastian program is built on three layers, each of which the company controls directly: green coffee sourcing, in-house roasting, and barista training and equipment.
On green coffee, the company has built long direct-trade relationships with farms in Colombia, Ethiopia, and Central America. The website's coffee menu lists the farm, varietal, processing method, and elevation for each lot — the kind of single-lot transparency that was rare in Canadian retail roasters when Phil & Sebastian began publishing it and is now a category standard, in part because of them. Lots are rotated through the menu seasonally as harvests come in.
On roasting, the company runs its own roastery in Calgary and bagged retail coffee is sold both online and across the cafes. The roast profiles trend lighter than the legacy North American norm, which is intentional: lighter roasts preserve the origin character of the bean, which is the entire point of paying farms more for high-elevation single-lot coffee in the first place.
On the bar itself, baristas are trained against measured standards: ratio by weight, time by stopwatch, temperature by spec. Espresso machines and grinders are top-tier. Filter coffee is brewed by recipe. The customer experience is calm, informed, and quietly precise — a barista will tell you what farm a single-origin shot came from if you ask, and will not do so unprompted if you don't. Either way, the cup is built the same way.
The Cafes: A Calgary-Only Network
Phil & Sebastian has deliberately stayed inside Calgary. While many specialty roasters of comparable national reputation have expanded into Toronto or Vancouver storefronts, Phil & Sebastian has kept its cafe network in its home city — a decision that has more to do with quality control and culture than with ambition.
The network includes the company's flagship inside the Simmons Building in East Village — a 1912 mattress-factory-turned-market-hall on the RiverWalk that also houses Sidewalk Citizen Bakery and Charbar — alongside cafes in Marda Loop, Mission, downtown's 4th Street, and additional locations across the city. Each cafe runs to the same standard: same beans, same trained baristas, same brewing recipes. A flat white pulled in Marda Loop is, by design, the same flat white as in East Village.
The Simmons location is worth visiting in its own right. The heritage red-brick warehouse is one of East Village's anchor adaptive-reuse projects, restored by Calgary Municipal Land Corporation and reopened as a market hall combining a third-wave coffee program (Phil & Sebastian), a sourdough bakery (Sidewalk Citizen), and a wood-fire restaurant (Charbar) under one preserved 1912 timber structure. It is, in many ways, the architectural argument for what East Village has been trying to become.
A Wholesale and Direct-Trade Program With National Reach
Beyond the cafes, Phil & Sebastian runs a wholesale roastery program supplying restaurants, hotels, and independent cafes across Western Canada and beyond. Wholesale customers get the same beans the cafes pour and access to the company's brewing-and-equipment training program. The program has helped seed a generation of Canadian specialty cafes that pour Phil & Sebastian coffee even though they are not Phil & Sebastian–branded, which is part of the company's quiet influence on the national category.
The direct-trade green-coffee program is the upstream half of that work. Phil & Sebastian buys directly from farms when possible, pays well above commodity-grade prices for high-elevation single lots, and publishes the relationships transparently through the website. For customers, that translates into a bag of beans whose farm and producer are named on the label. For the farms, it translates into a stable, premium-paying buyer year over year — the kind of buyer that lets a producing family invest in milling, drying beds, and varietal experiments instead of selling at the C-market spot price.
Why the Company Still Matters in 2026
Almost two decades into the Phil & Sebastian story, the Canadian specialty coffee category has matured around them. Many of the things they fought for in 2007 — single-origin transparency, measured brewing, direct relationships with producers, lighter roast profiles that respect origin character — are now category standards. That is, in itself, a quiet accomplishment.
What keeps the company relevant is the same thing that put it on the map: discipline. The cafes still run to spec. The bar workflow is still measured. The bean menu still rotates with the harvest calendar. The training still happens in-house. The expansion still happens slowly, in Calgary, on streets the founders know personally. In a category where many original specialty operators have either grown into mid-size chains or sold to multinationals, Phil & Sebastian remains an owner-operated Calgary roaster, which is the answer to the question of what makes them different.
For anyone in or near Calgary who has not yet built a coffee bar habit they trust, Phil & Sebastian is the safest first cup in the city. For visitors, the Simmons Building flagship is the appointment-worthy stop — both for the coffee and for the building itself.
Key takeaways
- Phil & Sebastian Coffee Roasters was founded in 2007 by University of Calgary engineering graduates Phil Robertson and Sebastian Sztabzyb.
- The company began as a folding-table espresso bar at the Calgary Farmers' Market and now operates a multi-cafe network across Calgary plus a roastery and wholesale program.
- The flagship cafe is inside the heritage Simmons Building in East Village, alongside Sidewalk Citizen Bakery and Charbar.
- Direct-trade green-coffee program with farms in Colombia, Ethiopia, and Central America; lots rotate seasonally and are published with farm, varietal, processing method, and elevation.
- Cafes are intentionally Calgary-only as a quality-control choice; the wholesale and online programs reach customers across Canada.
- Bagged beans, single-origin lots, subscriptions, and gift options are available through the company's online shop at philsebastian.com.
- Widely credited with helping establish single-origin transparency and measured brewing standards as category norms in Canadian specialty coffee.
Frequently asked questions
- Who founded Phil & Sebastian Coffee Roasters?
- Phil & Sebastian was founded in 2007 by Phil Robertson and Sebastian Sztabzyb, two University of Calgary engineering graduates. The company began as a single espresso bar at the Calgary Farmers' Market and grew into a multi-cafe specialty coffee program with its own roastery.
- Where are the Phil & Sebastian cafes located?
- Phil & Sebastian operates multiple Calgary cafes, including a flagship inside the heritage Simmons Building in East Village (alongside Sidewalk Citizen Bakery and Charbar), plus locations in Marda Loop, Mission, and the downtown 4th Street area, among others. The full and current list is published on philsebastian.com.
- Does Phil & Sebastian roast its own beans?
- Yes. Phil & Sebastian roasts in-house at its Calgary roastery and sells the resulting bagged coffee through its cafes, an online shop, and a wholesale program supplying restaurants, hotels, and independent cafes across Canada.
- What kind of coffee does Phil & Sebastian source?
- The company runs a direct-trade green-coffee program with long-term relationships at farms in Colombia, Ethiopia, and Central America, and publishes farm, varietal, processing method, and elevation for each lot on its menu. Lots rotate seasonally as harvests come in.
- Can I buy Phil & Sebastian beans online?
- Yes. Bagged whole-bean coffee can be ordered through the company's online shop at philsebastian.com, which also lists current single-origin lots and seasonal blends. Subscriptions and gift options are available on the same site.
- Does Phil & Sebastian supply other cafes and restaurants?
- Yes. Phil & Sebastian runs a wholesale program supplying independent cafes, restaurants, and hotels across Western Canada and beyond. Wholesale customers get the same beans the company's own cafes pour, plus access to brewing-and-equipment training.
- Is Phil & Sebastian only in Calgary?
- Phil & Sebastian's cafe network is intentionally Calgary-based, which the founders have used as a quality-control choice. The wholesale and online programs reach customers across Canada, but the cafes themselves are in Calgary.
- Why is Phil & Sebastian considered influential in Canadian specialty coffee?
- The company helped popularize single-origin transparency, measured brewing standards, direct-trade green sourcing, and lighter roast profiles that preserve origin character — practices that were uncommon in Canadian retail roasters when Phil & Sebastian began publishing them and are now category standards in part because of the company's two-decade example.
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