CORRECTION: A previous version misspelled the name of the company and misrepresented the story of Ron Dizon who’s grandfather served in the military not his father.
Ron Dizon brought the taste and smell of robust award-winning Filipino coffee to LBCC from the farmer to your cup.
Dizon, the founder of Teofilo Coffee company, brings culture and taste together to make a great cup of coffee from beans grown in the Philippines, always looking for ways to rediscover the perfect brew and keep the legacy of the island alive.
Teofilo is a Filipino coffee shop in Los Alamitos, California that opened in 2020 from the ground up, looking to expand to Long Beach soon.
Their motto is, “now you can drink coffee black again” and is known for their smooth tasting award-winning coffee.
Teofilo takes a look into the behind the scenes aspect of the products that they produce and gives back to those who help produce their product with them.
Dizon is very passionate about what he does and sees his dream in a different perspective, with a vision for success.
Peter Ramirez, CEO of Pacrim Global, left, and Ron Dizon, CEO of Teofilo Filipino coffee company, right talking to LBCC students at the Intercultural Festival. (Tenoa J. Stewart)
Dizon was born in the Philippines and came to the United States when he was four years old.
“My dad was a jack of all trades and he petitioned for us to get here,” Dizon said.
Dizon’s grandfather worked for the United States military as a driver for a general when soldiers were stationed in the Philippines and was therefore able to become a U.S. citizen.
This allowed Dizon’s family to come to the United States and go to school.
Despite hardships of a new environment Dizon and his family were able to adapt rather quickly.
“I remember we lived in a garage that was turned into a house … I still spoke our dialect but like a chameleon I learned English very fast and my parents worked hard. We were on government assistance but we never felt the effects of poverty,” Dizon said.
Despite coming to a new country and having to learn a new culture, Dizon stayed in touch with his roots by traveling to the Philippines to visit.
“Our home in the Philippines no longer exists because of natural disasters, it was destroyed by the volcano Mount Pinatubo,” Dizon said.
Dizon comes from a family of engineers starting with his mother and decided to go to Rio Hondo college where he received an A.S. in Automotive Engineering, before he decided to get into the coffee business.
“My first 20 years of engineering I worked for a lot of manufactures like Honda, Toyota, SpaceX, and it was when I worked for an electric company I realized my downfall was not working for myself. In 2017 my mom had mentioned something to me about coffee grown in the Philippines and a light bulb turned on,” Dizon said.
The idea for Teofilo was born and Dizon decided to put his plan into action with the thought of bringing his culture into the vision.
“I wanted to create something and still give back to my culture, and a lot of the things you see in our shop you would see in the culture, the things we grew up with, ” Dizon said.
Dizon started doing his research as his idea unfolded with his entrepreneur mindset, and he built his company from the floor up.
In 1740 coffee was introduced to the Philippines and the island became the world’s fourth largest exporter of coffee by 1860.
“I learned so much, I started seeing what I can do, I saw so much freedom and working for this car company I was able to create things so freely, I applied the same mind set to Teofilo,” Dizon said.
Starting a business from scratch isn’t easy, especially if you have never started one before, so Dizon found a mentor through a non-profit organization called Score, that helps people with small business.
“I started with them because I didn’t know too much about business and my mentor Jim didn’t know too much about coffee but he connected me to the right people,” Dizon said.
Dizon also sought help from Peter Ramirez, CEO of Pacrim Global, a company that specializes in import /export financing, and they were introduced through the Filipino Consulate.
Ramirez had previous knowledge on shipping from the United States to other countries and was able to lead Dizon in the right direction, helping him establish a line of credit with coffee beans.
“I reached out to Ron to help out with Filipino business and saw that he had a very bright future for him, and I told him all the time he will be the future Starbucks for Filipino coffee,” Ramirez said.
Dizon studied the business inside and out, went to visit the farmers in the Philippines and learned the process of how the bean goes from the plant through the farmer, to the roaster and all the way to a customer’s cup.
Teofilo was started right when the heart of COVID-19 hit and it was very challenging for any establishment to thrive during that time.
“When the economy is low people have to work more, so people always go back to coffee,” Dizon said.
Since then Teofilo has been in business for 7 years, opened its first coffee shop in 2020, and even won awards for best tasting coffee at the Boston specialty coffee expo in 2022 with the Sigay coffee that came in first place as well as other selected beans they have.
“We have two awards for number one coffee which is our Sigay and our Balutakay,” General Manager Glenn Gordo said.
Gordo has worked as the general manager for Teofilo for a year and has worked closely with Dizon making sure the vision for the brand is clear.
“Working with Ron is pretty amazing, he sees something he wants and I put my spin on it and together we see a better vision to execute the plan,” Gordo said.
One third of small businesses did not last during COVID-19 and Dizon made sure Teofilo wasn’t going to be one of them by carefully executing marketing strategies that would work well during the pandemic.
“We are a business that thrived through COVID-19, we’ve held social distancing events and grown every year since that, we also held events for the holidays too,” Gordo said.
Dizon also gives back to the community as well, volunteering for Score and now providing mentorship for others the same way it was provided to him.
He also found an eco-friendly way to help the environment by turning burlap bags that the coffee gets shipped in and making them into renewable handbags that could be used for shopping.
They are sold for around $65 and any extra funds that are collected get used to support the farmers’ conditions, providing any resources they may need.
“They’re working hard to provide me with the quality I need, so we take the extra money and get them new tools, clothes, or anything to make their jobs easier,” Dizon said, “We want them to be comfortable.”
Dizon also showed up to LBCC’s Intercultural Festival and gave out samples of coffee to students and staff.
Teofilo coffee shop is located at 10525 Los Alamitos Blvd. Los Alamitos, California and the hours are from 7 a.m. – 2 p.m. on Monday through Friday and 7 a.m. – 4 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.