Our concept, our dream...

Christian and I moved to Spain over 12 years ago when the promising career of a Professional cyclist was offered to Christian in Girona, Spain. Starting as a Stagiaire, he was able to work his way to the top tier of the peloton, riding in races he had only dreamed of as a child. World Championships, The Classics in Europe to the National Championships in Canada…he was riding them all. Time was passing and while I was happy to support him, travelling and enjoying life of early retirement, the years were passing and I couldn’t ignore the urge to do something for myself. I wanted to do something that I would love just as much as he loved racing.

A couple days after Christian had finished his dream race, The Tour de France, he got a call up from his director for another block of days on the road. It hit me that his career didn’t have an end date as long as he was able to ride. I thought this big race would be the pinnacle of his time on the bike but I realised there was a potential 8-10 years still in the world of cycling for him.

I knew it was time to make a decision; go back to Canada where I could speak the language or start something, in Spain. We had always had a dream of opening a small cafe (that is where we first met so many years ago) and following a 5 hour conversation weighing out every single pro and con to the idea, we decided we were going to try and open a small, specialty coffee shop in our adopted hometown of Girona. 

We found the location, put into a design all our ideas and slowly started to chip away at what we thought our ideal cafe would be. It was a big risk as there were NO specialty cafe shops in Girona but we had faith and truly believed if we built it, the people would come. With a menu based on all the places we had travelled around the world like Bali, Japan, Australia and Europe and incorporating an esthetic design that would honour the 100 century old carpenter's shop we had chosen as our “down the alleyway” location, paired with strong, double shot, freshly roasted coffee, 7 months later we opened La Fabrica. I just wanted to break even, so I would have something I could pour myself into.

La Fabrica was the beginning of us making our dreams a reality. We were able to see such a diverse group of people, from students to locals, tourists visiting from Barcelona and of course, Christians friends and cyclists from the peloton.

Fast forward a year later and we knew we wanted to be in control of the whole coffee process. Christian, still being a full time professional cyclist, decided to teach himself how to roast coffee. Starting on a small 250 gram roaster, he learned day by day and eventually, with one cafe under our belt, we ventured to our second specialty cafe and Girona’s only in house roaster. We opened Espresso Mafia.

8 months after the opening of Mafia and with Christian still cycling professionally, we couldn't help noticing a gap in the market for high end cycling offerings. Luxury boutique steel bikes, guided rides, sports massage, experienced mechanics and other services that you would need if you were on a cycling holiday, kept being requested in the cafes and we knew it was time.

We were going to open a bike shop.

knew I wouldn't be able to run three businesses alone and that Christian would need to be here full time. It was time to make a choice, professional cyclist, or business owner? It was a relatively easy decision for Christian as he had reached the highest level he was ever going to reach with cycling and was at peace with having achieved everything he had ever wanted to do in his career on the bike. He was ready to make the decision to stop cycling and continue his venture as a small business owner. The Service Course was born and we were now all in.

After just over a year of The Service Course’s opening, the concept was a hit and was growing faster than we could have imagined. Delivering services fit for a professional cyclist, paired with the amazing hub of Girona being our home base, the weather, roads, proximity to Barcelona, the fact that you could rub shoulders with one of many current world tour athletes here on the roads of Girona helped The Service Course grow.

We were approached by investors to take the bike shop to an international level. We agreed hoping to being our concept and passion to as many people as we could. We had never worked with partners, a board of directors or a CEO before and slowly it felt that the company was going a different direction than how we envisioned. We tried to keep it true to our dream but our attempt were now overturned by a lot of voices and ours got lost. It was painful to no longer be the driving vision of our company, so we both had to step away.

We are both now the majority shareholders in The Service Course and wish them all the best.

We fully own La Fabrica Girona and Espresso Mafia.

You can catch me in La Fabrica making coffees or doing computer work on the top bar and Christian is usually hanging around for lunch, roasting coffee in Espresso Mafia and now even running full time. In fact, he decided he loved long distance and trail running so much that in 2022 he opened a new shop in Girona called Overland Running Provisions.

It is a lovely little run shop that has created an amazing trail running community here, complete with open group runs every week, full moon runs in the mountains and of course all the apparel you need for a long jaunt in the hills.

Thank you for being a part of our dream. If you have a bit of time, here is a small video that sums up a bit of our life

Christian and Amber

Hear what others have to say about us...

"A naturally sunny person who now acknowledges each customer's order with a chirpy "perfecto," Mr. Meier may be the shop's brooding auteur, but Ms. Meier is its leading lady... - The Globe and Mail

"The café is full of light and love, with every detail clearly carefully attended to by the owners. Greenery injects life. Exposed copper, concrete floors and an abundance of different varieties of wood along with the high ceilings, brick walls and cobbled stone entryway makes the open room feel large and inviting yet still intimate and cosy."- CyclingTips

"Este lugar está repleto de recuerdos y, sobre todo, antigüedades. Hay un poco de cada uno de los viajes que Christian y Amber han ido realizando a lo largo de sus vidas. Incluso ahora, cuando viajan siguen comprando detalles para añadir" - Condé Nast Traveler

"It’s not often you are lovingly served a latte by a Tour de France cyclist. But then, to be honest it’s not often in Spain that you are lovingly served a latte. Coffees here tend to be uncomplicated, cheap, fast and unadorned by pretty pictures of coffee beans and butterflies. La Fábrica Girona is veering from the norm." - Family Adventure Project