There are 10 wooden stools with brass plaques affixed to them around the bar at 67 Orange Street. I’ve always given our bartenders a platform and we create a community. What are some of the reasons you think your bars have been successful?

Call it a mistake, call it learning-you have to be very well funded so that you can ride the wave. I needed money and I couldn’t get money no one wanted to lend or invest. I didn’t know the recession of 2008 was going to happen, but it happened. I was there before the neighborhood gentrified. I was the first to bring artisanal coffee to Harlem and the first to bring craft cocktails. It’s been a hard road, largely because I took risks in opening these businesses in a developing area. What are some of the challenges you’ve encountered? Access to capital is also a huge barrier to entry for qualified Black entrepreneurs. Outsiders like myself had to peek through the curtains to try and learn what was actually happening. If you look back at all these early bars that had recognition and still get it, it’s all one family. It’s about making sure we are actively looking for opportunities to celebrate Black and brown businesses, even if they’re harder to find. It’s about changing culture, which is hard to shift. The systemic issues will take a while to break down. What specific actions can the industry take to become more inclusive? He has always been a voice, trying to pull people of color with him. There are some people who have tried to change the culture of the cocktail industry from the inside, like Colin Asare-Appiah. I’ve been to cocktail bars all around the world, and I would put 67 Orange Street against any of them. The idea of what a great bar is, 67 Orange Street checks all these boxes: drinks, experience, fun, quality standards. People who look like me have not been a part of the conversation and there’s no good reason for it. What happened to us? Why do you think you’ve been somewhat ignored? Show me another bar that’s done what we’ve done, for as long as we’ve done it, and is still packed to this day, and you’re talking about Death & Co, PDT, and Employees Only, which have all won a ton of awards. I have felt for a long time that we did not get our due recognition. But I do get riled up when I hear Sugar Monk the first or the only cocktail bar in Harlem. The more people in the neighborhood making great drinks, the better. → It was the first cocktail bar in Harlem, but never received the attention, say, of Sugar Monk, which arrived earlier this year. People just didn’t understand the concept. I wanted to create something unique, that stood out. It was the cocktail craft I was most attracted to. What did you want to bring to Harlem when you opened 67 Orange Street in 2008? I decided I wanted to leave Pepsi and open a bar. It had history and I was just taken by it. That’s how I discovered the craft cocktail industry. I had to decide: Do I want to do both or choose one? I was working in innovation on the next great Pepsi product and we hired Steve Olson as a consultant. I was a corporate guy being considered for a promotion at Pepsi and an entrepreneur at the same time. Karl Franz Williams: I opened Society Coffee in Harlem in 2005. SevenFifty Daily: You have a corporate background. Karl Franz Williams is the owner of 67 Orange Street, the pioneering cocktail bar in New York’s Harlem neighborhood-where he first made a splash as the proprietor of Society Coffee-as well as the Anchor Spa in New Haven, Connecticut, minutes away from his alma mater, Yale University.

Karl franz