La Harpía

Benito Bermúdez and Mario Castrellón founded Café Unido in Panama in 2014 with a concept that unites premium Panamanian coffee with gourmet food, and the operation has since grown to nine locations including seven in Panama City, one in the highland town of Boquete, and a 21 seat cafe and roastery in Washington D.C. that opened in 2022 as part of an international expansion backed by a partnership with Panama's Grupo Eleta. The Panama City roastery uses a 15 kilogram Giesen drum roaster with a separate 10 kilogram machine in Boquete, and the founders engage directly with farmers to maintain farm to cup traceability for every coffee served across the network. Café Unido's food menu integrates local flavors and coffee in ways that go well beyond the typical cafe offering, including coffee rubbed burgers and cascara glazed dishes that treat the bean as an ingredient rather than just a beverage, and the brand introduced a 45 minute coffee omakase tasting flight with coffee cocktails that has become one of its signature specialty experiences. The Washington D.C. location was designed to celebrate Panamanian coffee culture abroad and bring the country's renowned lots, including its world famous Geisha varieties, to an American audience that may know Panama for its canal but not yet for its coffee. Café Unido has established itself as the most ambitious ambassador for Panamanian specialty coffee on the international stage, combining roasting, gastronomy, and hospitality in a format that no other Central American roastery has replicated at this scale.