Gloria Montenegro, a Guatemala born coffee expert, founded La Cafeotheque in 2005 in the Marais district, making it one of Paris's true pioneering specialty institutions with nearly 20 years of continuous operation. The space at 52 Rue de l'Hotel de Ville combines a cafe, a visible on site roastery, an SCA certified coffee school, and a retail shop that keeps over 30 different coffee origins available at any given time, one of the largest specialty selections in the city. Gloria personally travels to origin to build producer relationships, and the range extends to rare offerings from Yemen, Hawaii, and Jamaica alongside core selections from Guatemala, Colombia, Ethiopia, and Kenya. Customers can smell and taste beans before buying them by weight, browse brewing equipment and books, and attend regular public cuppings, origin producer talks, and even coffee and food pairing dinners. The staff is multilingual and the atmosphere is rustic and cozy, lined wall to wall with coffee from around the world. Gloria is widely recognized as a pioneer of French specialty coffee culture.