I arrived at Mapleview Centre just as the day was beginning. The halls were quiet, most of the stores just opened, and the café I had come to visit, School Specialty Coffee, sat calmly in its corner. The owners, Shannon Knox and Firas Arafat, hadn’t arrived yet, so I ordered a Nutella latte while I waited. By the time Shannon and Firas walked in, I already knew there was something special brewing here.

It’s not the kind of place you’d expect to find in a shopping mall, and that’s exactly the point. School Specialty Coffee is rewriting what it means to grab a cup in Burlington. In just two years, they’ve become the highest-rated coffee shop in Burlington and Hamilton, with the reviews and awards to prove it.

Interestingly, the journey that brought Firas to coffee wound through boardrooms and across continents.  

“I was actually born in Kuwait and after the First Gulf War I went to Jordan. And then after the peace process I went to Gaza,” Firas shared. “From Gaza, I went to Belgium and I got my graduate degree in accounting and economics. I moved to Canada about 23 years ago now.”

His early career was firmly in corporate finance. 

“I was working for corporate finance and strategic planning in Toronto. Hudson’s Bay was my first employer in Canada. I was in the strategy department at The Bay. And I was working on Bay Street which I was really excited about,” Firas said. “I learned so much about retail, customer service, strategy, and marketing.”

From there, he moved through Telus, the Ministry of Finance, and then Toronto Hydro. “I worked with them for about 10 years, and then I got bored of corporate.”

That boredom led to a decision that would change everything for Firas. 

“Where I used to live in Downtown Toronto, there was a store in the bottom of the building that was empty for years. It used to be a video store,” Firas said. “One day I decided to call the number saying it was for lease. That’s how I got into business. I started looking at building a business plan and figuring out the funding, and that’s when I opened my first coffee shop.” 

The coffee shop, named Page One, is still in operation today; which Firas recently sold. 

For Shannon, the story is just as much about family and culture as it is about business. 

“This is one of the things we say to customers: coffee is a journey. Coffee has always been really important to me and my family, and my house always had a pot of hot coffee ready in the kitchen. At first, I started working at Second Cup when I was in university,” Shannon said. “Then I started working at more local shops, where you learn about the specific preparations required for coffee. How to steam milk properly, and just knowing about specialty coffees and their origins.” 

Born in Sault Ste. Marie, she grew up in Scarborough before eventually settling in Hamilton. She studied Canadian studies and sociology, but her path kept pulling her back into the coffee business. “I was already managing a coffee shop in Etobicoke, and I was a percentage owner,” Shannon shared. “And Firas had already founded a coffee shop before we met each other. We were in the coffee business for about 10 years before we met.”

The two connected online almost three years ago, and their relationship has been fueled by a shared love of exploring local coffee shops.

“We met online and connected over coffee and we started going on coffee dates. We both had exes who didn’t like coffee, they were more tea people,” Firas said. “We go to the cool local coffee shops.”

Together they opened School Specialty Coffee in Burlington, about two years ago in the fall of 2023, just weeks after a traumatic event transpired in Italy. 

“I had a freak accident before we opened. We were attending a wedding in Italy and I was the best man,” Firas said. “We went on a Vespa tour, and I crashed and my leg snapped. I spent the whole holiday in the hospital. So when we started here she was doing all the work.”

Despite the rocky beginning, the coffee shop quickly found a loyal audience. However, being located in the mall can be tough, since opening hours don’t start until 10 a.m., causing them to miss the morning crowd.

“One of the biggest challenges that we have here in the mall, is that coffee shops get 80% of their traffic from repeat customers. If you live in a neighborhood and there’s a coffee shop in your neighborhood, and this is your coffee spot, you will go there every day on the way to work or school,” Firas said. “This statistic is reversed here in the mall; where 80% of our customers are new people. Customers find us by coincidence because they’re here shopping. This can make it difficult to have repeat customers.”

But those customers are finding something worth coming back for. “Recently, we won the Th3rd Wave Awards for best New Coffee Shop of the Year in the Burlington and Hamilton area,” Shannon said. “When people Google us, they find us, and they can’t believe we are in the mall.”

What makes School Specialty Coffee different? 

For Shannon and Firas, it starts with treating coffee with the same respect as a bottle of fine wine. 

“I think the biggest thing that we do, is we really choose coffee like wine. We don’t think about coffee as a caffeine fix,” Firas said. 

That sometimes confuses people expecting a supersized cup. 

“A couple of days ago, somebody gave us a bad review because they wanted a really big cup of coffee. Our sizes are smaller,” Shannon shared. “The funny thing is we actually use more espresso. For us it’s about the ratio of milk and water to the coffee. Our sizes are smaller, but the coffee is better expressed in our size.”

The bestsellers have already become signatures. “I would say the Spanish Latte is probably first, but there are three actually: the Spanish Latte, Nutella Latte, and the Frozen Matcha Slush,” Firas shared. 

The Matcha Slush has become a surprise star, made with matcha, oat milk, vanilla extract, and organic cane sugar.

The name, School Specialty Coffee, reflects their philosophy. 

“My first coffee shop was called Page One. We love books, reading and we love learning. We wanted to learn about coffee and we wanted to share our knowledge about coffee,” Firas said. “We like sharing all the details behind the flavours and how they are there. We like to take you to school. Maybe one day we will do classes.”

That spirit of education also shows in their sourcing. 

“One of the things we do here is we feature Canadian coffee roasters. Every supplier we have here is a Canadian supplier,” Shannon shared. “We only work with Canadian suppliers.”

For Shannon and Firas, it’s about more than just coffee. They want people to know exactly where their beans come from and to make sure the process is truly sustainable, and not just stamped with a corporate label.

“Historically, people have looked at certifications like the organic or the fair-trade certification as a way to say, ‘This is how the farmer is being treated well,’ or ‘This is how the environment is being treated well,’” Shannon said. “These are very costly to the farmer, and a lot of farmers just can’t participate in these certifications because they’re so expensive.”

Shannon and Firas are not big fans of free-trade certification and prefer to go to the farmers directly. 

“One thing that Specialty Coffee does, is it focuses on traceability. On our coffee bags, you see who the farmer is, you see where it was grown, and you see how they’re running their farms,” Shannon said. “You see that it’s about improving the environment and making a good living wage for them, without paying for the certification of organic or fair-trade.”

Shannon and Firas have built a strong team by retraining baristas to their own standards. 

“We train our staff and make sure they know what they are doing,” Firas said. “We have to unteach them certain things and then we teach them how we do things.”

For aspiring entrepreneurs, both have blunt advice. 

“It’s not just about passion. It’s a lot of hard work. You have to go out there,” Shannon said. “My approach was to work in the industry.”

Firas is even more direct.

“Passion is great. But passion alone is not for business. You need to know what you are doing. You need to do a lot of research and see what others are doing. Find out why they are successful. You need to have a background in business accounting. If you don’t know, hire an accountant to help you. If you can’t afford that, then you shouldn’t start a business,” Firas said. “If you think running a business is less work than your current job, you are delusional. Running a business is a 24/7 commitment.”

For Shannon and Firas, the mission is clear. 

“Our biggest plan is to convert as many people from bad coffee to good coffee,” Firas said. 

More importantly, School Specialty Coffee, has become a gathering spot where a cup of coffee is never just a caffeine fix, but part of a larger story. Of relationships built over one pour-over at a time, and of a community ready to learn what better coffee really tastes like.

As Firas puts it simply: “Drink better coffee.”