Coffee is more than just a drink. It can also be a vehicle for change. Ending teen homelessness through coffee is the vision of today's guests, Brian Washington and Averett Barksdale, the founders of , Rugid Grind.
Established in 2019, Rugid Grind is a for-profit coffee provider that, as of now, acts as the sole supporter and funder of The Oneighty Project, a nonprofit dedicated to ending teenage homelessness around the world.
Through rigorous studying of the process and the building of their headquarters in Houston, Texas, they quickly built their branding into one that serves a greater purpose while also serving a quality cup of coffee.
Rugid Grind is dedicated to giving our customers a quality beverage they can count on, but the goal they have committed ourselves to is much bigger than the beverage they serve.
As pastors and frequent leaders of mission trips and outreach projects, Washington and Barksdale have seen the epidemic of teenage homelessness firsthand. Over a million American teenagers will go to sleep tonight without a home, and countless others are teetering on the verge of homelessness.
The direct funding we provide to Oneighty helps them execute their vision of ending teenage homelessness and giving the at-risk teens of the next generation a greater chance at success. By purchasing, leasing, and developing houses and finding caretakers who are fit for roles of mentorship and parental guidance, Oneighty seeks to create safe, nourishing environments for homeless adolescents not only in Houston, but all around the world.
In todays episode you will learn:
Buy Rugid Grind coffee and support their vision!
Related episodes:
106 : Changing Lives Through Coffee w/ Pamela Chng of Bettr Barista
139 : Founder Friday w/ Kusanya Cafe Co-Founder, Phil Sipka
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Bringing a new employee onto the bar is often a hasty effort. Unfortunately, when we do this, we end up paying for it in the long run. Today we chat about the sink or swim mentality of on-boarding and what managers need to practice in order to mitigate the negative consequences such a mentality produces.
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As goes the culture, so goes the company. This is just a fact. All of us want to be able to say that our employee cultures are strong, vibrant, and dedicated to the vision we have set for the company. Unfortunately though, it aint that easy.
Today we are addressing this with what I believe may be the most powerful series of insights you’ve ever heard on employee culture and how to work for and with it to amazing success.
I am so pleased to be talking with the amazing, Stan Slap, author of one of my most recommended books, “Under the Hood : Fire up and Fine-tune your Employee Culture”
Stan is the founder and CEO of SLAP company and has spent the last 3 decades specializing in achieving fierce support from manager, employee and customer cultures. They believe within each of these groups there is one problem that has the biggest impact on the enterprise and one solution that is most valuable, coveted and elusive. The SLAP company has cracked the code on these problems and their solutions are highest rated in many of the world's highest rated companies. They are currently working in 44 countries countries and ahave achieved amazing results in employee culture at companies like Oracle, CNN, Timewarner, Google, Starbucks, eBay, Viacom, and Microsoft among many others.
I don’t know of a more potent example of what good and bad employee cultural engagement than the elbow-to-elbow laboratory that is the coffee bar. This episode is absolutely a game changer and foundational listening if you want to create and lead an amazing employee culture.
In this episode you will learn about:
There is honestly so much more here and I implore you to get the book "Under the Hood", listen to this episode several times, take notes, and see how big of an impact these insights have on your company.
Links:
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Related Episodes:
083: 6 Essential Books for your Professional Growth
6 Essential Books for your Professional Growth
018: Hiring, Culture, and the Future of your Shop
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There are many qualities that contribute to being a solid professional in the coffee shop. Today we are going to focus on two particular qualities that are very critical to get right in the beginning and can set you up for success in the future. Please share this and the related episodes below with your barista staff!
Related episodes:
ep14: A Barista's Guide to Advancing
ep31: Essential Advice for New Baristas
ep56: The Sleepwalking Barista
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We all know that training is one of the most critical skills to master in the professional coffee world. Entire careers are made or broken by the influence of a great or a terrible training experience. It stands to reason then that we would go out of our way to find the best examples of training done right and learn from their sucCess in helping others grow their skills. Today that is exactly what we are doing as we talk with the amazing, Emma Haines of London School of Coffee and Caffeina Consulting. Emma is a SCA AST Barista Skills, Sensory & Brewing and has worked in hospitality and catering training for the last twelve years.
For the last eight years, she has focused on coffee training, in particular specialty coffee training and how to incorporate specialty elements into commercial environments. She works all over Europe and beyond and is a resident trainer at London School of Coffee.She has a strong passion for inclusivity, as reflected in her role on the SCA Equity, Diversity & Inclusivity Taskforce.
Emma’s delivery of training ensures that the ability to grow to love coffee and turn it into a passion is available to all, regardless of background.
The heart of what drives Emma is summed up in how she describes her role as trainer, "Facilitating a students learning journey" and in this conversation you will be given many insight into how you can better facilitate your students learning journey.
I am so excited to share this interview with you all!
We discuss:
Links:
Related Episodes:
Training Masterclass w/ Gwylim Davies
Mastering the Art of Training w/ Dave Stachowiak
Training Principles for Specialty Coffee w/ Anne Nylander
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Coffee! Beer! Founder Friday! Today we get to talk with founder and owner of Tap Room Coffee and Beer in Atlanta, GA. Jonathan founded Tap Room in 2014 and since then has seen great success creating amazing coffee and beer experiences for both his staff and customers.
As an Atlanta native he and the shop have been embraced by the community very well and have a deep passion to serve that community with all they have.
In addition to running Tap Room, Jonathan serves as a coach and consultant for entrepreneurs and coffee startups. He has a passion for genuine personal connection and helping others discover and fulfill their life’s calling. As you will see in this interview, Jonathan strives to maintain a healthy balance between business, being involved in the community and church, and living a joy-filled life with his wife and four kids.
This conversation dives into the story of what led Jonathan to start Tap Room and the details of operating the shop, recent expansion, balancing life and work, and managing all the relationships and responsibilities that come with owning your own coffee retail business.
In our conversation we cover:
Don't sleep on this interview! It is sure to inspire, inform, and get you thinking about ways you too can create more margin for life amidst work while still having excellence in you shop.
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There is a little problem we need to talk about that may not seem like a biggie but can wear away at morale and breed needless frustration. The bar area can sometimes attract a variety of staff members who are not on shift or are from other departments. Over time the bar starts to be treated as a pantry or lounge and not a professional work environment. Today we are chatting about this devolutionary phenomenon and some solutions to aid in developing respect for the bar and the people who are tasked with its upkeep.
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We will always have our emotions with us at work. In the fast-paced customer facing work of coffee retail we can cycle through a whole host of emotions in just one shift and not all of them are helpful to the situations we find ourselves in. One way we have tried to deal with it is by denying our emotions and detaching. Today's guest is going to challenge us to become emotion scientists and embrace the emotions we have at work to harness them for both great business outcomes and our over-all health as we engage in daily emotional labor.
I am so pleased to welcome to the show, Andrea Hoban! Andrea is Co-Founder and head of learning at Oji Life Lab, and has more than twenty years of experience in leading large teams and building business. She is a certified executive coach and leadership development practitioner who has helped hundreds of professionals learn to harness their emotions to achieve their goals. At Oji, she is reimagining the way we learn skills like emotional intelligence to directly impact the quality of our lives.
I believe this episode is one of the most important ones you can listen to. Emotional intelligence has such a profound impact on not only our careers and personal lives, but on those we lead and the people we serve. If we want strong people, teams, and businesses then harnessing our emotions at work is the first step in that direction.
In this episode you will learn about:
Links:
Related Episodes:
Deep Listening w/ Oscar Trimboli
Dealing with Stress in the Cafe w/ Joe Sanok
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When it comes how we divide our attention and energy we can tend to skew to one side or another. This leaves us with too much focus on one area and not enough in another which ultimately makes a sustainable coffee job impossible.
Today on Shift Break we are going to talk about the importance of recognizing the need for balance and how to achieve it on shift for a great career.
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When the fridge goes down, the ice machine is not making ice, and the display case is making weird sounds...it's time to call a tech ASAP! Well that is exactly what we did in this episode. Today we get to talk to master refrigeration technician, Luke Peterson of The Maintenance Dept.
The point of this conversation today is to give you the knowledge and tools you need to properly care for the other pieces of non-coffee equipment that keep our businesses running well.
Not many of us take measures to install, use, and maintain our refrigeration equipment properly and as a result we end up out of commission and paying huge bills. This can all be avoided and Luke is here to tell us how!
Be sure and subscribe and share this episode with a friend!
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Bar backing is one of the most important roles in the cafe. Either as a dedicated position or as a set of responsibilities shared, when it is embraced and executed well, it makes the whole shift successful.
Today we chat about this critical part of the bar and some mindsets and best practices for bringing it into focus and working as a bar back with joy and pride.
How do you decide which opportunity for expansion is good and which one is not for you? If you are in business you will get offers to open a location in many different contexts but when you are knee deep in operating your first store it can be challenging to see the next step clearly.
Today we are getting the perspective of one entrepreneur who is expanding to a second location within the first year of opening his first shop. Kyle Wells is the co-owner of Torpedo Coffee in Denver, CO and a past Founder Friday guest. I wanted to bring Kyle back to give us insight into his own process of accessing opportunities and making the decision to say yes to one of many the have been made since opening.
Kyle and his wife Falene are are true entrepreneurs and Kyle communicates very clearly and with a balanced perspective about that life and in this interview he lays out a lot of very useful information that you can use to help you on your own journey
In the conversation you will learn:
Links:
Founder Friday w/ Kyle Wells "Before and After"
Need consulting or training? Lets talk!
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Customers impression of your business is going to be filtered through the lens of their past experiences in coffee. Unfortunately that is too often a bad thing and the memory of bad experiences far outlasts the memory of a good one.
Today we chat about the important role we play in delivering positive experiences to re-write the script for our customers and their default view of coffee and service work in general.
For consulting and training contact : Chris@keystotheshop.com
Or visit: www.keystotheshop.com/consulting
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10 Reasons to Love the Customer
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To be successful in retail coffee today you need to be able to give your time and attention to the things that will truly make a difference. The standards for what makes a truly great and sustainable shop is as high as it has ever been.
Today we are going to be talking about five areas that are critical for you to focus on in today's retail coffee industry. I cannot tell you how strongly I feel about the importance of these points as I have seen many shops either fail or succeed based on their omission or adoption of them.
Please take the time after listening to reflect on your situation and see how you can take steps to improve in these five areas:
In this episode you will learn:
www.keystotheshop.com/consulting
Related episodes:
It is easy to be so focused on comparing yourself and your business to what you see in the industry that you end up ignoring your customers and the community your shop serves. Today we are chatting about this all to common mentality and what it looks like to be put the priority on serving your actual customers.
This is absolutely critical! One of cornerstones of running a coffee bar is the ability to stay in tune with the performance of the people that work in it.
Having a system for tracking behavior that is either praise worthy or in need of correction is a must. Many shops that just shoot from the hip when it comes to correction or affirmation end up seeing their best people frustrated and their problem people hide out too long in the ranks, spreading toxicity to the others.
Today we are going to talk about some ideas and steps you can take to make tracking a performance a reality in your cafe so you can have a vibrant and thriving team the knows that the leaders are paying attention and are there to facilitate their success.
In this episode you will learn:
Links to related episodes:
Interested in consultation or training for your coffee business? Reach out and lets have a conversation! Reach out!
www.keystotheshop.com/consulting
The Indian specialty coffee market is growing by leaps and bounds. Today's guests Matt Chitharanjan and Namrata Asthana and their company, Blue Tokai Coffee Roasters, are part of the reason why Indian people are switching from instant and drink more amazing Indian coffee at home and in cafes.
From humble beginnings working shoulder-to-shoulder packaging their roasted coffee in a home's 2 spare rooms - to now 25 cafes, over 300 staff, and partnerships with over 25 Indian coffee estates, Matt and Namrata have been able to build an incredible business that makes Indian coffee the star, creates amazing coffee professionals pouring resources and training into their staff, and successfully introduces the average Indian coffee consumer to the wonders of specialty coffee grown in their own backyard.
I had such a great time talking with Matt and Namrata, I know you will find this to be inspirational especially if you are a coffee pro or business owner in a producing country.
In this episode you will learn about:
LINKS:
More about Matt and Namrata:
www.keystotheshop.com/bluetokai
Which one best describes how staff react to your presence in the cafe? The problem is that, no matter what, management will always be seen in a different light than a barista. The authority managers carry creates a certain tension and that tension either will lead to people fearing you, or being inspired by you. Today we will chat about embracing your authority, breaking down needless tension, and investing in your staff to create a culture that sees your authority in positive light and avoids the all to common fear based authority that drive people from your business.
Related Episode:
This episode was inspired by a talk I gave to the wonderful retail managers of Phoenix Coffee. If you want me to come to your business for training/ workshops./ or speaking contact me here: Chris@keystotheshop.com
What you have on your shelf is of the utmost importance. Tracking it and evaluating its performance is key to being able to make good decisions that will increase the health of your business. Unfortunately we in coffee tend to rely on either our own personal knowledge of what we can see on our shelves or on very rudimentary systems that don't give us enough information. Today we are going to be exploring the importance of accurate counting and tracking of your stores inventory with special guests Pierre-Francois Rio and Albert Amar of SwiftCount.
Swiftcount is a cloud-based inventory management solution suitable for small to midsize businesses in a variety of industries. It has been designed to make taking inventory simple, accurate, and easy to manage. Especially nice is the reporting it gives you on the back-end to help you track the flow of inventory, profitability, performance, and more.
Albert and Pierre take us through why the company was formed and detail a ton of examples, mindsets, and actionable solutions we can take to get a hold of our inventory which is life blood of our shops.
I hope you take notes and apply what is presented today because the importance of this aspect of our businesses cannot be over-stated!
In this episode you will learn:
LINKS:
Need consulting of training for your coffee business? Reach out!
www.keystotheshop.com/consulting
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Being self-aware is over-rated. Why? Because without action following it up, self-awareness becomes useless and quickly creates a situation where we seek scoring status points for being aware and then never do anything about it the thing we are aware of. In short, our self-awareness becomes a vanity virtue and we, and those we lead, suffer for it.
Today we chat about this problem and what actions we can take to take action and complete the self-awareness journey.
The design of your shop communicates the level of care you have for your customer and the community. Crafting the details of your space to evoke a sense of connection to place and a feeling of hospitality that matches the quality is absolutely critical. Today we are going to learn about the specific physical and social dynamics that guests look for in a coffee shop with special guest, Dr. Lisa Waxman!
Dr. Lisa Waxman, Ph.D. is an award winning professor and chair of the Interior Architecture + Design department at Florida State University. Her research includes topics related to the design of spaces that foster community, sustainable design, and design for special populations. She also serves on the board of directors for the Council for Interior Design Accreditation (CIDA).
Dr. Waxman has many scholarly and creative works to her name but we will be focused on one particular study "The Coffee Shop: Social and Physical factors Influencing Place Attachment"
In this study we learn of the 5 design considerations that customers most appreciate as well as specific social dynamics that all together influence whether or not a customer will feel a special attachment to the shop, which in turn inspires return business!
We dive into this study in today's interview and hit on several other great points to consider when you approach the design of your space.
I am truly excited for this episode and the impact it can have on the landscape of specialty coffee retail.
LINKS:
"The Coffee Shop: Social and Physical factors Influencing Place Attachment"
Article: https://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/coffee-shops-build-employee-loyalty-according-to-science.html
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We communicate either care or apathy depending on how we conduct ourselves on the bar. The way we expertly handle all the work necessary to provide a great experience in the cafe is by nurturing a sense of urgency in all we do. This means the difference between run of the mill, low expectation experiences - and amazing service and quality that wins customers and gives life to your work.
Today we are chatting about urgency and the critical role it plays for you and your business.
Inventory & Ordering Magic with ODEKO!
Clean that equipment with Urnex!
Dialing in your coffee can be hit or miss. There are so many factors to consider for the extremely large variety of coffees we are tasked with brewing. Methods, recipes, and philosophies abound yet still the complexity of brewing remains a barrier to getting the best from your coffee. That is the problem that todays guest, 2013 WBC Champ, Pete Licata has set out to solve in his new book, "How to get the Best from your Coffee".
In the book Pete identifies and expounds on 4 fundamentals in brewing: Water, Device & Filter, Grinding, and Variables. He takes readers through his process of identifying key practices and insights into each of those categories that will yield a predictably great cup every time, whether or not you are familiar with that coffee.
In this conversation you will learn:
Go get this book:
"How to get the Best from your Coffee"
www.licatacoffeeconsultants.com
When a customer comes into our bar they expect that they will be taken care of and the best cafes strive to get the details of the guests visit right. Over time though, there is a migration away from the details. The customer begins to be familiar and with that familiarity there is a falling off of the vigilance and attention to detail that was what made them a customer in the first place.
Today we chat about this phenomenon and how we can re center our service to our best customers so they continue to feel cared for.
Inventory & Ordering Magic with ODEKO!
Clean that equipment with Urnex!
The most confusing moments in the day are when the shifts switch. People finishing tasks, gathering items to leave, and others coming in tying to get caught up to speed, get situated, and find their place. It can get chaotic and customers are often left wondering which one of the haired people behind the bar is going to notice that thy are waiting to be served. It rarely goes very well
Unless of course, you have a plan.
That is exactly what we are going to talk about today in this episode. With just a little bit of intentionality and communication we can take what is usually a tangled mess and straighten it out to something that sets up the staff for success and the customer for a good experience even if they do happen to show up during the switching of the shifts.
Links to related episodes:
4 Keys to an Effective Checklist(Shift Break)