Info

Keys To The Shop : Equipping Coffee Shop Leaders

A coffee podcast providing coffee shop owners and leaders, with insights, inspiration, and the tools you need to grow and advance your coffee business or coffee career. We learn from experts both in and outside the coffee industry as they deliver specific, practical, and actionable advice about ownership, optimization, profitability, barista work, employee culture, management, scaling, leadership, personal development, and anything else that will help you achieve success in the coffee shop.
RSS Feed Subscribe in Apple Podcasts
Keys To The Shop : Equipping Coffee Shop Leaders
2024
March
February
January


2023
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January


2022
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January


2021
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January


2020
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January


2019
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January


2018
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January


2017
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January


All Episodes
Archives
Now displaying: December, 2020
Dec 31, 2020

Last Shift Break of 2020! As this year wraps up and we set our sights on the next there are a few things I believe we would greatly benefit from focusing on in order to build resiliency and a thriving business. Today we will be discussing a few of these things and why focusing on them can transform your shop for the better!

 

Related Episodes:

Systems as Care

Bridging the Values-Action Gap

004: Leadership in the Cafe : 10 Steps to Being a People First Leader

257 : A Conversation w/ Morgan Eckroth of MorganDrinksCoffee!

170 : Why your Inventory Counts w/ Albert Amar and Pierre-Francois Rio of SwiftCount

223 : Building a Financially Resilient Business w/ Andrew Carroll

202 : Mastering your Finances and Accounting w/ Keila Hill-Trawick of Little Fish Accounting

 

 

Need consulting or coaching? Reach out to KTTS Consulting!

Chris@keystotheshop.com

 

Elevated batch brew and so much more!

Ground Control Cyclops Brewer

 

Your Own Branded App!

www.espressly.co

 

 

Dec 28, 2020

This year has been a mental and emotional test of endurance like no other. Add to the pandemic the already existing stresses and pressures in the cafe as customer face professionals and you get a perfect storm of both feeling the need for mental health wile simultaneously feeling helpless to actualize it. Even though mental health has been top of mind, it can be hard to move it from a "Should" to "Must" and as we look forward to the new year at the close of this incredibly challenging one, resolving to prioritize our mental health will make a monumental difference both for us personally and the people we lead. To help guide us in this pursuit we are going to be talking with Dr. Lara Pence!

Dr. Pence attended graduate school at Widener University where she obtained her Doctorate Degree in Psychology (PsyD) and her Masters in Business Administration (MBA). In 2010, she opened her own private practice, Chief Mind Works, in Dallas, TX.

Early in her career she worked primarily with individuals suffering from eating disorders, anxiety, and depression both through individual work as well as intensive group workshops. She later branched out to work more specifically with entrepreneurs who were looking to elevate their leadership skills and execute more efficiently at work, and professional athletes who needed support in understanding the mind/body connection and its impact on performance.  In 2018, Dr. Pence began consulting for Spartan Race, the largest endurance racing organization in the world to implement a curriculum that provides a mental pathway to change and transformation, and began hosting a weekly video series, Spartan MIND. Dr. 

Pence also works at the Unbeatable Mind Coaching Program alongside Mark Divine, and has recently launched her own product – LIGHFBOX – a tool used to strengthen mental health and wellness. She also began a new podcast, Curious Minds with Dr. L, where she and her guests use curiosity as the cure for stagnation. 

She has served on the Board of Directors for various non-profit organizations, and has been featured in various publications, media outlets, and podcasts, including Good Morning America, the BBC, Glamour, Vogue, WebMD, Psychology Today, and the Huffington Post.

In today's conversation with Dr. Pence we are going to explore many absolutely critical topics that will set us up to prioritize our mental health in the new year. 

This is the perfect way to end the year and I hope you get a lot out of this episode!

We will be covering: 

  • Why dont we prioritize our mental health
  • Taking stock of our relationships
  • Making mental health practices stick
  • How knowing our values guides our success
  • Self and situational awareness
  • The masks we wear
  • Matching values to circumstance
  • What are common things that degrade our mental health
  • Setting boundaries
  • The value of hard conversations 
  • Negativity bias
  • Checking in with ourselves and others

 

Links:

www.drlarapence.com

Instagram

 

Related Episodes:

201 : Igniting your Curiosity w/ Cody Gough

213 : Coping with Corona using Emotional Intelligence w/ Andrea Hoban of Oji Life Lab

176 : Harnessing Emotions at Work w/ Andrea Hoban of Oji Life Lab

095 : Dealing with Stress in the Cafe w/ Wellness Counselor, Joe Sanok

111 : Self Care 101: Taking care of yourself while taking care of others

 

Need consulting? Reach out! chris@keystotheshop.com

 

The BEST in commercial coffee equipment!

www.prima-coffee.com/keys

 

Want the best plant based beverage for your coffee drinks?

www.pacificfoods.com/food-service

 

Dec 21, 2020

Connection with our audiences has never been more important. How do we go about truly delivering value and building a strong community that resonates with or message all while staying true to our core "why" ? Well, today we are going to be talking with and learning from someone who has cultivated all of those things and has created the largest online coffee following in the world as a result. Today we get to have a conversation with Morgan Eckroth of MorganDrinksCoffee! 

Morgan is a barista and content creator, having worked in the specialty coffee industry for 3.5 years. With over 5 million followers across TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram, she shares her love for coffee through comedic customer service sketches, vlogs about her job, and educational videos. Morgan also released a line of coffee in collaboration with Wrecking Ball Coffee in December 2020 and is working to continue creating a link between baristas and their customers through a shared love for coffee and a dash of humor.

In this conversation we will be exploring Morgans beginnings in the industry as a barista and competitor, then diving into the story of how MorganDrinksCoffee was born, how it has grown, and the insights and lessons Morgan has learned along the way. 

When we look into what the future holds for hospitality, we need to fully embrace our distributed online audiences and create for them a specialty experience just like we do for those who frequent our in-person shops. Morgan shares a great deal of wisdom to help get us where we need to be as an industry. 

We cover:

  • The evolution of MorganDrinksCoffee
  • Managing both cafe life and the social platform
  • Creating a message that connects people
  • Lessons in marketing
  • Community inspiration
  • Attracting the younger generation
  • Balancing and curating the message at scale
  • How to approach digital hospitality
  • Not using celebrity as leverage 
  • Balance of sales and story in marketing 
  • Quantity of fillers vs quality 
  • Advice to baristas and owners 

Links:

https://morgandrinkscoffee.com

Instagram

TikTok

 

Morgan Recommends these IG accounts:

Glitter Cat

Erica Escalante 

Umeko Motoyoshi

 

Related Episodes:

242 : A Conversation with James Hoffmann

222 : How to have Difficult Conversations about Race and Justice w/ Kwame Christian

COVID-19 Focus : Erica Escalante, The Arrow | Acting Quickly, Leading Well, and Fighting for Connection

097 : Founder Friday w/ Erica Escalante of The Arrow Coffeehouse (Now Cafe Reina)

215 : Communication and Marketing Master Class w/ Spencer M. Ross, PH.D.

210 : The Future of Retail w/ Doug Stephens | CEO of The Retail Prophet

 

Need consulting? Reach out! chris@keystotheshop.com

 

The BEST in commercial coffee equipment!

www.prima-coffee.com/keys

 

Want the best plant based beverage for your coffee drinks?

www.pacificfoods.com/food-service

 

 

 

Dec 19, 2020

One of the most counterintuitive ways to make progress in the right direction just may be slowing down your decision making and response time. We are bombarded with pressure everyday from all sides to make decisions about a myriad of subjects both large and small. Often we will resort to making quick decisions in the moment that we might regret later. In today's Shift Break we will be   talking about why slowing your your response time can create a greater likelihood for good decisions down the road. 

Related Episodes:

184 : Making Great Business Decisions w/ Dave Stachowiak

181 : Organizational Self-Knowledge

252 : Founder Friday w/ Klaus Thompson of the Coffee Collective, Denmark

253 : Mindsets that Sabotage Success

 

Need consulting or coaching? Reach out to KTTS Consulting!

Chris@keystotheshop.com

 

Elevated batch brew and so much more!

Ground Control Cyclops Brewer

 

Your Own Branded App!

www.espressly.co

 

 

 

Dec 18, 2020

It's Founder Friday! Today we are visiting the wonderful city of Bangkok, Thailand as we have a very interesting and inspiring  conversation with Varat Vichit-Vadakan.

On top of being the 2014 barista champion of Thailand, Vichit or "Tae" as his friends call him, is the founder of Roast Coffee & Eatery and Roots Coffee Roaster in Bangkok, Thailand. Over the years he has expanded to many other food and beverage concepts but always with the coffee at the center. At Roots Coffee Roaster they source 100% Thai coffee and they are heavily invested in creating a virtuous circle from farmer to consumer through their direct relationships. 

In our conversation we get to hear about the early years where many important and hard lessons were learned that informed how they conduct business today. 

This is a fantastic conversation that shines light not only on the great work of Varatt and his team, but also on what is happening more and more at origin as consuming markets in coffee growing countries are gaining momentum. After this I m sure you will want to pay a visit to to Bangkok and taste the awesomeness for yourself. 

We discuss: 

  • Beginnings in coffee from a marketing career
  • Hard lessons form early failures
  • Tapping into success through listening
  • Coffee culture in Bangkok
  • Evolution of Thai coffee
  • Building a customer base over time
  • Expanding and evolving form past experiences
  • The keys of service style and consistency 
  • The consumer market in Thailand
  • Complete circle value chain in Thailand
  • Sourcing and serving Thai coffee
  • Meeting your customers where they are

Links:

www.rootsbkk.com

Instagram

 

The BEST in commercial coffee equipment!

www.prima-coffee.com/keys

 

Want the best plant based beverage for your coffee drinks?

www.pacificfoods.com/food-service

 

 

Dec 17, 2020

Making decisions on the way things go on the bar can seem like a pretty easy thing to do once you are convinced as the leader or owner. The trouble is when you do not make your decisions with empathy and deference to the barista and how they will perceive it or how they are even able to accomplish it. This lack of regard and impatience produces a lot of stress and bad blood that can be avoided. Today we will talk about the difference that deference can make when we make decisions that impact the lives of those we employ. 

Related episodes:

080 : Changing things in the Cafe : A workflow for Refinement

Good baristas are not born, they're made

 
 
 

Elevated batch brew and so much more!

Ground Control Cyclops Brewer

 

Your Own Branded App!

www.espressly.co

 

 

 

 
Dec 14, 2020

When we talk about equity we often we are just scratching the surface of what is going on deep in the structure of the coffee industry. Today's guest, Phyllis Johnson has dedicated much of her career to bringing to light the deeper generational inequities that hold people back. Her new book, "The Triumph: Black Brazilians in Coffee" profiles two families whose inspirational stories are rewriting the narrative for future generations of marginalized people in coffee farming. 

Phyllis Johnson is the President and co-founder and CEO of BD Imports, and In addition to owning and operating a social enterprise over the past 16 years, has served as lead international consultant to the United Nations International Trade Centre, Women in Coffee Program. In addition Phyllis founded The Coffee Coalition for Racial Equity, a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to build greater racial diversity and equity in the U.S. coffee industry.

In our conversation today we will be discussing her new book but also diving into the issues that were a catalyst for this book. As we enter into a new year after such a strained and tumultuous 2020, our sights, more than ever, should be on how we can use our positions in the industry to help others, like those featured in this book, rewrite the narrative and create more opportunity, visibility, and representation across the whole spectrum of our global coffee community. 

Among many things, we discuss:

  • How we see black people in coffee
  • The importance of landownership
  • Creating space 
  • Interrupting the pattern
  • Visibility and opportunity
  • Representation
  • Choosing coffees based on story and support
  • Using our buying power for good

Links:

https://www.bdimports.com

https://coffeeforequity.org

 

Related Episodes:

183 : Exploring Diversity w/ Phyllis Johnson

153 : Exploring the Peace Trade in the Congo w/ Mighty Peace Coffee

116 : Understanding Gentrification w/ Dr. Stacey Sutton

139 : Founder Friday w/ Kusanya Cafe co-founder, Phil Sipka

245 : A Conversation with the World’s Youngers Q Grader, Frankie Volkema, Founder of Joven Coffee

COVID-19 Focus: Perspective form Burundi w/ Jeanine Niyonzima-Aroian, JNP Coffee

Starting a shop -or- want to level up you operations? KTTS Consulting can help!  |  Email me: Chris@keystotheshop.com

 

The BEST in commercial coffee equipment!

www.prima-coffee.com/keys

 

Want the best plant based beverage for your coffee drinks?

www.pacificfoods.com/food-service

 

Dec 10, 2020

Oooh boy - This is a phrase frequently used often in coffee to determine whether or not an employee is exceptional or not. It is also a mentality that we use on ourselves to determine if what we are doing is worthy of praise or earning our keep. Going above and beyond may be a nice and generous thing to do, the problem though is when becomes a tool to unfairly judge employees and to unfairly judge ourselves. I and many others have suffered under unreasonable standards that have been both imposed by bosses and self-imposed out of insecurity.

Today we will be discussing how this manifests and what to do to avoid "going above and beyond" to the detriment of yourself and others. 

Related Episodes:

200! : From Tragedy to Triumph! Navigating Change w/ Talor Browne of Talormade, Oslo, Norway

253 : Mindsets that Sabotage Success

074 : The Life Changing Power of Good Authority w/ Jonathan Raymond

221 : Building your People Program w/ HR Consultant Dana Goodwin

095 : Dealing with Stress in the Cafe w/ Wellness Counselor, Joe Sanok

 

Elevated batch brew and so much more!

Ground Control Cyclops Brewer

 

Your Own Branded App!

www.espressly.co

 

 

 

Dec 7, 2020

This is an especially important time of the year for coffee shops. The holidays are where our hospitality skills are put to the ultimate test.  In the midst of COVID lockdowns and never before seen strains on small businesses, the holidays are a great opportunity for us to more deeply establish our commitment to each other and to the customers through how we show up in the cafe.

In today's episode we will be discussing some important points to consider as we enter into this season of holiday hospitality and how they will give you, your staff, and your customers the best chance at having a wonderful holiday season in spite of the present circumstances. 

We will cover:

  • Empathy based action
  • The gift significance
  • Self-care, planning
  • Organization and planning
  • Attention and connection
  • Honoring guests
  • Checking in with and listening to staff

Related Episodes:

058 : Holiday Hospitality

045 : Simple, Powerful Hospitality w/ Philip Turner

084 : Crushing the Rush : Tips and Best Practices for Busy Times

111 : Self Care 101: Taking care of yourself while taking care of others

176 : Harnessing Emotions at Work w/ Andrea Hoban of Oji Life Lab

Episode 32: Making Order Out of Chaos

Episode 57: SOPs FTW

 

Starting a shop -or- want to level up you operations? KTTS Consulting can help!  |  Email me: Chris@keystotheshop.com

 

The BEST in commercial coffee equipment!

www.prima-coffee.com/keys

 

Want the best plant based beverage for your coffee drinks?

www.pacificfoods.com/food-service

 

Dec 3, 2020

Sometimes, when we are convinced that something needs to change in how we do things, the biggest obstacle is the pain of the change process. In effect it is the discomfort of detoxing and introducing something new or better that prevents us from seeing any substantive change take root. Today we are talking about this problem and how pain in the process a necessary apart of helping us make positive change. 

 

Related episodes:

200! : From Tragedy to Triumph! Navigating Change w/ Talor Browne of Talormade, Oslo, Norway

228 : Cracking the Leadership Code w/ Alain Hunkins

224 : Essentialism: Focusing on what truly Matters w/ Greg McKeown

176 : Harnessing Emotions at Work w/ Andrea Hoban of Oji Life Lab

 

 

 Elevated batch brew and so much more!

Ground Control Cyclops Brewer

 

Your Own Branded App!

www.espressly.co

 

1