Taking what you have learned over many years of working in coffee and creating your own roasting and cafe business is no easy task. It requires a strong enough "why" and a vision for the people that the roastery and shop wil serve. Cody Gordon did just that with the founding of Cerberus Coffee in Jacksonville, Oregon.
In this conversation Cody and I discuss the journey taken from barista, manager, wholesale manager, and finally roaster and owner. We talk especially about the recent scaling of Cerberus, and the impact it has on how Cody and the team can serve their community and make a difference through community, good business, and great coffee.
Links:
https://cerberuscoffeeco.com/pages/the-wizard-cat-project
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The magic baristas can render from coffee relies on not just their skill and the incredible efforts from producers and roasters, but also on the quality of the equipment they have to work with.
Over the past couple decades the quality and consistency of machines has improved in massive ways. Much of the reason for this lies with the way machine manufacturers and baristas have evolved their relationship on to the other. Today we will explore this evolution with the VP of Synesso Espresso Machines, Ryan Willbur!
Ryan Willbur has been working within the Specialty Coffee Industry for over 15 years. His career has taken him from barista, to Account Management, Marketing, Sales, and Leadership. Along the way, Ryan has been a competitive barista, a coffee roaster, and has spent many hours learning and sharing about the technical workings of espresso and coffee equipment.
Ryan is currently the Vice President of Sales & Marketing for Synesso Espresso Machines. In this role, he travels the world, building relationships with customers, and working to understand coffee culture in various markets.
From his perspective, people are the core of the coffee industry, and Ryan believes wholeheartedly in building relationships as the best means of doing business.
Today we are talking about the how machines, barista culture, and the industry have been shaped by the way we communicate and serve each others needs along the value chain.
Links:
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Between the moment a farmer hands over their crop, to the moment a barista hands a customer a cup of that same coffee, there is a complex system that will either bring hope and equity to those most vulnerable, or reinforce the hopelessness that is too common with those who cultivate the coffee we love. Today's guest grew up seeing this hopelessness on her families farm and decided to do something about it.
I am so excited to welcome to the podcast a leader in innovative trade models and the owner of Peixoto Coffee, Julia Peixoto Peters!
Julia Peixoto was born and raised in a coffee farming-family in Southern Brazil watching her father and relatives give their lives to produce the best coffees they could but, when it was time to sell those coffees, they were at the mercy of the ups and (mostly) downs of the commodities market.
Julia wanted to do better for her family and farmers in her region, changing the equity of the coffee trading game from the middleman to the farmers, who bear the brunt of the risks involved in farming and harvesting coffee.
Julia and her husband Jeff left their promising corporate careers to start Peixoto Coffee in Arizona in 2015 to produce, import, roast, and bring to the market coffees farmed at their own family-farm, challenging the status-quo of the market and the traditional profiles expected of Brazilian coffees.
We discuss:
Links:
Related episodes:
Hire Keys to the Shop Consulting to work with you 1:1 to transform your operations, quality, and people. Schedule a free discovery call now!
https://calendly.com/chrisdeferio/30min
Thank you to our amazing sponsors!
Get the best brewer and tool for batch espresso, iced lattes, and 8 minute cold brew! www.groundcontrol.coffee
The world loves plant based beverages and baristas love the Barista Series! www.pacificfoodservice.com
The coffee shop environment is filled with more that just coffee. It is a swirling mix of emotions, thoughts, expectations, communication, action, interpretation of actions, and everything in between. In other words...Relationships. The hardest part of coffee is the people they say. And while it may be true, it is also true that people are integral to coffee and to the joy and fulfillment of the experience.
On today's annual thankfulness themed Shift Break we will be talking about how the relationships and resources we have now are both a weight of responsibility but also a necessary fuel that we and the business are designed to run on in order to find sustainable success.
Happy Thanksgiving!
-Chris
In my consulting work through KTTS Consulting, management and leadership structures are one of the main conversations we have. Working to create clarity, understanding, and systems for success in leadership has a compound effect on the rest of the business. Would you like to work with me 1:1 to help your cafe thrive in quality, operations, and people?
Click below for a discovery call and lets have a conversation!
https://calendly.com/chrisdeferio/30min
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Why do we overcomplicate things? Certainly details matter with SOPs , recipes, etc...but communication to our customers and staff can often be more confusing than helpful in delivering the impact and purpose we intend. The coffee shop is a dynamic place with a ton of inputs and noise swirling together. Having a simple clear way to communicate will help cut through the noise.
Today we will be exploring how to do just that, and in turn how simple communication and messages can bring big results for cafes. I am happy to be joined today by author and expert in simple messaging, Ben Guttmann!
Ben Guttmann is a marketing and communications expert and author of Simply Put: Why Clear Messages Win — and How to Design Them. He’s an experienced marketing executive and educator on a mission to get leaders to more effectively connect by simplifying their message. Ben is former co-founder and managing partner at Digital Natives Group, an award-winning agency that worked with the NFL, I Love NY, Comcast NBCUniversal, Hachette Book Group, The Nature Conservancy, and other major clients.
Currently, Ben teaches digital marketing at Baruch College in New York City and consults with a range of thought leaders, venture-backed startups, and other brands.
In our talk we cover:
Links:
Buy the book : Simply Put! www.Benguttmann.com
Listen to these episodes next:
Hire Keys to the Shop Consulting to work with you 1:1 to transform your operations, quality, and people. Schedule a free discovery call now!
https://calendly.com/chrisdeferio/30min
Thank you to our amazing sponsors!
Get the best brewer and tool for batch espresso, iced lattes, and 8 minute cold brew! www.groundcontrol.coffee
The world loves plant based beverages and baristas love the Barista Series! www.pacificfoodservice.com
Do we care what our customers think? If so, how do they know? When you talk to almost any operator of a cafe you will hear them say that they value the customer and their feedback. The question though is how are the customers supposed to deliver it and are you making it easy for them to do so?
On today's Shift break we will be talking about how we can pursue customer feedback in a clear and meaningful way that builds trust, connection, and a sustainable coffee shop.
Listen to these next!
In my consulting work through KTTS Consulting, management and leadership structures are one of the main conversations we have. Working to create clarity, understanding, and systems for success in leadership has a compound effect on the rest of the business. Would you like to work with me 1:1 to help your cafe thrive in quality, operations, and people?
Click below for a discovery call and lets have a conversation!
https://calendly.com/chrisdeferio/30min
Thank you to out sponsors!
Custom branded apps for your coffee shop: www.espressly.co
The best and most revered espresso machines on the planet: www.lamarzoccousa.com
You hear it everywhere. Owning and running a business is hard, taxing, a battle even. And while there is truth to this, it is not the whole truth. In the entrepreneurial journey we have accepted, with no degree of irony, that it is a miserable business bringing joy to our communities through coffee. Don't buy it.
Today we are going to be talking about the transformational role that confidence, celebration, and joy play in not only helping your business succeed, but in allowing you to find fulfillment and life through the running and growing of it.
This is an incredibly important truth that needs to be given priority in our daily lives. Lets embrace confidence, celebration, and joy together through coffee!
Listen to these next:
Hire Keys to the Shop Consulting to work with you 1:1 to transform your operations, quality, and people. Schedule a free discovery call now!
https://calendly.com/chrisdeferio/30min
Thank you to our amazing sponsors!
Get the best brewer and tool for batch espresso, iced lattes, and 8 minute cold brew! www.groundcontrol.coffee
The world loves plant based beverages and baristas love the Barista Series! www.pacificfoodservice.com
High expectations are fine as long as they are coupled with the resources and tools to actually achieve them. No position in the cafe gets the short end of the stick of resourcing than the cafe manager. As baristas watch their manager lose their mind, they in turn pass on the opportunity. Come be a manager where there is more stress, more work, less time to do it, and more expectation. No thanks.
Today on Shift Break we will be discussing how you can set up your manager with the structure and time they need to thrive in the role. Who knows, maybe people will actually see the position as an attractive role to aspire to rather than one that receives their pity.
In my consulting work through KTTS Consulting, management and leadership structures are one of the main conversations we have. Working to create clarity, understanding, and systems for success in leadership has a compound effect on the rest of the business. Would you like to work with me 1:1 to help your cafe thrive in quality, operations, and people?
Click below for a discovery call and lets have a conversation!
https://calendly.com/chrisdeferio/30min
Keep the conversation going! Listen to these episodes next:
Thank you to out sponsors!
Custom branded apps for your coffee shop: www.espressly.co
The best and most revered espresso machines on the planet: www.lamarzoccousa.com
A coffee shop cannot survive without having excellent operational systems and tools that bring together and make consistent all the craft, values, and magic we want from a cafe experience
Just like the work of a barista, 75% of what we do in ownership and leadership has to do with the things that happen off bar. The foundations of business. How we create, employ, and refine structures means the difference e between realizing potential and courting disaster.
Today we are going to be talking with the great Laila Ghambari. An expert in operations and coffee shop training and management, all about achieving what she calls operational excellence.
Laila Ghambari has nearly 20 years of specialty coffee experience. She won the prestigious title of United States Barista Champion in 2014 and was elected member of the Executive Counsel for the barista guild from 2012-2016. Her experience is in running multi-unit retail operations, training and education, as well as team and organizational leadership.
This year Laila founded "by Laila Ghambari", her coffee and consulting business that is Providing Simple Tools Every Coffee Shop Needs to Achieve Operational Excellence.
In this conversation we cover:
🔑Laila’s family legacy of coffee
🔑Pursuing education and training
🔑How winning the US barista championship helped her mindset approach to achievement and
🔑Lean management and the role of gemba kaizen
🔑managment of multi-unit retail
🔑Defining operational excellence
🔑Tools to begin and tools
Links:
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Quality is subjective. What is not subjective though, is that quality matters. That begs the question, how should we define quality and pursue it in an age of coffee where we want both excellence and inclusivity of expression of preference.
Today on Shift Break we will be talking about why quality still matters and how we should think about what, how, and for whom are we crafting these coffee experiences.
Related episodes:
The best espresso machines in the world!
Custom branded mobile apps for your shop!