Keys To The Shop : Equipping Coffee Shop Leaders

Interested in leveling up your coffee shop or setting up 1:1 coaching?

401 : Founder Friday! w/ Jack Benchakul of Endorffiene Coffee Bar in Los Angeles Mar 23, 2023

Show notes

Creating a moment of delight and excellence is what we all want to do when we set up our shops and make coffee for others. We also want to be delighted ourselves with the things we create and feel a sense of pride in each and every drink. Given the range of beverages we serve, that is pretty rare to find. But at least one place manages to strike this balance and has been doing so with singular focus for the past 8 years.

Today we get to talk with the owner of the Award winning cafe, Endorffeine in Los Angeles, CA, Jack Benchakul!

Jack is a biochemist who turned to small business to find more meaning and fulfillment in work. This set him on a path to pursue craft first through the pastry arts and finally in the coffee industry after one life changing cup of coffee.

Jack learned all he could at home then as a barista before starting Endorffiene with his cousin Ttaya Tuparangsi in 2015 with the goal to pursue a balanced and refined coffee experience unlike any that was currently available. Jack's integrity, knowledge of craft and science, and constance in this pursuit has not only gained Edorffeine nority from famous food writers like Jonathan Gold and Bill Addison, gained Endorffeine, but also recognitions such as "Best Coffee Shops in the U.S. from Food and Wine and on of the "101 Restaurants, Dishes, People, and Ideas from The LA Times. Beyond these things, Endorffeine is firmly established in the coffee community and garners the respect of their industry peers world wide.

In today's conversation with Jack we will be exploring the story of Endorffeine and their unique approach to creating beauty, balance, and community one cup of coffee at a time.

We cover:

Jacks Journey from Biochemistry to pastry to coffee
The coffee epiphany that set his course
Establishing Endorffeine and its mission
Staying consistent over time
Pursuing customer facing work as an introvert
Values based Menu curation and refinement
What is the "deep fight"
Pride in operation and ownership
What the pandemic revealed
Connecting with customers
Advice to other owner on integrity and patience

Links:

www.endorffeine.coffee

Instagram: @endorffeine

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Stop Glorifying Chaos Mar 22, 2023

Show notes

Ever find yourself saying or hearing things like "Well, we go through it!" or "That was so crazy, welcome to Saturdays!" or "That's just the way it is here!" and many other phrases that draw attention to some very difficult situation of common happening on the bar? I certainly have and often these things are said with a ting of resignation by people in positions who may actually have the ability to do something about it.

In today's Shift Break we will be talking about how we tend to glorify and resign ourselves to chaos and dysfunction and why we find ourselves embracing these problems as inevitable or even rites of passage, versus using our influence and abilities to try to innovate ways to alleviate needless stresses.

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400 : The Values of Speed and Service w/ Jaime Denney of Scooter's Coffee Mar 20, 2023

Show notes

The market place of coffee has seen rapid expansion of drive thrus and concepts focused on quick service. There is no doubt that customers appreciate speed when it comes to their coffee, better than speed though is speed plus service. These are the areas that today's guest is focused on delivering and continually enhancing in one of the country's fastest growing fast coffee concepts, Scooter's Coffee.

Jaime Denney joined Scooter's Coffee as the Vice President of Franchise Operations in November of 2022 to focus on initiatives aimed at increasing the speed and effectiveness of drive-thru service. Denney is a highly energetic and passionate, results-oriented operations leader with a proven record of achievement in the quick service restaurant industry. She has experience leading large cross-functional teams, delivering business results, and implementing foodservice solutions.

Prior to joining Scooter's Coffee, Denney was Vice President of Brand Operations at Jamba, where she worked cross-functionally with teams to drive franchise operational excellence and deliver quality training and support. She helped successfully migrate Jamba to a new POS system and implemented digital enhancements to set franchisees up for success during the COVID-19 pandemic. Denney, who has 15 years of coffee industry experience, also held leadership roles with Starbucks, Tropical Smoothie Café and Aramark.

With 613 locations and no sign of slowing, there is a good chance you have a Scooters Coffee near you.

Today we are going to get an inside look into what makes this company tick, the values that drive its drive thru empire, details about how Scooter's Coffee operates, and what we in the independent cafe community can learn from our corporate counterparts.

I hope you all enjoy and learn a lot!

We cover:

Choosing markets for expansion
Training managers
Setting goals for speed
Competing in the local market place
Managing costs amid inflation
Keeping things simple to help speed and service
The limits of speed as a value
Service and consistency
Serving franchisees
Wages, benefits, and culture
Networking and tools for refinement

Links:

www.scooterscoffee.com

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More Power To Them Mar 15, 2023

Show notes

Your staff need you to empower them. We like to think that we do this but many times it amounts to surface level communication and resourcing that is out of step with the day to day reality your staff live.

In today's Shift Break we will be talking about a few questions you can ask yourself that will help you truly empower you staff to succeed in their work and give you peace of mind in the process.

Related Episodes:

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Custom branded mobile apps for your shop!

Interested in leveling up your coffee shop or setting up 1:1 coaching?

399: Encore Episode! How to Change Things in the Cafe Mar 14, 2023

Show notes

From the first day you open the doors to your coffee shop one thing confronts you as a constant. Change.

In order to run a healthy business we have to embrace changing things in the cafe in order to provide for the needs of the people and the operations that support them. The problem we run into though is when we act as though change is a nusance and in response we either refuse to change things, or we rush changes in order to get them over with. Inevitably this results in a lot of needless frustration and lost potential.

On today's episode we are re-airing an old episode (episode 80 for Feb of 2019) talking about how we should go about changing things in the coffee shop with respect to what your people need and in a way that makes the change actually stick.

I would encourage you to listen to this episode and have in mind a couple changes that you know need to be made in your shop. After listening, take the first step to make these changes using the workflow and see the difference it makes!

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Are You Open? Mar 09, 2023

Show notes

This is not just a question asked by an over eager customer haunting the front entrance 10 minutes before you open the shop. It is also a question a customer asks to themselves when they encounter a lack luster, apathetic, and seemingly disengaged staff and space.

In today's Shift Break we are going to discuss how the way we p[resent ourselves and our cafes to the customers will convey a lot about whether we are really and truly open.

Related episodes:

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The best espresso machines in the world!

Custom branded mobile apps for your shop!

Interested in leveling up your coffee shop or setting up 1:1 coaching?

398: The 5 Biggest Mistakes Coffee Shops Make Mar 08, 2023

Show notes

Coffee shops can have everything going for them on paper, but it is what is practiced in the day to day that determines whether you are successful. The truth is, mistakes happen. They are unavoidable. Certain mistakes, though, have a greater likelihood of causing damage and ruining what we have built.

Today we will be talking about 5 things that I would consider some of the biggest mistakes that coffee shops make. Each of them are not simply isolated accidents, but practices that we are prone to develop if we don't work hard to avoid and replace them with something better.

We will discuss:

Comparison vs inspiration
Isolating and not evolving
Under resourcing the important things
Failing to develop intentionally
Passive leadership

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RoR #19 : A Vision of Sustainable Roasting w/ Arno Holschuh of Bellwether Roasters Mar 02, 2023

Show notes

Sustainability can become more of a reality if we determine to use the tools at our disposal wisely. Perhaps even more so if the tools we use to roast evolve to better address the many concerns we have in the coffee industry. That is what Bellwether hopes offer. With their all electric, ventless coffee roaster their goal is to empower any business to roast incredible coffee in-house and do so in a way that leads efforts in sustainability.

In this episode of Rate of Rise we are going to be talking with, Arno Holschuh.

Arno Holschuh is the Chief Coffee Officer at Bellwether Coffee, which manufactures the world's lowest-carbon coffee roaster. A veteran of the industry, he was one of the first employees at Blue Bottle and went on to manage their coffee operations and product. For the past eight years, he has been working with Bellwether to build a delicious, profitable, and sustainable future for coffee roasters, farmers and drinkers.

In our conversation we discuss important and direct questions about this new tech and its impact on both sustainability efforts and traditional coffee roasting.

My goal is that you leave this conversation with more clarity and better informed about your options when it comes to creating better sustainability outcomes through technology.

In our conversation we cover:

Scaling and wholesale
Trades offs and energy
Who the machine is for
What Bellwether aims to solve in coffee
Tackling objections
Responsible consist sourcing
Innovation and collective effort
Evolving traditional roasting

Links:

www.bellwethercoffee.com

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Slow is Fast? Mar 02, 2023

Show notes

You have heard this many times from managers and trainers alike. The idea being that if you want your work to go at a quick and consistent rate then you have to work with purpose.

On today's Shift break we will explore this idea and its validity to produce results we want to see on the coffee bar, as well as how it can be used to produce results that we do not want to see.

Related episodes:

Visit our Sponsors!!!

The best espresso machines in the world!

Custom branded mobile apps for your shop!