What a great year this has been! So many amazing people have graced KTTS with their presence, perspectives, and wisdom. It really is an embarrassment of riches when it comes to high value content that can transform your coffee business and career.

This makes it very hard to choose which lessons and insights to feature in this episode but I have assembled 8 clips from past guests that I believe offer timeless wisdom and an opportunity to reflect and give you positive momentum for the new year.

So here is the line up in order of appearance and what they speak on:

1. EP:327 Phuong Tran | Lava Java: Embracing Simplicity
2. EP: 375 Roland Horne | WatchHouse: Having a specific value proposition
3. EP: 366 Chris Baca | Cat and Cloud: Finding your leadership style
4. EP: 336 Selina Viguera | Blue Bottle: Custom training and cafe management
5. EP: 337 Diana Martinez | Cafe Calle: Serving your community well
6. EP: 359 Nigel Price | Drip Coffee NYC: Accessible Excellence
7. EP: 328 Xavier Alexander | Metric Coffee: Resilience, stewardship, and legacy
8. EP 380: Cindy and Cary Arsaga | Arsagas Coffee Roasters: The key to developing a meaningful business

Links to guests websites:

• www.lava-java.com
• www.watchhouse.com
• www.catandcloud.com
• www.bluebottlecoffee.com
• www.cafecalle.com
• www.dripcoffeenyc.com
• www.metriccoffee.com
• www.arsagas.com

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• Click here to book a formal one-on-one consulting call!

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TRANSCRIPT

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

coffee, people, business, cafe, hear, episode, shop, talking, selena, create, guests, feedback, lessons, keys, space, barista, feels, years, leadership, serve

Chris Deferio  00:10

This is keys to the shop, Episode 386. A look back at the lessons of 2022. Well, hey everybody, and welcome to another episode of keys to the shop where we give you insights, inspiration and the tools you need to grow as a coffee service professional. My name is Chris Deferio. And I’m your host for the show. Thank you so much for joining me and tuning in. You know, there’s a lot of content here he used to the shop have been going for about six years now. And I believe we’re maybe somewhere over 700 or close to 700 episodes, there’s an easy way to stay in tune with all of that. And that is to subscribe to the show. All you need to do is hit subscribe. Wherever you’re listening right now, you’ll always be updated with new content. And you can just go to the website keys to the shop.com and search in the search bar or click on the topics already provided under the episodes page. Now keys to the shop on top of being a podcast is also a consulting and coaching company for coffee shop owners who need systems clarity and solutions for running a great coffee bar. Whether you’re just starting out or you just want to level up your current operations. There’s a lot of ways that you can work with keys to the shop, whether on site with Cafe assessments, or regular coaching calls for you, and even your management team. I would love to talk with you about what makes sense for you in where you are right now, in your coffee business journey. I’ve been signing up new folks for one on one coaching for the new year and 2023. And I would love to include you in that group. And all it takes is an email, just reach out Chris at keys to the shop.com. And we’ll set up a free strategy call where we can talk all about what is going on with your business and how keys to the shop consulting can help you again that email for keys to the shop consulting Chris, at keys to the shop.com one of the most rewarding things you can hear a customer say is that this is the best cup of coffee that I’ve ever had. And then even better is when they can get that cup of coffee again, the next day they tell their friends about it, they come in, they get that cup of coffee, and that makes your business that’s the way this works. Right. This is a result of sourcing and roasting, great coffee. It’s also a result of brewing it well. And one of the best pieces of equipment that you can use to brew coffee to its maximum potential is the ground control Cyclops Brewer from voga coffee that has SCA award winning technology that allows you to access a range of extraction of your coffee. With traditional batch brewers you couldn’t access it gives you great control over this process to for consistency and really taking your coffee to the next level. It’s not just an amazing batch Brewer though it also makes batch dice lattes, batch cold brew tea, so there are a ton of extraction potential in this machine that introduces new levels of profitability and workflow. Check them out over at Ground Control dot coffee to learn more about this amazing piece of equipment. If you’re looking to upgrade what you currently use in in the process, upgrade the coffee experience your guests have in your cafe. And I think you should be looking at getting a ground control Cyclops brewer for your shop. Go ahead and check them out again over at Ground Control dot coffee. So all the beverages that you serve in your cafe have to be top of the line when you’re a specialty coffee shop. People expect that you’ve done your homework trained well in what they’re going to be getting no matter what the order from your menu is going to be amazing. And with plant based beverages continually on the rise in this industry, you have to serve excellence and that’s why I think you should be using the barista series from Pacific the barista series is created for baristas, and tested by some of the world’s best baristas before it’s even released to the public. So it stands up to the heat from steaming produces awesome texture for latte art. And on top of that, it creates balance in the cup. So you get this coffee forward, balanced beverage that really just blows people away. And no matter what you choose from the lineup of the barista series, you’re going to have a winner. So check them out over at Pacific food service.com And get this in your store and try it for yourself. I think you’re really going to be impressed. And I’ve always loved using the barista series product on the bar myself through the years. So if you’re looking to serve the best plant based beverages on your bar, then I think it needs to be the barista series from Pacific. Okay, everybody. Well, today we have a very special episode. We haven’t done this in a long time since 2018. Back in 2018, I think was the last time we did a look back at the lessons of the year and, and one of the pieces of feedback I got back then from a listener was that, you know, it’s nice for you to talk about the things that guests shared, but we’d like to hear the clips of what those people were saying throughout those episodes. And so that’s exactly what we have This time around and have a look back at some of the lessons that I think are really valuable from interviews that have been done in the year of 2022. And have assembled eight clips from different episodes throughout the year that I think speak to some really important themes. Now, we’ve done a lot of different podcasts this year, a lot of shift brakes, a lot of founder Fridays and regular episodes, it would be impossible to sort of encapsulate all of the content that has been published on keys to the shop, but I think these eight clips are going to be really fun to listen to. The list of interviews that I’m going to be covering here is going to include Phuong  Tran of lava Java, Roland Horne of watch House, Chris Baca of cat and cloud Selena Viguera of Blue Bottle coffee. We also have Diana Martinez of Cafe Calle Nigel price over at drip coffee in New York City is Xavier Alexander at metric coffee in Chicago. And then finally we’re going to be hearing from Cindy and Carrie Arsaga of our Arsagas Coffee Roasters in Fayetteville, Arkansas. And so we’re going to start off with my friend Phuong Tran of lava Java and Ridgefield, Washington. Phuong has been running this coffee shop for over 20 years now, and is a past us Barista Champion, a real pillar in the coffee community. And in this conversation for founder Friday, we talked, of course all about her journey into coffee and ownership of this cafe. And one of the themes throughout this talk was that she likes to keep things simple for the business, you know, in 20 years, lava Java, it has a small footprint, big impact, but small footprint in terms of you know, numbers of cafes. And that, of course, is all by design. So let’s hear from Phuong Tran, of lava Java,

PHUONG TRAN 06:55

since I started operating llama Java, I realized that I needed to make my life simple, because I was putting in more work. So every time I add on more work, I have to decide how I’m going to fit that in to my schedule, I keep a really busy schedule. So like, if I’m going to add something I need something else is going to have to go right, just that I only have a limited amount of time, and I want to do everything, um 100% or more. So it’s like, I don’t want to do anything mediocre. So the mediocre stuff have to leave my leave. So that’s how i That’s why everything has to be simple for me to make it work and to make my life enjoyable. Yes, it’s a choice that I make. Because I don’t want to give up everything every all of my time just to expand and span and just work and not be able to enjoy it.

Chris Deferio  07:56

Well, I hope you go back and listen to the whole episode, obviously a lot more than that short clip. But I really appreciate that point about simplicity. And having time for your life, not putting all of your life into your business. This is something that you can design from the beginning. And it’s something that was designed into the way that she runs her business, let’s make sure that we’re giving ourselves enough margin in the operations of the business to actually live life outside the business. And that will obviously help you avoid burnout and can help you to be happier and more fulfilled in the business and in life. So if you want to learn more about lava Java, it’s lava dash java.com. And be sure to look them up on Instagram as well. Now for the next one, we’re going to be talking to our friend Roland Horne of watch House coffee. This was our founder Friday episode 375. And in this particular clip, we’re going to be talking about creating clear values and not trying to be everything to everyone. And something that was a part of the watch House journey, and discovering their values and the pillars of how they’re going to build their business and purposefully grow and scale with this kind of philosophy at their heart. Roland shares a lot of great insights in this episode, of course, you should listen to the whole thing, Episode 375. But let’s hear from Roland about how they derived their operational values through becoming more specific about their value proposition.

ROLAND HORNE 09:26

I kind of came to realize very clearly and very quickly that actually you have to have a value proposition which is really identifiable to the consumer. And I think where we previously had been in our business had been one in which we were looking to try and sort of be everything to everybody but inevitably you end up becoming nothing to anyone basically it’s kind of ultimately my takeaway from coming back from traveling and you know, I remember vividly being at an amazing some people will know this. coffee brands, anthracite and here were Korean brands principally out of Seoul but they also are in JG which is a holiday and effectively off the south coast of Korea and I remember going to this other place on a Tuesday afternoon. And it was literally like a barn with with muddy floors. But but it was that true kind of juxtaposition, a classically Korean juxtaposition of sort of high end design meets really authentic experience. And therefore there was kind of like muddy floors, Stoney floors, but like the most fantastic setup, especially setup. And it was in the barn in the middle of nowhere. I remember sitting there thinking to myself, you know, and it was packed, packed on a Tuesday afternoon, I remember thinking to myself, like, you know, people travel for quality. And it’s really obvious and clear that what I’m doing is being best in class within their respective spaces. They’re not in they’re doing alcohol, they’re not in they’re doing, you know, restaurant food in the evening that you know, and that’s fine if some people can do that. But my takeaway from coming back from traveling really was like, if you want to be best in class in your space, you need to ensure that you’ve got the sort of myopia and the myopic approach towards, towards, you know, where you want to be to ensure that there is this very clear laser focus on on your value proposition. So we came back, and really, that really was a sort of a watershed moment for us. So our value proposition as a business, you know, again, born out of my frustration as a consumer was that I really wants to have a space, which fundamentally overall felt authentic and real. And what that meant when it came to the actual product and deliverance of the products was that, clearly, we had to have a fantastic coffee offering, in terms of what we were doing, and something that we believed in, coupled with some very, very good food. Obviously, we’re a coffee lead business. But clearly our feed proposition is important. I think the sort of the general approach that I saw, globally really was that feed was kind of seen as a as an annoyance. And as a and it is difficult, right? We all know that it’s a difficult part of the business, but but it was seen as being, you know, sort of the unwanted child and I and again, as a consumer coming back to that point, again, as a consumer, I don’t want that I want to go in somewhere great coffee and great food. Thirdly, ultimately, the spaces that we’re in, in terms of how they’ve been designed ergonomically, you know, have they been designed for love, not just for, you know, the capital expenditure and budgets and all the rest of it. And I think, again, certainly within the UK space, and I would hazard a guess and say, most places in the world, there was always this sort of race to the bottom about ensuring that you build spaces that are good enough, not really loved. And I think so from our perspective, it was really about designing spaces that people really wants to be in again, care about that authentic point I made earlier. And then finally, and most importantly, the, the culture and the people that are in those spaces. So, you know, I think this mantra of being best in class, it’s been the hardest thing for us to try and to try and permeate throughout the business. Because, you know, I’m not saying that we are the best in the world at what we do. But I can definitely tell you that we aspire to do that. And I think that really resonates with the teams, and the colleagues that we have at our business and therefore, you know, I think having that, that that feeling translates that onto the customer. So it’s a regular thing that I receive from customers that come to me and say, you know, I really love this place because of x, y and Zed. But always the commonality is that the staffer that are really amazing and really engaging so so really the answer the question is we try and combine all of those four key things into our business, we refer to them in our business as modern coffee, which is our, which is our encapsulation of what we believe coffee should be. Now it’s not just about specialty grade and being quality. And it’s not just about certain aspects of the four things I’ve just said, it really is about the holistic approach towards taking towards them. All right, so we refer to that as multi profit.

Chris Deferio  13:39

All right, well, you can’t be all things to all people, sort of a continuation of what we heard from phone with Roland, taking that and saying, at scale, we’re going to base our business on this very specific philosophy. That’s our philosophy. And we won’t be all things to all people. But what we do, we’re going to do very, very well. And we’re going to do it at scale that was a theme to that role and talked about big does not have to be bad. And you can build a large business that expands beyond the four walls of your one Cafe, and still have that consistency, and even the simplicity and what you focus on, along with excellence. And as Roland says, and another part of this episode, you can make sure these spaces are well loved. And of course the people that work in them and frequent them are well loved as well. So that was episode 375. With Roland Horne, you can go to watch house.com To learn more about watch House. They’re going to be opening their new york city store sometime in the summer of 2023. So definitely stay tuned for that. Now next up, we’re going to hear from Chris Baca of cat and cloud. I was so excited to get Chris on the show. And then this episode, we’re talking a lot about his leadership philosophy and how that has been developed over the years of trial and error and a journey of maturation that we all go through as leaders yours when we work in coffee, in this particular clip, he’s talking about how you can easily kind of copy and paste other people’s way of doing things. Or you can step out in confidence and just be yourself and develop your own leadership style, and how you can put your operational values into action. So those two things are very powerful ideas. And so let’s hear Chris Baca from Episode 366. talk all about values and coming to your own style of leadership in the cafe,

CHRIS BACA 15:32

diving in deeper to our own thoughts and figuring out what do we really mean by this. So if we say, we want to have a place where, okay, people come to cat and cloud, and one of the goals we have is like, you should be better off for your experience here. And I can articulate really well now what I mean by that, and it’s something that we experienced throughout our whole coffee career, and you touched on earlier and asking the questions about what it feels like to open this business door, we’ve been working in this industry for, you know, decades, collectively, a really long time. And then we got to this place to where we wanted to do something different. And I knew I can make coffee, I knew I could run guest service. But I don’t know how to do any of these other things that people call soft skills, you know, how do I give and receive feedback effectively? How do I communicate with other people that are different than me? How do I have these hard conversations, I didn’t know how to do any of that. And if you come to work at Cat and cloud, one of the things that we have on offer is regardless of your position, where you’re at in the company, these are things that are really baked into our culture. So you leaving better than you came in. Even if you’ve only been here for three months, six months, you will have this bag of skills that you can take anywhere and apply that clarity is a little bit newer, because if you if you rewind the whole situation and say, Okay, we believe in this place where we leave people better than we found them. What does that mean? And does that mean? You know, people come to work, and I’m just happy all the time at work, does that mean I come to work and works really easy. We’re having fun. And you know, we had this era that we joke about in Canton cloud, where we call it the positive vibes era. Because one of the things that we had said in the past with guest service is just that, you know, people come people come in and leave happier than they were when they got there. We’ve done our job. And I think, on a base level, that’s true, but how we communicated that and how it got misinterpreted is like, Dude works, just whatever, man, whatever I want to do, it’s cool. Like, we’re good. I’m not really working that hard. I’m just as long as I’m smiling. I’m doing a good job. And that’s not true. So those are kind of the that was like the challenge in how do we clarify those things. And that’s just one example. But we kind of did that for our whole, our whole value structure, and really, really taking the time to explain and think ourselves about what are we what are we trying to say here. And then the the personal part of it was when you’re, when you’re just doing something, you don’t know how to do it very well, you know, your vision is bigger than your skill set. And that was true for me. I mean, it’s true for everybody. But I really could see that happening in you know, say coffee, I was falling in love with coffee, I was falling in love with this thing. And, again, we talked about that DVD, this isn’t an era where I can go and just, you know, look up on YouTube and find things that just didn’t exist, it wasn’t there. So I’m, you know, slow burn trying to learn things, and I have good taste, but I can’t execute on that tastes. And so you copy other people, right? I watch your video, I’m like, oh, Chris is doing this. I’m gonna copy him. Oh, Billy’s doing that. I’m gonna copy him. I’m asking people. And I’m not really developing my own style yet. That takes a little bit of time. And the same thing happened with leadership and running a company is like, I don’t know how to do this. Right? What? What is a leader? Okay. I guess I’m professional. I guess I’m buttoned up, you know, leaders act a certain way. leaders say certain things and I’m reading books. I’m digesting all this information, but I’m not really sure how to apply it because I just need more time under my belt and practicing it. But the biggest kind of mindset shift that I had that really helped me was okay, there. There is many ways to be a leader as there are leaders. Sure, there are some fundamentals, but everyone has their own specific style, a style that’s going to be more natural to them. And once I stopped trying to be all of these other things, and I could just say Hey, I’m Chris. This is how I’m leaning into, into my work. It felt it just started, things started to work, things started to click a little bit more. And that was, you know, kind of one of those revelations that shouldn’t be a revelation. Oh, I’m like the best version of myself when I’m acting in a way that’s true to who I am, like, seems like a no brainer. But it’s really easy to forget in this world where, you know, like, it’s feels like we’re all trying to be someone else.

Chris Deferio  20:30

All right, I love how Chris just said it made everything easier when you stop trying to be somebody else. I mean, you can take inspiration from and lessons from other people. But you have to make things your own. You have to make your values specific to your cafes, of course, and you have to make your leadership specific to your cafes. Really great points there. So Episode 366, with Chris Baca, of course, cat and cloud, learn more over at cat and cloud coffee.com. And as a continuation of this idea of values and Applied Leadership in the cafe. The next conversation is Episode 336, where we talked with an amazing Cafe manager over at Blue Bottle Selena Vergara in in Salinas episode, we’ll label this as a masterclass in leadership, because Selena has been applying not only the standards of bluebottles, training procedures to the cafe, but also putting it into color, as she says, so you have this form, that is a template of training that applies to the Blue Bottle Company. But then you’ve got managers and leaders like Selena who come in and color it in and make it unique to that particular group of people, how you can combine the systems and the culture together to create a great result, to care for your staff very well through feedback, and really solid training and present leadership. So let’s hear from Selena Vergara on practical Cafe leadership that’s being applied at Blue Bottle.

SELENA VIGUERA 22:02

I tried to stay really by the book when it comes to like the programmatic stuff. And now me giving things life and adding the color is again, like, I think one of the things that I’m most proud of now is where I would have been, where I would have wanted to be the one always training because I know how I would teach, I know what I would say, but allowing my shift leads and the rest of like my like learning coach team in the cafe, giving them the opportunity to find their footing. And so me leading through them. I’m always I, that’s, I think that that’s my main thing is like, even though I delegate something out, I’m still watching over it, giving feedback, making sure that they’re covering the bases that I would myself, but giving somebody else the opportunity to step up in their leadership and find their own leadership style. So so we have a formula for onboarding. And I tried to follow it as much as possible, because there is success to it and breaking down. And then I incorporate a lot of like Cafe specific things like bar flow. And I really tried to be mindful about how to break that down. Because I played basketball in college. So I always like joke that it’s like my triangle offense. But it really is, it’s the use of the space, right? Like, I have a very small bar, and we try to maximize our movements, try to maximize support. We’re always like fine tuning this until people get it. And we reached the point where, great, I’ve planted my seeds now just like watering and let them grow. I think one thing too, about giving something life is somewhere in our people leadership training, we learned feedback methodology. And that was also mind blowing to me. And that has, that was another turning point, I think in my career was understanding, communication, and effective communication. And that and all of these concepts, Bronwyn and I have actually been sharing access, or I don’t know if we’ve shared it at se before too. But this became like, like, this became like my motivation. Again, I found something that’s so fascinating to me. If you think about how you communicate something, you know, like the way that you package something determines, really, whether or not you came you came across effectively or not, or if you just shut somebody down. And so feedback methodology was introduced, maybe five years back, and I again, wanted to make this thing a living, breathing thing. So in our cafe every single day, I created what we call post shift feedback. And so the team would then understand how to use feedback, practice the concepts that they’ve learned. It helped build our relationships with each other. It helped leave stresses at the cafe or we work them out here and so We do push a feedback everyday, midday, the morning crew before they leave. And since that was like the heaviest part of the service, we after side work, sit down and talk about the shift. And it can be like a basic format of what did we do really well together today, what were some opportunities, and also an opportunity to give each other like positive and constructive feedback. And this is also like know, how everyone in the team is constantly growing every single day, we’re constantly fine tuning. And so I know it probably sounds exhausting on my end, but, but these these are the things that motivate me and give me life is being able to have input, being able to like, let them know that I am observing, and I am present, and I am here and committed to them growing. And you know, like the whole team, we have a really great relationship with each other. And I think there’s one of your questions, how do you know that it’s successful, and that’s one of the biggest things like feedback my cafe will always receive, whether it’s from higher up blue bottle, you know, when they come to visit, or, or shared regulars is, every time they come into the shop, the team is always so happy and there’s a different energy and they feel it and everybody’s focused on work. And that that feels my heart. I feel like when I hear that kind of stuff, I know that my work and all of the exhaustive. coaching conversations individual conversations have been have not been for nothing, because they’ve been felt.

Chris Deferio  26:32

All right, great lessons here from Selena. The whole episode is just packed with a really relevant and practical takeaways that I think will translate very well to the way you do things on the bar, just the philosophy of introducing feedback and being present and always thinking and being present as a leader always thinking about how to improve things for your staff in the cafe as a way of producing a better result for the customers. And the business overall, is just timeless, and amazing. And Selena delivered a lot of wisdom in Episode 336, of course, blue bottle coffee.com, where you can find all the information about locations, and where you can go to enjoy that coffee and really grateful for people like Selena, and the example of leadership that she says for the community. Now speaking of community, Episode 337 was a founder Friday featuring Diana Martinez of Cafe Calle in South Central Los Angeles, this story covered how she founded this company on the sidewalk of her largely Salvadorian neighborhood yelling a hope for people to come get coffee from this table on the sidewalk and growing from there to her new brick and mortar in this story is a lesson about how important it is to meet a community where it’s apt to not come in and just kind of assume. But you know, Diana is a part of that community and was very sensitive to create something that was a value and accessible and felt like it resonated with that community. And that’s exactly what she did, and is doing. And it serves as a great lesson for all of us. So let’s hear a little bit from Diana, about the importance of connecting truly connecting and serving the needs of your community.

DIANA MARTINEZ 28:17

I graduated from high school down the street from where our shop is. And so I know people that work with teachers and just staff that still work at the school. And so they you know, they they spread the word they they’ve you know, been super supportive. I’ve slowly met other people in the neighborhood that have been wanting a coffee shop in the because there’s nothing in that area. There’s literally like a Starbucks maybe two miles away. But in that area, there’s nothing there’s no coffee shop, there’s no like little gathering area. And so for them to like have something like that. They’re just like, Yes, this is what we needed. This is what we wanted. And so that’s the feedback that I’m getting back with the regulars they like, you know, they like the vibe, they like that it’s such a welcoming space. And that they like that we are kind of they can see themselves in me or in my employees or in my family, my team, you know, because we don’t we didn’t start just we didn’t come in and like you know, with all this money and like all this fancy equipment. We came in super humble. We did introduce ourselves to the neighborhood. We are very respectful of the neighborhood and, you know, make it very clear to the people that live in the area that we’re there to serve them and that we our space is very, very community based because we are from the community.

Chris Deferio  29:58

Well once again, I think this is a great lesson in it’s one that we have to keep in front of our eyes where it’s easy to keep our attention on larger coffee conversations but lose focus on the people it that we’re immediately serving. Diana is serving that community and doing so in such a great way, fulfilling a need and creating relationships and truly making a difference, because it’s all rooted in service to the people of that community. So again, that was a founder Friday, Episode 337. With Diana Martinez of Cafe cafe, you can go find out more information about Cafe chi by visiting cafe cafe.com, visit them on Instagram at Cafe cafe. Now up next, we have Episode 359, where we talked with Nigel price of drip coffee in New York City. And Nigel story is one of going through the process of building a business plan. And eventually just kind of sitting on the business plan and then working in coffee for 10 years to really learn about the business that he eventually got into as an entrepreneur founding trip. And the lessons that he learned in his tenure as a barista before opening the business taught him all about accessibility, and that he didn’t want to be engaged in gatekeeping, but wanted to make things accessible to people and serve them with amazing coffee. And so that’s what this clip from Episode 359 with Nigel price is going to reference is the gatekeeping that we can tend to do with the geeky nerdy tech forward focus of our service sometimes. And what we can do instead to make things more pleasant for the consumer. So let’s listen in as Nigel price explains more.

NIGEL PRICE 31:44

You know, you can drill down so deep in really nerd out with somebody in regards to what they’re drinking or what, what you just made for them. But we don’t typically don’t do any of that unless the guests themselves prompt those questions. I think initially it was very coffee centric or coffee focused. And we slowly started turning into approachability and accessibility and kind of taking down some of the walls. I mean, even honestly, I think if I wasn’t so passionate and gung ho about opening my own shop, I don’t know if I would have lasted that long and coffee because there was so much gatekeeping at the time, it was a lot of folks who were like, This is how it was done. This is how you should do it. If you’re not doing it this way, then you’re not real coffee professional. Yeah, you know, I was lucky enough to work with some real coffee professionals who really I attribute a lot of how I carry myself now to them.

Chris Deferio  32:51

What’s the difference between a real coffee professional, and one who is kind of a what say what you mentioned earlier, sort of a showy coffee professional, I’d say a little insecure, meet that gatekeeping professional,

NIGEL PRICE  33:05

you know, as corny as it sounds, it’s the person who actually acknowledges the guest in front of them. The person who is more concerned with what this person wants to drink are the mood that this guest is in as opposed to imposing what they want on the guests. It’s amazing to me that in 2022 We’re still having these conversations about people who may want to drop a milk in there pourover you know, I’ve worked with people who would constantly say things like, Oh, when I opened my shop, I’m not even gonna carry milk. So no one puts milk in a coffee, I’m not gonna are like, we’re not going to have sugar or no, we’re not going to I mean, and I totally get it. I totally get it. I think what most people don’t realize is that you kind of have to bring people along. Most people who drink coffee are completely casual coffee drinkers. So it’s a waste of time. It’s a fool’s errand almost to try to turn every guest into this specialty coffee, you know, Maven at this I think we I think we lost touch in terms of ultimately our job is to provide a service where making a cup of coffee for the guests and they’re paying for it. Now that said, I love the opportunity to talk somebody through a pour over and actually explain to them how you know what these farmers did to get these coffees from the farm to their washing station. There’s tons of stories you can tell but I think what separates a coffee professional from The arrogance of wallets actually still exists. But the arrogance of someone who kind of wants to, I don’t know, May May, it could just be some people need to self validate, as well. So I don’t know. I mean, we can speculate for forever on that.

Chris Deferio  35:17

You know, I have to tell you, I am guilty of this just as much as anybody, your passion for coffee and what you’re serving and the story oftentimes eclipses the customer’s need, and even disallows you from seeing that they might just be checked out, and that you’re kind of just talking to yourself sometimes when you do these things. And I love Nigel’s approach to make things focused on the person and if they engage you, you can engage back and that’s really a cool path to go down. But presenting the excellent coffees in an accessible way, truly something that our industry can always improve on. And I’m really grateful for Nigel and his example, you can find out more information by following drip at drip coffee, NYC. Also the website drip coffee nyc.com. Alright, so now number seven. Here, we have Xavier Alexander of metric coffee in Chicago. Xavier’s episode was raw, vulnerable, and packed with a lot of life lessons and depth. And that’s what I really loved about this. In particular, we touched on the subject of resiliency in what it is we’re actually trying to accomplish in our businesses. For Xavier. It’s all about stewardship, and creating impact that creates legacy that inspires others to follow in the footsteps of something that’s highly relational, positively impacting. I love his display of thankfulness, as he talks about resiliency in the face of a lot of trials and challenges getting to the place where they are today. So let’s listen in as Xavier Alexander, co founder of metric coffee talks about resiliency, stewardship and legacy.

XAVIER ALEXANDER 37:09

But I gotta say, like, however difficult our our past experiences were, I am really grateful for that. I mean, I couldn’t, you know, if you were to ask me that question, five years ago, or seven years ago, when bills were due, and the lights were gonna get turned off, and we barely had money for milk, I would probably give you a different answer. But I also when you when you said resiliency, I know the word and I always remember like, oh, yeah, I see that we, you know, I guess I am a resilient human, not just by my own mind, it’s just, I was inspired by other people at origin, which is why the supply chain working with producers is really important to me, because I see how resilient they are in their adversity. And that inspires me. So that going back to 2015, in that visit, and meeting producers, and, and when they visit you and invite you into their home, and they cook the very best, the, you know, the very best food that they have available, because they’re so honored to have you that, to me was just one of the most humbling experiences. And I am blessed to have that experience, every single trip every single time I visit them, it feels like coming home, it feels like visiting family. And I don’t come from a personally I grew up extremely poor, and I don’t have a large family. So that to me has been it’s kind of filled a part of my like a hole in my life. And so that’s why the work I do is really personal to me, and it’s really important. And yeah, I am very grateful today for the for those, I would say I don’t want to call them terrible experiences, but more so like those really challenging experiences. And that that is, I guess, like, without putting it out there in the world, like that’s my personal mission that’s like what I strive to do is to be able to be in a position where I have the power to pay it forward by paying a better price to the producers and also really addressing them in a way that feels like they can feel dignified. They feel like the humanity in the process, not just like a you know, and I’m going off the subject here and I apologize because I am a father of three children. So I kind of like gravitate like my conversations change from you know, I’ll be talking about pizza and then I’ll be talking about a diaper and then you know, talking about coffee, so I’m my I’m all over the place. But what we’re talking about here is what I am most passionate about and I’m most proud of and my hope is that as I learn more and more how to be a better human and be a better A steward of my position is that I can inspire my children to not not follow in my footsteps but more so like be inspired by like, Hey, Dad got to do this like, and I want to support them in whatever mission and sort of endeavor they go into. But I would love my proudest moment would be for my children to to also have a serving heart, if you want to call it that, you know, like be just be able to have be inspired by others and be able to serve.

Chris Deferio  40:32

Okay, well, the question to ask ourselves, of course, is, what am I going to be remembered for? What is this business going to accomplish past my involvement in it? How are we stewarding the relationships that we have been given, it’s easy to think about 510 years from now, and always be thinking about the future and neglect to steward the present, and to really zero in on the fact that what we’re doing is going to have a ripple effect. And so how we tread will inevitably impact others. And so if we choose our steps, wisely, our decisions, etc, how we use our energy, that will create a better world for everybody. And I just love Xavier’s heart for the deeper parts of working in coffee and doing business with people. So I hope you were inspired to if you want to check out the great work being done at metric coffee, go to metric coffee.com. Also, be sure to follow them on Instagram at metric coffee. And now we have the last clip of this look back at the lessons of 2022. And I think I’ve saved one of the best for last. We’ve had some really great quotes from past episodes. And this was the latest founder Friday of November of this year. It was with Cindy and Carrie are Sega the founders of our Saygus Coffee Roasters in Fayetteville, Arkansas, actually the cafe that I learned to love coffee in so it was an old RCA goes location on Greg Street in Arkansas, that I first learned to love coffee. And it’s so special to be able to interview Cindy and carry on this show all these years later. For me it was back in 1999. But for them, they started this company 30 years ago to the month that their founder Friday, aired in November, so November of 1992. And it was just such an honor, both professionally and personally to have them on the shows. They talked about how they founded this business and ran this business with a desire to create connections to deliver something that transcends the transactional. And they’ve kind of followed their own rhythm and pattern. As they created and ran and grew, our say goes, they infuse everything they do with so much heart and so much character. And that’s what’s really inspirational about this. And at the end of the episode, I asked, What advice would they have to people that want to create something great with their coffee bars. And here we’re going to listen in right now to what I think is a fantastic answer. And why I wanted to end on this today. So let’s hear from Cindy and Carrie our Sega about what they think you should do to create a truly great coffee business, and a truly beautiful community around it.

Cindy and Cary Arsaga 43:21

Pay attention to what has heart and meaning. Oh, that’s

43:24

good. We, we have four tenets from a book that we read early on. Can you remember?

43:33

Well, but this is particularly really because it’s so easy to get caught up in the numbers and looking at sheets and systems. But you know, the reason reason I got into the coffee business anyway was it was a people connection. It was you know, always when I had to make a decision. I kind of always used that tenant well what has hurt me what, which which way do I want to go and that kind of led me down the path that I’m on and it’s really hard to give advice, specific advice or you should do this or don’t do this or you know, this is a good color, whatever I mean, I just don’t do that. I’ve talked to several people over the 30 years that have wanted to open up you know, coffee shops you know and I talk about you know, the most important thing is creating a place where you want to work assuming that you’re going to be working where do you want What do you want right what’s with you know rocks your boat that how you’re going to decorate it they know they’re gonna go find things at the flea market do things that you like that you know and have the music you enjoy playing there. Want to have a chess set this make it make it yours. Yeah, I

44:51

think that the cookie cutter aspect of a lot of places now is makes them feel cold. And and it’s okay. I mean somebody He might not be inclined to create a space from nothing, but, but whatever it whatever represents you and what you bring to your business, you know, foster that. And so that you’re connected so that it’s important to you, and you know it, we’re not all the same, but it would be worthless to us to have a business that wasn’t, didn’t represent who we were just wouldn’t be any fun. It’s not just for money, it’s to make your life fuller.

Chris Deferio  45:39

Well, if there’s any advice that I think that we can end this gear with, it’s that we should pay attention to what has heart and meaning. And as Cindy said, at the end here, you know, we want to make our lives fuller. And that might look different for you than it looks for somebody else. But that means that you just have to lean into heart and meaning more, what is it that you’re doing this for? And who are you doing it for? How are you doing it? Is it with integrity is this something that is meaningful, really, truly meaningful. And in order to do that, sometimes you might need to slow things down, you might need to slow down. And that’s okay. It’s not really about competition with others in your industry. It’s about being true to the heart and values and community that you serve. We heard it from so many people today, in different formats, you have to be people focused, you have to be your people focused. And I mean, like the immediate people that frequent your shops, the people who work with you, those are the people that we serve. And it’s easy right now, especially, we’re operating at such a frenetic pace. But if we can ground ourselves, if we can slow things down a little bit and take a bigger view, and pay attention to what has heart and meaning going into the new year, then I think our decisions, and the way we spend our time, the way we speak, the way we show up for others and ourselves is going to be that much more full of life and life giving. So thank you to all of my guests this year on keys to the shop, I’m happy that you decided to listen today to hear these lessons from the year that I thought were really great to bring back entering into 2023. I’m super grateful for all of you, there are so many milestones. Keys to the shop has reached we pass 2 million downloads this year. The show is just getting up to about 700 episodes, and there’s just a lot more to come. And I’m truly looking forward to 2023 You know, I love meeting you, the listeners to keys to the shop. And one of the places I do meet a lot of listeners in person when I get out these days is at Coffee Fest and I go to all the coffee fests I’m one of the staff. There I speak I present, you know, lecture on leadership and management and design, cafe layout and stuff like that. And on top of that, I am the head judge for the latte art competition, their coffee fest. So if you go to coffee fest.com You can see the shows coming up for 2023. You have New York, Louisville, Kentucky, Anaheim, California, and then Orlando, Florida. So check those shows out and use the code keys to get 50% off your registration. When you register you and your team at the show you experience. The trade show. Of course you interact with amazing vendors that will help supply your coffee shop with excellent products and services. You also get free and excessively priced trainings, workshops, lectures, panel discussions all set up for a variety of topics that will help you build a thriving retail coffee business. You also have competitions like latte art and cold brew and the beautiful coffee community that you get to meet and be inspired by in the process. So I really do hope to see you at one of these shows. Check them out over at coffee fest.com. And with that, that is the end of our show today. Again, thank you so much all of you for your support of keys to the shop over this year. 2022 Super excited about 2023 We’re just putting the pedal to the metal even more, and I’m glad you all are along for the ride. Don’t forget to share these episodes and subscribe to the show. Follow us on Instagram. And of course I hope that this episode has truly given you keys to the shop