How we market our values to potential employees and the consumer is often at odds with what we actually do. In a past episode we called this the “Values – Action Gap”. Question is, what is the result of this gap on the people who sign on with us and believe our marketing only to discover it was insincere at …
It’s Founder Friday! Today we are going to be exploring the story of a ground breaking and standard setting Italian coffee roaster and cafe. Our guest on this last Founder Friday of 2021 is the founder of Caffe Artigianale, Francesco Sanapo! From learning the classic Italian way of coffee working for his fathers coffee bar at age 14 – to discovering …
We love to train our baristas to up-sell as a way to increase our over all ticket amounts. The way we do this tends to be focused more on getting money in the short term for our benefit than helping customers get things they will like which will…
This year the World Barista Championship was held in Milan, Italy. The winner of that competition accomplished not only a historic win as the first world champion to hail from Colombia, but accomplished a life long dream born from a long history of developing as a person and a professional all to better serve others. Today we get to talk …
Are you open minded when it comes to coffee? How open minded do you need to be? What is the difference between being ignorant or dismissive of a type of coffee and simply having a preference? Choosing the right and best coffees to present to…
The pressure and business of the daily work can easily blind us to the impact that we have on the greater reality of the “Industry”. We often think of the industry as existing outside our own shops but the reality is that our we are the industry and ever decision we make as individual professionals and cafes cultivate wha the …
Small businesses like coffee shops are known for their ability to be resourceful and get things done with what they have. However, when you set out to open a shop or create a new initiative in an existing coffee bar, there can be a tendency to…
What happens when we allow ourselves to get caught up in comparing ourselves and our businesses to those around us? The simple answer is that we stifle growth and kill off the joy of what we have and who we are doing it all for. Way back in 2017 we released an episode called “Death by Comparison” that explores this …
This time of year I am thinking about what I am thankful for and also I am thinking about how hard it is to enter into thankfulness vs other more accessible emotions and mental states. So much of this, to my mind, has to do with the all consuming…
Back in 2018 at a Coffee Fest in Baltimore I had the pleasure of meeting and interviewing Stephen Zinnerman, owner and founder of (along with his wife Natasha) The Coffee Enthusiast: A Brewing Company (TCE). Back when we first met on the show floor, he was just starting TCE and since then they have experienced A LOT of growth both …
