Retention and Growth Opportunities

Welcome Cat and Clou podcast. This special episode was recorded in front of a live studio audience during the World of Coffee confonference in San Diego, California past April Hosted by our friends at Cfe importmports, this source event was a panel discussion focused on whereere do we go fromr here chance for business leaders and coffee to tackle challenges facing the industry today. Cat and Clouds own, Chris Baca moderates the panel with cafe and roasting business owners from across the country, including Dayla Gumbari from Gilder Coffee in Portland Ky Solak from Cafe Regina in Puerto Rico and Jeremy Lyman from Birchs Coffee in Brookly Part one this two part recording There's a lot of honest discussion and wisdom shared about what it takes to build a healthy coffee company Cafe business today. Glad you're with us Let's get into it Hey everyverybody All right. thank you so much for coming. For those of you that came last year, we had such a nice time that we decided to do it again I'm Noah from Cafe Imports, by the way. I just want to thank our panelists for coming. Thanks to Chris again for kind of wrangling this all together. So we're going chat have some time for questions and we just thank you for starting your Saturday of EXbo with us. Hopefully you can kick your feet up. I know everyone's probably a little sore from yesterday Voices are rough but spirits are high. So thank you Awesome. Thank you Noah. appreciate that. Cafe Imports for setting this up. This is awesome. everybody for being here. and you for getting up early, even though you don't have to. It's very early. I know the show's early. Everyone's out last night doing stuff So we'll do introductions in a second, but really what we're trying to provide is A forum, some honest conversation, We've got some really experienced business owners here. So we're going be talking all kinds of things Challenges, quirks, ins and outs that come with, running a cafe, running a roastery, growing a business Nothing's off the table, unless you guys say it's off the table. we can hard stop it. but Yeah If you have questions Let us know. We're going to we're going to try to keep the conversation moving and hopefully you find some of this valuable. So My name's Chris. I live in Sant Cruz, California. I co own Cat and Cloud with Jared over there and Charles might be here and our beautiful team over there. We have four stores and a roastery in Santa Cruz and been in coffee since the early two thousands, two thousands, and I'll pass it to you and say hi. Good morning, everyone My name is Layla Barry and I live in Portland, Oregon I have been in coffee literally my whole life. I grew up in coffee. My family owns coffee shops in Seattle I've been in multi unit retail operations pretty much my whole life. And now I own a company called Gilder Coffee Company in Portland. We have three cafes and a roasting operation Um, and that's it Hi, my name is Calli Excuse me. Kali Soak. I'm currently living in San Juan, Puerto Rico Um, with my partner Mario over here. We are the owners of Cafe Regina in Santor. We have been this December will be open for ten years U And yeah, I've been working in coffee since twenty ten, twelve Um, Yeah, really excited to be here. Good morning everyone. My name' is Jeremy Lyman. from New York City. I own a company called Birch Coffee We have fifteen locations, thirteen are corporate owned to our license One in South Korea, which is kind of cool U B in coffee since two thousand nine, been in hospitality since probably the late nineties So familiar with coffee and also hospitality, which is I think one of the things we do exceptionally well And I'm really excited to be here. So thank you all for having us and CI for hosting and It's good to be here. Okay, Mike Oh, it's back Oh my goodness Awesome. Appreciate y' So everyone up here hass been in coffee for a really long time. Maybe I'll pass this to you Layla because you're closest to me and you've got a really deep history, but in terms of You can start retail roasting whatever operations you want. What has been changing for you specifically in the past twelve to eighteen months that seems a lot different than it was, you know three or four years ago So what's different inee coffee retail in the last year versus before? Correct Hm. Well, u I'm I'm fairly new to owning a business. I've only owned my business for two years. so I would say kind of everything is very new and interesting for me at the moment. But U Right now what I'm really focusing on and what I feel like is changing in some ways is I'm Focus on optimizing what we have So coffee shops, for the most part, I mean when I've been growing up in coffee We really just were coffee shops. L that's what we did. We just made coffee, and that was like all we did For me now, I'm trying to expand as much as I can do in my space. So that's longer hours bringing in food and I actually am really excited to bring this up because I feel like there's some opposing opinions on this. But I've trying to optimize what I have at the moment and that wasn't something I was necessarily looking at before. But bringing in as much as possible, expanding hours, even bringing in beer and wine and food and stuff like that has been kind of something that's been important to me for us What are the opposing opinions are anticipating Yeah, Yeah Yeah, let's kick it over there Yeah, I mean, we started with all of that in two thousand nine And now we just do coffee and we bring in pastries. I think our mentality is We want to focus on doing what we do exceptionally well and allowing other people to focus on what they do exceptionally well. And if we can't focus on If I can't do food really, really well, I'm just not going to do it Beere we're also in New York City. So, you know, you throw, you know, dim and you have a bar there's bars everywhere, there's coffee shops everywhere. So trying to be all of these things to everybody, I think is just a wasted effort So yeah, we had a full menu. I mean we had pizza one of our at one of our shops, which was just nuts And it, you know, if a cook didn't show up, I didn't have food that day And so the inconsistency and all these things that would constantly happen, it just For us, it wasn't worth the effort But I think we were afraid to stop serving food because we thought that that was part of our identity. which it was not. And I think once we got over the fear of letting go of that we were able to stop and then our sales actually grew probably past what we did, like our revenue with just coffee and pastries past what we did with food within two months And I think the reason for that is because we had more time And we were able sorry, we didn't waste as much time on taking people's orders and doing all those things. So we're able to get through customers a lot more quickly. So the average order time took forty five seconds as opposed to like two to three minutes. So yes, but Good luck. like. Yeah, so my perspective is a little different. I only have one cafe location and we make everything in house. We have a pretty full menu. We make all of our pastries in house U and we also serve coffee and My outlook on that decision was that Um, especially with shops From where I'm from, u I felt that I was going to one place for coffee and another place for pastries, another place for breakfast. and I wanted people just to come and get everything at our place and be able to get quality food pastries and coffee. And I do think that focusing on quality is important and if you can put something out of the quality that you expect that you should not do it. So we don't have space for a lamination program, for example, So we're not trying to be Um a bakery that serves incredible croissants, but we're able to make really beautiful cakes and things that are a little bit more approachable and that stands us apart from a lot of the shops in our area who are Most of them are buying pastries and have like a very light food program And it's been very successful for us Yeah, it's an interesting conversation because it's almost different demographics, different goals, different ways of approaching it. So three of our stores do not have a kitchen and one of our stores does have a full kitchen. And if you look at it strictly from a numbers perspective to your point The store Top line revenue is about double are other busiest stores. Bottom line revenue is about the same. U so you could look at that and say, wow, there's all this extra work, effort and energy and we're not getting anything from it. becausecause our kitchen's so awesome and we have a few items that have essentially become legendary in our town, The brereakfast burrito being one of them It's been this huge marketing boon for the other stores to where it's just like a flag that we wave. It's like, oh my gosh, there's like a certain amount of people who come to us just to get this thing, which when we initially opened was not our core product, you know, because we came from barista backgrounds We were born out of the early third wave of like really exclusive coffee coffee only. so yeah, it's I think what you're seeing is a representation of reality here. L different people have different needs and businesses. I think with with revenue like that. There's ways for you to improve your bottom line. I think you're right.. Yeah. So if you're looking for someone to come in and give you a hand with dealing with that, know I think When you see that a store is performing and it has really great revenue And it's not profiting the way that it absolutely should be profiting. There are things that you need to be doing to you know, it's Certain things you don't have control over. You don't have control over your rent, right? But you do have control over your cost of goods, your control over labor. There's all these things that you can like really sink your teeth into. And I think figure out how to improve that bottom line. And that's something, you know, I love opening shops. It's like one of my favorite things to do. but I made a commitment to my business partner this year that I am not going to do that, which was very, very difficult for me because I'm so passionate about it and I love it But instead the focus is going to be on how are we boosting the profit and the revenue of the stores that we have that are not performing the way that we believe they should be Because if we can do that, if I do that by a couple of percentage points across three locations, like that's two new locations in the course of two years. You know what I mean? So there's a lot of work that you can do within your own shop currently. I think Um, What's the saying, you can't grow your way to profitability. You can't scale your way to profitability If you're not profiting at a location You can't just keep opening stores thinking, oh, we're going to be profitable because you're not So Anyway. For sure. Yeah. What are you doing when you're when you're assessing that? like where where are you you're starting So we look at we look at revenue, we look at labor those are the first big two kind of points that we want to address. The cogs, I mean, they're generally not crazy out of hand Labor, I think, has a tendency to potentially be a little bit out of hand Um But Yeahes, seeing how we can oftentimes it's just revenue And then you think, how do we raise revenue? How are we increasing revenue? And so you know, it's tapping into the neighborhood, like getting really, really creative and especially engaging the people that are coming into your stores currently and figuring out how you can make them get you more customers because there's there's a lot to that too So we'll send I love a mailer, like not an email mailbox still exists, I'm sure you all know that because you open them up and throw away everything that's inside of your mailbox But we send out We send out cards, like free coffee, come in, it's a new location, come on in, get a free coffee, bring a friend, they get a free coffee. And this stuff, like these kind of marketing approaches totally work And if a store is not doing the kind of numbers that we think it should be, we will do that and we will absolutely get a boost. I mean, people walk in all the time and they're just like, I didn't know you were here. And it's like, yeah, we've been here for three years You know, so it happens, but there are ways around it Lilla, when you're looking at adding to your essentially stack of things that that the cafe offers How are you making the decision between, okay, this is something that I think our guests would like versus something that I just want to provide and having that conversation Yeah, I look at my POS data. So I think your POS is All your customer data is in there So having a really, really an POS that has your categories and everything organized so that you can pull that information really quickly and see what's selling, what's working. And then'm looking at product mix. So obviously as a coffee shop Coffee is going to be my number one selling product. And that's actually my highest profit margin as well. and so I want that to stay really high. But then I'm looking at the total mix. So from coffee, tea, food, merchandise, whole bean, and I'm looking at what percentage of sales each of those are, what is their profit margin? And then kind of like how do I jge that a bit to get more in these different areas? And then ultimately, it's just an ROI on like, okay, if I'm going to extend my hours, that means I'm going to add this much labor. So how much revenue do I have to do for this to make sense? And for me, it's not just make sense break even. I has to be profitable. I'm not doing anything unless it's profitable. If I' if this breaks even, forget it. I'm not doing it. It has to be a profitable move. So when I look at all that and it makes sense, then it's like I'm just going to do it. So extending hours or adding food or whatever it might be. if I can look at it, see that it's going to be profitable, then I'm going to just go for it And if you're adding hours or something like that, how long are you running? Are you reassessing? mononth over month, or how long would you run an experiment before you're like, okay, this is working or it's not working Um, I mean, if it's not losing money, I'm going to keep going and see. if it's not making money, then I'll give it some time. But if I'm I mean, I'm not going to I don't like making I don't like making mistakes. So I generally am very thankful that my experience in coffee has allowed me to make make a lot of mistakes on someone else's dollar and now I own my own business. and so I kind of know what works and doesn't work. So for the most part, I'm making really educated guesses that this is gonna work or this feels like it's gonna make a lot of sense. unless it's tanking, then we're gonna just like write it out for a while. Right. A huge part of creating compelling experiences is by pairing excellent coffee with excellent culture, training, service, and systems. and that's what we help people do in our wholesale partner program. So we work with everyone from single location, independent shops to large scale business dining operations, and The one thing all our partners have in common is that the experience they create for their guests is paramount We work with people who want to bring joy to other people and use coffee as their conduit to do that From in person training to access to recipes, service, barfow, and techniques that make creating high quality beverages as simple as possible, we love to share what makes our retail stores sing so that you can have that same level of impact with your guests. If you want to serve Kat and Cloud, there's a link in the description to our wholesale form or you can go to cat andcloud dot com d slash wholesale Ky, what about your mix? How do you approach that Um We also look a lot at the POS data, but Lately, we really kind of like hit on something u that's working really well for us. We are in a great location two blocks from the beach and we have a ton of foot traffic and the demographic is really great. We have like teenagers that come in for coffee and then we have like eighty year olds who are coming in and getting their pastry every single day And so we haven't really been making a whole ton of changes lately. We have a few menu items that are really popular and kind of like are pulling people in Um, and then Labor wise, we are keeping it within a certain percentage. We do have a lot of people on staff every day. We're like , fifteen employees per day on this location. We need like seven people on the bar seven people in the kitchen and then also U we have a manager on. So we're a pretty high volume shop Um and We Open from eight AM until three thirty We probably could extend our hours and more profitable, but I feel like we're kind of at the maximum that our location can currently handle. and also in regards to what our team can handle because we can hire more, but it would require like a whole other shift And we're already such a big team per day. So So yeah. So When you said you're close to the beach, I thought you were going to say ice coffee buckets and then I was just gonna cringe a little bit Um There so U we are one of our highest revenue location, which is in a train station. It's in like the busiest train station in New York City U That does twice the revenue that our second highest store, but it also it does double the profit of it. So I will say that. what we noticed just as an example, was prices are the same as the other locations. Now in a really expensive train haul, Everyone was coming to us for bottles for water because it wasn't they were inexpensive And so people would come over they'd be like, Ohh my God, your water is so cheap. It's nine dollars like next door. And so Our margins aren't as great there because we're selling water, we're selling more pastries. And so we had this internal conversation and it's just All right, let's Let's increase the price of water just just by enough to keep People still continuing to come in and buy water from us that will add quite a bit to our bottom line, which is it's crazy to think about that. And the other thing, when you're talking about like looking at data Looking at data is so critical because if you were to ask one of your managers or baristas What do you think is the best seller? They will tell you what they think and feel is your best seller and they're probably very far off from what the reality is, bless you So I think it's really, really important to keep your eyes on that information as opposed to just going on off of feel that we sell so many pastry, like so many chocolate croissants So yeah,' that's really important When you're looking at increasing pricing on something, one of the things that business owners talk about a lot is this I have a fear to increase the price on anything. And I know early on We'd have these huge discussions about price and how it's going to impact everybody because we want people to have a good experience when they come in the store. Um But what we' found time and time again is that Almost every time we've done a price increase, it goes just basically unnoticed You know, ninety nine percent of the people. How does that impact your decision? O have you found the same thing? So yeah, we we always give people a heads up always, because when people are buying the same thing every single day They know, like they know exactly how much they're spending Every single time they come into the shop. it's if it's three dollars, they know every day and then if all of a sudden, It's three twenty five. They're going to most people will call us out and ask. So we always post something a couple weeks in advance saying, hey, You may notice over the next, you know, in a couple weeks, we're going to increase our price. justust want to give you a heads up Uh, and The I think I want to say overall, we win. I don't think we lose enough people that that that increase ultimately balances out. I think we actually like the increase helps. I don't think we lose as many people as we're afraid that we're going to lose because people they understand U And I think if you're not doing it like a crazy price increase and just somewhat incrementally U it's it's just in better faith anyway. So yeah I love doing price increases. I'm like so unafraid of doing a price increase. I do a price increase every year, basically around when minimum wage goes up and like our rents go up every year. so my prices have to go up every year U and strategic about what and when and how much and all that sort of stuff. but we don't say anything. ever And u usually maybe a couple people And I think this is very much like where we're based in that sort of thing. but like Maybe a couple people will say something within two weeks, no one remembers what the price was before. So we're very unafraid with price increases. And it works really well for us to just like keep that margin. I mean the reality is is that labor goes up every year, our rent goes up every year. These things are happening, so I have to increase my prices every year The other thing is that Portland is a small, like everybody in coffee knows each other and everyone's friends. And so when I'm going to do a price increase, I call all my friends and I say, hey, it's time for you guys do a price increase And then we all do a price increase. and it and then our drinks are like always the same. We're all just raising our prices at the same time. It works really well Yeah, I'm pretty confident about doing price increases as well. I think that The priority is having the healthy business And um, I sometometimes we'll put a little sign next to the register explaining nicely why we had to do a price increase, but Ultimately, yeah no one really notices. Maybe one or two people will say something, but It's usually along the lines of like that they fully understand why we need to do a price increase Um So I think keeping your percentages in line in order to maintain that healthy business is really the biggest priority for me I heard a statistic at a coffee fest a long time ago that was If you're doing a price increase, It's not until you go over twelve percent that you'll see an adverse loss of traffic from the price increase that you can go up to twelve percent and it won't have an adverse reaction to your traffic anything less than that, you're going to have M more in revenue than you are going to lose in people. So I thought that was a very interesting statistic Yeah. that's been our experience as well is that And I noticed because I've been working in cafe since the early two thousands, a big shift from the, know pre tap to pay era. And now it's We don't have the experience that you're having or people don't seem to be paying attention to what their total bill is. They're just like, I'm out I know I need a latte and if the level of service and the quality is there, it's like I'm going to get a latte somewhere. and prrices at least where we are. so it's a pretty tight range of what people are looking at. I suck at numbers. like I'm very fortunate. One of O of my business partners is a former Wall Street investment analyst and he is like our numbers wizard. so I don't have to think about that much. And I would agree with everything that everybody says is like paying attention to those margins and being very active in managing that is a huge component of running a store that is profitable, or stores that are profitable U One of the things that that we found is, you know Numbers are also a reflection of the culture that you create. You know, you can't run a business only by looking at the numbers. So how are you measuring the cultural success of your business meeting those goals to anybody here U yeah, we do have a big team. and I think Keeping our team happy has been truly our biggest success the biggest compliment And the first compliment that we always get at Cafe Regina is how happy our team looks and They we also have a very low turnover. So the baristas that have been with us and The people in the kitchen, everyone. U we have people Five, seven years. Always minimum one, two years Um And I think that the community really feels that. Our team is very much a part of our community. Everyone cares for each other. I think culturally in Puerto Rico Um, there's a very strong emphasis on family and friendship So that might be different That was something I am not Puerto Rican, but my partner is Puerto Rican And that's something that I learned very quickly there is that family in that community was something that I hadn not experienced U in my family in Pennsylvania. I mean, I have a great family, but just in my community in the states does not compare. So For me Keeping our team happy and keeping Um kind of Not strict boundaries, but we have Um high expectations for how our team behaves with each other and the community and the customers Um, And I think that that may be has been the most important success of our business. Could I ask you some specifics Yeah? Like when you're specifically saying, keeping your team happy, what does that look like? And what are some of those expectations that you set between your team and the guests in the community Yeah. so keeping our team happy. I am Pting I'm very flexible with scheduling Um I know that this is not their whole life and that they have other things going on. as long as the business can run. I'm very flexible with the scheduling. I when Someone comes to me with a scheduling change And they're a very integral part of my team. I'm not strict about saying like, oh, but we need you full time. like we'll make it work and I fit it in Um I also have a manager and an office manager and then myself and Mario and so When someone calls off sick or when someone needs time off, we have two people for us that can cover those shifts. so we don't put any strain on the team where they're now overworked because we're down two people because they got the flu or whatever Um And we also share profits with them. So we have sales goals. The weekends are incredibly busy. and in high season in Puerto Rico when all of the tourists are there, we have a few months that are really heavy. And so if they go over a certain sales goal per day, we will share five percent of total sales with the team that worked that day So it costs me a little bit more time doing payroll because I have to go through each of those days. but I do feel like it makes the team who's working that day really excited to be there. Um and We pay really well. The tips are incredible We are able to share our tips with the kitchen team as well because the labor laws in Puerto Rico are if you the kitchen is serving the food they're able to partake in the tips. So we have a window where the kitchen serves the food to the customer And we will share the tips evenly. So everyone is more or less on the same page Um, and U expectations for how we expect coworkers to interact with each other Um I think this kind of starts early on in the hiring process. When I interview people. really don't hire people based on experience I hire them based on how they make me feel in the interview. and I can most of the time know within a minute or two whether that person's energy is going to fit into our space And I'm very protective of that. and then U I kind of up hold those standards of like, I want to show up at this cafe and be happy to enter and I want everyone to be in a good mood and feel good here because really the only way that I want to run a business is that I don't want to enter and have people in bad moods. And so I'm very aware of that. If someone's kind of off, reach out to them. If they need to go home because they're having a hard week, we'll send them home Um And I do think that that Lately has been a big cultural shift. in the hospitality industry overall is that employees are expecting like truly healthier places to work and expecting lawyers to Um takeake that as really their number one responsibility cri and there's a couple different paths you can walk Cappcrinos on your linea meaker at home You can get the answer, one of our flagship blends on repeat and have an espresso that's so easy to dial in It should be illegal. It's incredible with milk. It's like you're chewing on a nougget that somebody accidentally sprinkled berries on top of. This is what we use for all our milk based beverages in the cafe and we have it on drip every day. Or maybe you like to mix it up. Maybe you spent five racks on your Weber workshops EG one. I get it. fire up a Raster's choice subscription and you can taste the rainbow. We've got different regions, different processing methods, different varieties. These are the coffees that we love that rotate so you never get bored and always have something fresh in the hopper We envision a world in which businesses put culture first. and this is the world that you're helping support by choosing Kat andCloud for your subscription. There's a link in the episode description or you can just go to Katincloud d. com slash subscription. We appreciate you I feel very much beholden to my team.ike I operate every day that like my job is to support my team and what they need and how they communicate and all that sort of stuff. like my job is I'm very beholden to my team. That's how I operate. And I think that as U an older person And I have three kids. My staff is much younger and what I think that they want and where what I want as benefits is not the same as what they want. And so the things that have been really beneficial for my business is we do an annual compensation survey and they tell me what What is a benefit to them? What sort of benefits actually benefit their life? And then we make decisions around that? I'm very, very transparent about our finances. they have access to the PNL. I do an annual I go over our annual report every year, just explain all of our finances. Everything is completely transparent. share anything with them. And it's very, very helpful because they understand where the money's going. I think that there's this misconception that as the owner, that I'm making a ton of money, which obviously the business makes money, but I'm reinvesting all the money back into the business. And there is a percentage that goes to labor and they get to see all of that information And when they say, this is the type of benefits we want, then I work with my bookkeeper who does my financial planning with me, and we put numbers associ associated with all of that. If you want an extra week of PTO for every single one of you a week, extra week of PTO, here's what that cost would look like. And then I say, can we do that this year?an we If we want to do that, then we can't do X, Y and Z because then that puts me outside of the window. So they get to see This is what we want. This is how much itosts Can we do it? Can we not do it? It's still on the table. Maybe we do it next year. If we can increase sales and keep our labor at where it's at, then we can add that in So to me, I mean, the workplace and making sure my team is happy is not my decision. it's their decision. So we work on it together What does that look like for you? You have a lot of stores in a lot of locations. How do youach approach this Um So it's a great question. and I First of all, I love the transparency, which I think is amazing. then also I think bridging the gap between front of house and back of house is so, so challenging. And just culturally, it's really, really hard. And I think that sounds like you're doing an amazing job with it. There are a lot of things I it's I have so much to say about this piece because we do we have a bunch of stores. I think that making sure, obviously, we want to make sure that everybody is is happy they're enjoying the work. I think it's really important I remember that I had a boss at one point also and that I approach it very, very differently because I forget that sometimes. and sometimes in my head, it's just like, why don't they just work as hard as I work? And I have to remember that that is never going to be the case Um I think that making sure that we're keeping the teams tight at each location Customers come in and they love seeing the same people every single morning. It gives them this sense of comfort. And the employees feel the same way. I think retention is a key factor. Like if you have good retention, you're doing something right Um, And then there's other things that we do, which is I think they would you would assume that this is what everybody would do, but I don't know if that's the case. If something breaks, we fix it And what I mean by that is if you like I've been into a coffee shop where someone will say, yeah, the drip machine's down. It's like, oh, when did it go down? this's not one of mine. When did it go down? Oh went down like two weeks ago That's crazy. Like if a refrigerator breaks, you have to fix it because breaks, now they're having to do things that they don't really like to do. and it's just kind of out of it's not out of the wheelhouse of responsibilities, like they' still they still need to do these things, but it just adds this extra burden If something breaks and they can't serve espresso, now they're having to constantly put out fires with customers saying, oh, I'm so sorry My espresso machine is down it just adds to their burden. They feel as though they're not seen and that they're not being taken care of. And so It's little tiny things like that One of the things I think we do, which I think is pretty unique for the industry U we so we give paid vacation, you know for we give PTO for baristas for everybody, but we also match their tips when they're taking PTO So if someone takes two weeks off, we will actually match their tips from what they would be making in the store while they're on vacation. because I think so often people don't take time off because so much of what they're making is tips. and so we We really think people need to be taking a break. and resetting and recharging. So that's something that we've been doing for a really long time. And it seems to be something that people really appreciate And then they stop appreciating it. But that's just. that's just the nature of that's the that's the industry, you know. And so But I think retention is going to be This huge indicator of the kind of job that you're doing within the store Um And we have we have some locations that there are baristas that are. likeike they are waiting in line. to work at that location because it's just the customers are awesome. There's it becomes this community. and I think the last thing I'll say What's what's great about what I think we do is that when somebody walks in, it feels like it's a hole in the wall, independently owned, one off coffee shop. And there are fifteen of them And so if that's what we can do, on a daily basis, then again, we're doing something right Do you make an effort or how do you approach keeping the you know, fifteen locations tight team in each location. How do you make people feel more connected to the whole of what Birch cooffee is? or is that not you know as important for you? It's very important, but it's challenging. Coffee shops are different than offices. Offices, everyone's working in an office. if they want to go have a party, they just all just go have a party Here it's very different. It has to be very coordinated. Right? And we have stores that are all over the city. you have, you know, stores that are just kind of spread out And so it becomes it becomes challenging I What we do is we encourage the store managers to have their own text chains going and they're all asking each other for support and connecting with people that they think may do something better than they do. U So we encourage people to ask for help I think asking for help is one of the hardest things to do, period. And so When we can get them to do that, it's super helpful. We do have people that float between stores. I mean, it' scheduling is very, very challenging Um But I think we also have to remember that people moved to New York City probably from somewhere else They're coming, whether it's to go to school or to be an actor Um But we also when that doesn't work out for them, which generally it doesn't For most people who moved to New York to become an actor We want people to know that there is opportunity for growth. And I think that's another part of the attention piece where If you give people this path to grow within your organization and to just work their way up They're more inclined to actually stay. You know, I had I worked at a job where I was pushing paper for like three years and I was miserable. I was like, I am not supposed to be doing this. thought that that's what the societal norms are for me to do. and it's just I love working in hospitality So I think if we give them that opportunity But yeah, it is challenging to make them all feel like we are. So we'll try to have we'll have at least something annually. We'll do throwdowns and things like that We're starting to do throwowns where the stores will actually be able to compete. as a unit We have a wrestling belt That has like the latte art champ. It's wild. It like has a latte art on the wrestling belt. and it lives in the store of the barista that has won it And it seemed to be staying at the same location for the last like couple of years, but U thingsings like that and just doing things that are different that are out of the orence and engaging and asking them what they want Because sometimes we think we know what they want and we're so far off base because it's not always money It's not always money One of the source, where do we go from here then Big thanks to Cafe Imports for hosting the conversation and to everyone who joined us live in partart two next week The discussion shifts towards leadership, employee development Growth opportunities, e commerce, wholesale, and other lessons these operators have learned while building their businesses Thanks for listening Catch you next week