Specialty Coffee Retailer is a publication for owners, managers and employees of retail outlets that sell specialty coffee. Its scope includes best sales practices, supplies, business trends and anything else to assist the small coffee retailer.
Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/33234
Jack’sBlend Jack Groot owns JP’s Coffee in Holland, Mich. He also provides coffee business consulting and training through the Midwest Barista School (MBS). Check out Jack’s new blog, “Jack Groot’s blog — confessions of a coffee shop owner” at www.coffeegroot.com. Jack can be reached at jack@jpscoffee.com with “Jack’s Blend” as the subject line, or at (866) 321-4MBS. L ast weekend was the Specialty Coff ee Association of America’s annual trade show. When at a show I always look for classes being taught by someone I admire, and/or a subject I fi nd relevant and compelling. I found one class among the off erings that fi t both prerequisites: “Craſt Brewing by Hand in a Café Environment.” Th e current industry focus on craſt brewing combined with listening to those who have “been there-done that” led me to the class. Jay Caragay, owner of Spro Coff ee in Baltimore, put on the class. He invited Kyle Glanville of Intelligentsia, John Picquet of Caff e d’Bolla and Anthony Rue of Volta Coff ee to join him in a panel discussion of the basic engineering, implementation and return on investment on craſt coff ee brewing. In the last couple of years, brew-by-the-cup (BBTC) has become the darling of the industry, not unlike the Clover* a few short years ago. Th ere are marked diff erences in my correlation, but similarities as well. Th e Clover is a piece of equipment; BBTC is a process (there are half a dozen or so ways to BBTC, Clover being one of them). Adding a Clover to a business requires an investment of some $15,000; BBTC (equipment) can be added for as little as a few hundred dollars. Both Clover and BBTC brewing require additional labor over traditional urn brewing, highlight unique characteristics of a coff ee better than traditional urn brewing, typically demand a higher retail price structure, require the use of the best coff ees to maximize their relevance, and both processes serve the best coff ees, all other variables being equal. Using the fi nest coff ees in the world, charging a much higher price per cup, and eliminating the stale-coff ee-that-has- been-in-the-airpot-too-long taste should be a no-brainer, but before you decide, think about the following key points from the class (and my notes aſt er each): “If anyone here thinks they are just going to go home from this show and add brew by the cup, you are asking for trouble” – Jay and John shared how much research and legwork they put into creating their BBTC system for their stores. Just adding BBTC to your menu is risky at best, detrimental at worst. “Brewing by the cup is secondary to customer experience” –Jay shared his passion for making sure that customers who patronize his business receive complete attention and satisfaction. Although Jay’s focus is in developing coff ee as cuisine, he still believes that quality is subject to a customer’s taste and as much as possible tailors the experience to them. “It is diffi cult or even impossible to add BBTC to a menu without eliminating urn brewing” – Th e amount of training and education it takes to implement BBTC is huge. To make it a menu option relegates it to the position of second fi ddle and the end product will suff er… and so will the customer experience. “Th e ‘2-dollar cup’ of coff ee should not exist” – Th is sentiment was expressed by the entire panel. In their view, coff ee and the coff ee industry is being done a disservice by allowing the “2-dollar cup” to exist. To purchase a recording of Jay’s presentation, go to “www. bit.ly/craſt brewing” and order item #1510-21. To comment on this important subject go to the reposting of March 2011’s Jack’s Blend column, “BBTC-Fad or Trend”, posted on my blog - “http://bit.ly/fadortrend”. *Th e Clover is a commercial brewer using vacuum technology to brew a single cup of coff ee at a time. Th e machine hit the industry, gained a cult-like following and was soon aſt er purchased by Starbucks, largely disappearing from the independent coff eeshop scene. 10 | June 2011 • www.specialty-coffee.com