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We met Trent Lundberg a few years ago at a mountain bike race.  Listen to his story to hear the connection he has to the biking community and why his company is called “Backroom” Coffee.

But first, let me apologize… the audio kinda sucks!  This is Pat writing this and it’s my fault.  As Mr. Deeds would say “my bad”.

I had a new toy and I failed at setting it up properly.  Trent’s mic was too low so we had to boost it and it is ok but not great.  Hopefully I’ll get better.  🙂
The onlocation podcast was a blast and we look forward to more of them.  Want us to come to you?  Apply here to be on The Local Vibes Podcast!  

As we mentioned in our last podcast, we want to help tell your story!  Reach out or nominate someone.

Seems like so long ago that we started with Episode 1 and it took forever to get to #14 but we are ready for more.  Leave comments and tell us how we get better or who we need to talk too!

Learn more about Local Vibes and let’s make your business grow!

Transcript:

LV 14 Trent Lundberg

[00:00:00] Of course we battle on how much of a scoop to put? Well, we used to measure it, weigh it. Now it’s about three scoops. Sometimes it’s three big scoops. So it’s, it’s close. Uh, 68 grams. 68. That’s the perfect, yeah, I think that’s way more than we were using, so we need to. Buy more coffee from a Trent Yeah.

[00:00:19] Yeah. What’s you just told us that I’m 68. Could I use 69? I like 69. Better . 70 . That’s, that’s a different story entirely, but yeah, that’s my favorite number. Of course you go, there this It all tastes good.

[00:00:36] We’re about to put ’em explicit on this podcast. Starting, sustaining and having a successful small business is hard, but you already knew that. But wouldn’t it be great to have a podcast that talks to and digs in to the people who’ve made it problem solved? This is local vibes, [00:01:00] small business success stories.

[00:01:02] We’ll talk to successful small business owners from around the country. You’ll hear their incredible stories about how they got started and how they thrived and survived online and within their communities. Woo. We’ll find out. They’re a special vibe. Welcome to our show, brought to you by Local vibes.us.

[00:01:24] Let’s do this now. Your hosts, Pat and Angie Cherubini.

[00:01:37] Hi everybody, I’m Angie Cherubini, and this is Pat from Local Vibes. And we’re back at it again. And today we’re back at it with Trent Lundberg from Backroom Coffee Roasters. Is it Coffee Roasters? Is that It’s Coffee roasters, yeah. Okay. I got it. Right, I got it. Right. We’ve known, we’ve known you. We were trying to figure [00:02:00] this out.

[00:02:00] It’s been about four years, I think. Yeah, yeah. Since, uh, that, I think it was the second year, the Horns Hill in Uro. Yep. Well, we’re big. If anybody knows me personally, I’m a big coffee person, so there are, there are only a few different coffees that I really, really like. And of course yours is one of my favorites.

[00:02:24] You’re the only one we subscribe to, that’s for sure. All the time, so Right. The field. Yeah. So, you know, we got to know Trent at, um, at a mountain. Was it Mountain? Mountain Bike Race, yeah. Mountain bike Race out in Newark, Ohio at, um, horns Hill. A big mountain bike race out there. That which will make sense when Yeah.

[00:02:47] Trent tells you the story about how you started about that, what name came from and, yep. So why don’t you do that? Why don’t you tell everybody first? , you know about the company, who you are, what you do, started, stuff like that. So [00:03:00] Backroom Coffee Roasters, um, started literally in the backroom of the Trek bicycle store in Arlington in 2010.

[00:03:08] Um, and the whole story was the original, the founders of Backroom, um, Chris and Kara Bishop, they owned all the Trek, uh, stores here in central Ohio, and they had some empty space in the backroom of the upper Arlington store that was going unused. Um, and Chris was passionate about small batch coffee, about, um, distilling his own, um, whiskey and also brewing his own home brew beer.

[00:03:39] And he figured, why not try to make a business out of this? So he invested in a coffee roaster, uh, went to coffee roasting school, and they put a small cafe in the back of the, the Trek store. So when you came to buy a bike or have your bike serviced, you could get a fresh cup of coffee, buy a [00:04:00] retail bag, and um, eventually, um, they actually had a sponsored cycling team, back room, coffee roaster cycling team, which competed across all different disciplines, road mountain, bike track, cyclo Cross, and um, Fast forward a few years.

[00:04:18] Um, they, the couple sold the Trek stores back to Trek corporate and moved the whole roasting operation up to their residence in Galena just a few miles down the road from where we are now. We got to be friends, uh, through our sons and would go over to their place to socialize. Well, their, their residence had been owned previously by a private pilot who had a grass airstrip on one side of the property.

[00:04:48] And they had this huge airplane hangar that was adjacent to the house where they had the roasting operation. So we’d go over to party and they’d have the, the airplane hangar doors [00:05:00] open, and you could smell the fresh scent of. Fresh roasted coffee wafting on the breeze, and you’d see all the little retail bags lined up like little soldiers.

[00:05:10] And we just, my wife and I, we’d been coffee lovers for forever. And when we discovered backroom and the whole connection, we just absolutely fell in love. Um, and it tied into my other passion cycling. So I grew up racing bicycles from the time I was a teenager. Was inspired by a guy by the name of Greg Lamond who.

[00:05:31] The true first pioneer of American cycling over in Europe. He was, uh, a world champion in 1983. He was the first, and to this day, the only true American to win the Tour de France in, uh, 19 86, 89 and 90. And if you look up over my shoulder here Yeah, we can see it. This is actually, uh, Greg Lamont’s World Championship Jersey from 1989.

[00:05:56] Sweet. Um, and our family, uh, used to promote a bike race [00:06:00] down in Athens, Ohio called the A to Z Cycling Classic. And in 89 and 90, Greg came and did our event. Oh. Oh, cool. And in, in 1990, Lance Armstrong. , uh, came and competed in his first year as a professional cyclist as well. But, uh, so it kind of, the whole, uh, the cycling and the coffee kind of dovetailed nicely and was very appealing to me personally.

[00:06:27] Um, and my, uh, my wife, melody and I, we had been looking for, um, something to invest in. Um, you know, our kids are getting to the age. My son’s in college. My daughter, she’s a sophomore in high school, but in a couple of years she’s going to be out of the house and we were looking for an investment. Um, and in 2018, Chris Bishop, the husband, uh, uh, um, that started room approached us about, um, buying back.

[00:06:55] Um, they, he had taken a job in Boulder, Colorado and um, was [00:07:00] looking to move but not uproot the business. And the planets literally were in alignment, fell into place, and we, uh, we, we bought it and jumped in off the deep end. Didn’t know the first thing about the coffee business, but it was a profitable business.

[00:07:17] The business came with two employees. There was a, a, a, um, a nice, um, supply chain, uh, built. There was a steady, um, income stream from a number of high profile clients. They had Whole Foods market still do. We’ve got, uh, fresh time markets, a lot of the upscale grocers around town in addition to a lot of, uh, B2B customers.

[00:07:40] And so it was very appealing to us all from the backroom of a bike shop, all from the backroom of a bike shop. Yep. Gotcha. That’s, that’s crazy. So, first question I have is, where do you go for. Coffee roasting school. Yeah, . Good question. Um, so the, [00:08:00] the, the place where they went, um, was a gentleman’s name’s Paul Ribit.

[00:08:05] And Paul, um, was, had his own roasting school in addition to, um, designing roast profile software. So the actual software that drives our coffee roaster. He designed that. He also now has his own coffee roasting or coffee roaster company. So he actually, he’s got a company that actually builds the equipment, um, but at, at the point where, Uh, Chris went to roasting school.

[00:08:34] Um, he was selling a, a roaster called amex, which is what we are using now. Amex, uh, originated in Turkey, um, and it was one of the premium brands still is very well respected in the industry. Um, and so he went to, went to this coffee roasting academy and um, that’s where he learned to roast, passed it down to, um, a couple of his, his employees [00:09:00] that worked in the bike shop had, you know, coffee fans, but had never really had any experience with roasting.

[00:09:06] Taught them the process. And, uh, the, the one employee that, uh, when we acquired the business had been roast. With backroom for about five years. And so we were able to, um, absorb or I was able to absorb all of the information when, when he came on board. And that’s how I, so you didn’t use, you learned straight from him?

[00:09:27] I learned straight from him as well as. , uh, reading quite a few books about coffee roasting and the different process and digging in the nuances and, and really digging into the nuts and bolts of it. Um, still learning. I wouldn’t say I’m, you know, uh, the, you know, the, the absolute, uh, efficient auto of it.

[00:09:47] But, uh, uh, we, we’ve got it down pretty good, as you know. Yeah. You guys are, you know, direct recipients of, of our, of our, uh, product. So, well, I have to say, your product we’re on, he has a monthly subscription, [00:10:00] which, how’s that going? Fantastic. I mean, that’s, that’s hasn’t been that long. No, since you started it.

[00:10:06] We, um, we switched over. So when we first bought Backroom, um, they were on the Squarespace platform. Mm-hmm. and Squarespace, when it first came to be, was, uh, more design oriented. They had a, an e-commerce component to it. Yeah. Yeah. But it was pretty bulky. It really was not very, uh, too simple user friendly.

[00:10:28] It’s too simple. Yeah. You can’t do a lot with it. Not like, are you on Shopify now? We’re on Shopify now. And that’s been leaps and bounds. Yep. Uh, better than, than Squarespace. Um, visually we could still use some help, but as far as an e-commerce platform, it has streamlined things so much for us. Um, and the, and the subscription.

[00:10:51] Um, we use a company called Pay, which is kind of a third party vendor within Shopify. Mm-hmm. . And it’s been, it’s been a pretty seamless [00:11:00] transition for us. Really simplified a lot of the day-to-day stuff is that you just get like, notifications every day of who’s, who’s up and who’s the ship. Exactly. Oh, that’s nice because I love when I get the shipment because we live like an hour away.

[00:11:12] Yep. You know, we’re, we’re close, but not that close. And do you have anybody out there, any vendors? Uh, not at this point. Not out there, no. So that’s the only way we can get it, but I always show, I actually, we just got some last week and I showed my son the way you package it every time. I’m like, that’s the way it’s done.

[00:11:31] Well, you have a marketing background or a design or, yeah, so truth be told , but I can’t, I can’t take full credit for it. Um, you know, I, I’m a graphic designer by training, so I, I am a little particular about how I like to have things packaged. Um, and conveniently enough, the US. Postal priority, A boxes fit.

[00:11:53] Four bags or coffee Absolutely. To a t. Um, so yeah, it was, yeah, the presentation, when you [00:12:00] open it up, it’s like, every time I’m like, it is cuz you alternate. Yeah. Every label. Blue, brown, blue, brown. Yep. Upside down your presentation with everything. When, when we first met Trent, which was up at Horns Hill at one of the events up there, and you had, you had your display up there.

[00:12:16] Even your displays are always, you know, thank you. You take a lot of time in your displays and then obviously you’re, you’re new. Well, it’s not new, new to us. You are, uh, the bean buggy. The bean buggy. Yeah. That’s really, really neat. I mean, you’ve done a great job of really making your, you know, because there’s always, there’s coffee everywhere, right?

[00:12:38] There’s competition everywhere. But you take a. or you do a great job of setting yourself apart. Thank you. Well, you know, um, you we’re all old enough to remember Andre Agassi. Yeah. He used to do, was it the Cannon Camera commercial? Mm-hmm. , yes. Image is everything. Mm-hmm. . It, it [00:13:00] goes so far. I mean, you can have a top-notch product, but if your branding and your marketing isn’t on point, you’re gonna.

[00:13:07] You know, left in the, left in the dust. Mm-hmm. . Um, it’s still a challenge for us, especially me, you know, we’re a small business. Um, we’ve got just myself, one other employee, and then my wife doing the books, so it’s a family run business. Um, but being able to wear all the hats and be effective at everything has been just an ongoing struggle for us.

[00:13:31] Mm-hmm. . Um, and, um, you know, I’m hoping that local vibes can help us kick it up a notch Yes. In that arena. Um, so, uh, you know, I, I definitely have, um, uh, certain opinions as to how our, our brand should be presented. Um, , I have a hard time coming up with fresh content mm-hmm. on a daily basis to be able to post consistently and, um, content calendars and stuff like that is just, it’s [00:14:00] just a struggle for me.

[00:14:01] What kind of events do you, do you guys typically do? So some of our biggest events, uh, we do the whole Columbus cars and coffee, um, season, which is comprises about 10 to 12 events throughout the year. Oh, I did not even know that. And we’ve, um, I’ve heard of Seinfeld’s Comedians and Cars and Coffee . Yes.

[00:14:19] Yeah, there you go. I didn’t know there was a Columbus. Have you ever watched that? I have. Yeah. I love it. Me too. I love it. I, I’m, I’m a huge Seinfeld fan. Um, but so the cars and coffee has, um, generated a lot of exposure for us, um, with very high profile clientele. Mm-hmm. , which is, um, you know, the first year that we had the bean buggy out and about, it was a learning experience, figuring out what events would do well for us and what events did not.

[00:14:47] Can you tell people what the bean buggy is? We’ll have to show a picture. Oh yeah. For, unless if you’re listening, you can’t see it. But, so the bean buggy put it in the show notes, is a, um, a converted 1975 MEK, two horse horse trailer [00:15:00] that we, um, contracted a local industrial artist to convert into, um, a kind of a shabby chic.

[00:15:09] Themed Coffee Shop on Wheels, coffee Shop on Wheels. It is so cool. Thank you. And, uh, it, it’s, we wanted something that was not your average run of the mill, um, Grumman, step van, food truck. You know, there those things are a dime a dozen. Mm-hmm. . Didn’t want to have something, even though my background as a graphic designer and specializing in vehicle wraps and all that, didn’t want it to have that commercialized flavor.

[00:15:35] I really wanted it to be, be more authentic, um, and more in line with the backroom brand, which we don’t take ourselves quite as seriously as I think some Right. Uh, coffee companies do. Um, not trying to throw shade on anyone, but I think that a lot of times, um, if you go into a retail coffee shop, uh, you’re kind of looked down upon, you know, the, the [00:16:00] baristas and the, the, they, they, they know a lot more than you do, and you may not be worthy of their knowledge.

[00:16:06] Mm-hmm. , we don’t want to convey that vibe with backroom, especially when we pull up in the bean buggy. You know, we, we consider everybody to be our friends and, you know, we want it to be very welcoming and approachable. Um, and so the, the, the bean buggy, um, we wanted just to be, you know, memorable top shelf, but not taking ourselves too seriously.

[00:16:31] And I think we, we, uh, hit that goal. And you, you said, I mean, we literally call ourselves local vibes because that’s what we look for. Yeah. You know, it’s not the corporate sterile, you know, you know, it’s not groovy as a vibe, but it’s just you have that, that trailer especially has got a its own vibe.

[00:16:47] Thank you. Oh yeah. That’s kind of why we do what we do. Yeah. In looking for those places. And one of the most interesting things, speaking of the Columbus cars and coffee, Uh, um, schedule is [00:17:00] we pull a, we pull the trailer behind a, um, 1988 Chevy C 3,501 ton vintage truck, and we’ll pull up to these events and people, you know, the, the cars and coffee crowd?

[00:17:13] It’s the Lamborghini and the McLaren. I was gonna ask, is that a club? No, it’s, it’s just, just a meeting. It, it’s a meeting, just a meetup so anybody can bring their cars. But typically it’s the show off. It’s the show off. Yeah. Richie Rich’s and everybody goes absolutely nuts over, we call it Old Blue. The truck people just can’t get enough old.

[00:17:33] The one that’s down there, the one that’s down there. Okay. Yeah. Old square body. Yeah. The old, well, it’s the old body style, which was the next generation. Okay. The square body. But, um, you know, it’s got the 4 54 and it’s got, I mean, it, it hits all the buttons as far as the vintage trucks are concerned. But, uh, still got a carburetor too, probably.

[00:17:51] It still has. Yeah. Well, no, it’s the first year of the effi. Oh, really? Yeah. The very first year. Um, but people just, they gravitate [00:18:00] towards it and they really get pictures posted every, every event we go to really. It’s really, it’s really interesting. So they do your, your advertising for you Absolutely. Or marketing for you?

[00:18:11] Well, it’s, it’s reciprocal, you know? Yeah. One of the things we really love to do with our, with our partners is pump, you know them up as much as they do with us, and it just bring, elevates everybody. Right. You hit the algorithm and, you know, it goes out to, you know, not just our crowd or their crowd, but, but both, and you know that as well as I do.

[00:18:30] Yeah. And you were saying that you don’t know what the po I mean, that’s one of the hardest things we run into, and that’s mm-hmm. , you know, honestly we run ads because we’re not very good at posting either. We run out of time. Yeah. We tell every, it’s a time factor, single client. You need to post more, you need to post about this, you need to make videos, you need to do that.

[00:18:48] And we run out of time. We don’t do it either. So, you know, it’s, it’s, it is hard. And if you have something engaging like that, that other people are posting for you, then that helps. That’s a home run. Yeah. Yeah. And I know that [00:19:00] reposting works occasionally. Mm-hmm. , I’ve been, I’ve been guilty of doing too many repost.

[00:19:06] and, um, I’ve been taking more advantage of, um, Instagram reels. Mm-hmm. , um, which has, has helped certainly, but Consistency’s been my major challenge. Mm-hmm. . Yeah. And it’s funny, I mean, it’s, you know, that, that algorithm thing that drives me cr mm-hmm. , I know I follow you. I don’t think I’ve seen you for a while, because if you, if you don’t click on something after a while Yeah.

[00:19:28] They stop showing you and it’s like, it’s literally the ones I wanna see. Right, right. Well, um, yeah, I need to get back on a, a more, well, I, I think that’s just the way that Facebook and Instagram especially work now. I, I’ve heard TikTok, we are not on TikTok, but will not be on, I’m not gonna be on TikTok either, but the, the premise behind it is there’s much less of an algorithm that if, like, if you look at your reels, probably on Instagram, all your views are probably similar.

[00:19:58] I mean, if you’ve had one pop off, maybe, [00:20:00] but they’re all similar on. For whatever reason, that algorithm just kind of evens everybody out. Yeah. The big guys, you know, the Kim Kardashians, they get tons and tons and tons, but on TikTok, there are people that I’ve heard have two videos, and the second one gets like a million views because if it’s viral, it stays viral.

[00:20:21] Right. On Instagram, if it’s viral, they, they start, they thro throttle you a little bit back. Mm-hmm. and there’s really nothing you can do about it other than give them money to advertise it. But that’s the, that’s what they want. I think it may start to shift a little bit because TikTok is eating everybody’s lunch.

[00:20:38] Right. And you know, they’re trying to be TikTok now, so yeah, maybe they’ll change a little bit. But I haven’t seen, this is kind of the, the impetus for the reels, wasn’t it? Oh, for sure. Yeah. It was a direct, you know, they’ve done, they stole Snapchat and mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. stories or from Snapchat. Yep. But, So I [00:21:00] know recently we’ve been talking a lot about the fact that you, you, you traveled for, was it two weeks?

[00:21:07] In, uh, El Salvador. Six days. Yeah. So, um, six days mid-January. Yeah. We went, uh, my, myself and uh, two of my friends, um, went down to El Salvador. Um, at the invitation of, uh, my friend Guillermo Cruz, who owns, he and his brother own a coffee plantation called, uh, Finka Lara, which literally means Stone Farm, really on the side of Chapar Volcano.

[00:21:34] It’s an active volcano, uh, outside of San Miguel, El Salvador. And, um, actually meant Giermo at the, um, Columbus Carson coffee event. Oh, you did Arena last year. It’s a major network. So this is why this is the reason for the trip, then. This is the reason for the trip. Ah, yeah. Yeah. And so, Like I was, uh, we were talking about earlier the bean buggy.

[00:21:58] Um, [00:22:00] it’s, while it’s generated some revenue for us, it’s more about the, the greater exposure that we’ve gotten as a result of being at all these different events. We do quite a bit in New Albany. Um, we’re members of the New Albany Chamber, and that’s given us an additional exposure and gotten us access to customers such as JP Morgan Chase and whatnot.

[00:22:20] But back to Guillermo, um, Guillermo approached us, uh, last year at this nationwide cars and coffee event, ordered a cup of coffee and struck up a conversation, introduced himself heavy, you know, uh, Latin accent, and, uh, introduced himself and said, yeah, I, I own a coffee plantation on El Salvador. Um, would love to have you come down sometime.

[00:22:43] Uh, we met here at the Roastery. He brought us some of his, um, some of his roasted coffee from the plantation and also brought us some green beans from the plantation. For us to roast. Um, and quite honestly, I, I wasn’t a huge fan of the, the [00:23:00] coffee that had already been roasted. He’s got a, a guy that, um, roasts for the plantation and for their local, um, uh, customers that he is a Scottish guy of all places.

[00:23:12] This Scottish guy has been roasting for something like 20 years. converted an old washing machine into a roaster. What? I, I know. It’s, it’s bizarre. But anyways, so they roast this coughing and it wasn’t, it wasn’t to my liking. And so I said, well, hold on, Guillermo, let me, let me roast a batch while you’re here.

[00:23:35] Um, roasted it up and his eyes perked up. He’s like, this is amazing. This is so much better. I was like, thank you. So at any rate, uh, we had a couple other conversations and made plans to, to go down to, um, uh, FKA La Piera and, um, so mid-January, um, went down there for six [00:24:00] days. On the plantation at an elevation of about 3,800 feet, about halfway up the side of this volcano, which had erupted just weeks before we went down there.

[00:24:12] And really, there was still a lot of ash covering, um, different parts of the plantation when we went up there. But, um, it was trip of a lifetime, you know, aside from, um, our, our honeymoon where my wife and I went to Italy, it was probably the best trip I’ve ever been on. Um, and I thought I knew a lot about the, uh, the coffee industry and, and all that.

[00:24:35] But until you’ve seen it with your very own eyes, you know, from from farm to cup, how the whole process works and how much. Labor is involved in not only the picking, but the, but the transport and the processing and the drying and the packaging and the shipping, and all these different steps to be able to get to what we’re enjoying [00:25:00] in our cup today gives you a true appreciation for.

[00:25:04] Um, not only the work that’s involved, but but the value in a quality cup of coffee. People, I, I think by and large, they go to the grocery stores. They get the can of Folgers or a bag of, you know, uh, Starbucks or whatever it is. They don’t really have a true understanding. It’s like any other, um, farming industry.

[00:25:24] They don’t really, unless you see it with your own eyes, you don’t have a true appreciation for what’s involved and why things cost, what they cost. So did he, does he only provide, um, beans to like smaller, um, establishments like you, or does he supply it to like Starbucks and places like that too? Well, so Guillermo is, um, he’s a businessman.

[00:25:49] He, um, he actually has a trucking company. Does he live here? He lives in New Albany. Okay. Um, and he’s been in the United States for six years. Um, he and his brother [00:26:00] acquired or bought this plantation just two years ago, and the plantation had been, um, uh, sitting dormant for a number of years. So a lot of it was overgrown.

[00:26:11] The, the, the plants were there, but a lot of ’em still needed to be, they needed to be, uh, cultivated and pruned and, and a, a lot of. A lot of work needed to be done. That’s a tlc, a lot of tlc to get it back to an operating. Uh, uh, what makes a coffee plantation stop production? Uh, well, um, so El Salvador in the, uh, in the, the fifties through the seventies, it was kind of their, um, their heyday of coffee production.

[00:26:46] It’s, it was their primary. Um, a form of revenue for the country. Mm-hmm. . Um, and then the problem was El Salvador had 14 families that controlled the entire country and [00:27:00] owned all the property and everything. And, um, there was a huge disparity between. The very wealthy elite. The families always works out, doesn’t it?

[00:27:09] It always works out in the control of the government and then the peasants that, you know, extreme, extreme poverty. Yeah. And, um, there was an uprising. They had a, you know, civil war. Um, and so the government at that point did what was called an agrarian decree, which basically they took a portion of the land from these 14 families and made it available to the general public to be able to buy and, um, you know, be able to, you know, farm and break up the monopoly.

[00:27:42] Break up the monopoly. Well, um, when the, when the civil war was going on, a lot of the, the, the farms, um, went into, you know, disrepair and got overgrown Gotcha. Families got run off, and so slowly, uh, El Salvador has been [00:28:00] building back into, you know, uh, their economy has, uh, revived. They’ve put a new president into power about four years ago, who’s very much of an, an authoritarian and has, uh, put a lot of money into, um, the military and the police to go and, uh, seek out, you know, like the MS 13 gangs.

[00:28:20] Mm-hmm. were real strong down there. They’ve thrown more than 50,000 people in jail. Oh really? Um, and really cleaned up the country tremendously. Um, and so, uh, this farm, this Finka Lara had been sitting idle for a number of years. Um, Guillermo and his brother, um, saw an opportunity, bought it at a very reasonable price, and had slowly been rebuilding it.

[00:28:45] they have a coffee engineer who travels to a lot of the different Finka. Finka means farm in, in, in Spanish, travels to a lot of the different Finka locally and will take daily, you know, soil conditions [00:29:00] and the condition of the plants. And they’ve got different plots with the different coffee varies. And, um, it’s very, very scientific and you can really, truly taste the difference and you can really, truly taste the difference bringing up that question that you have.

[00:29:15] Okay. What gives coffee that licorice like taste on, on some of ’em? Sour or, I mean, there are some places I go that that’s like, that’s the overall flavor. It’s got like this licorice taste to it and it’s just, ugh, it’s awful. And I just don’t know what that is. Is it the type of bean or it’s, it has to do with the type of bean.

[00:29:38] It has to do with the region where the bean was sourced from, uh, the soil conditions, the elevation. I wonder if it’s Kenyon. I don’t remember what it was. Does Kenyon Coffee tend to have that type of it? It depends. Um, it, yeah, possibly. Have you ever been to It’s, there’s the only one that I can really think [00:30:00] of right now is the one in Grandville, uh, not Grandville, the one in, um, Gahan.

[00:30:04] Um, I know it’s on the strip in Gahan right there down by the River Creek side. Yeah. Yes, I know what you’re talking about. Uh, upper cup. Maybe, I’m not sure. And I don’t mean to cut them down at all. It’s not just wasn’t her flavor. It’s not my flavor. But I mean, that’s the flavor of their coffee. And I, every time I’ve, I’ve been in there a couple times, I forgot the second time that that’s flavors kinda like, you know, beers, there’s ipa, there’s different flavors and not everybody loves every flavor.

[00:30:31] Right. That one she didn’t love. Well, and so another, uh, couple other factors that play into it are, how long ago was the coffee roasted? How dark has it been roasted? So you had mentioned sour notes. So sour notes are typically, um, tasted in lighter roasts. The more the, the darker you roast, you’re going to get away from that unique flavor profile and you’re just going to get more roasty, you know, I don’t wanna say say burnt burn, but [00:31:00] you go all the way to like a French roast.

[00:31:02] Mm-hmm. , which is super dark. Um, but. In the case of like Starbucks for instance, you know, most, I don’t wanna say most people, but a lot of people have the misconception that Starbucks is good coffee. It is. And I’m gonna throw shade at Starbucks. It’s garbage coffee. I will go in an airport or is the only time I will, I will never go to a, because there is absolutely nothing else to get in an airport.

[00:31:28] Right. And so the reason why Starbucks has been so successful marketing mm-hmm. for sure. Mm-hmm. and the creation of these, these, you know, milkshakes, drinks, the milkshakes, , yeah. Yeah. They’ve got all the garbage on top that masks the taste and they’re truly horrible coffee. And, uh, you know, I, I equate it to, um, to pork RINs.

[00:31:51] I love pork RINs, but the reason why I love pork RINs, Because it’s fried pig skin. It’s the seasoning that, it’s [00:32:00] the, the, the, the, the Rhine is just the carrier for the season. Right. You know, and the bottom of the bag. All that stuff at the bottom. That’s my favorite part. , you know, and it’s, it’s the same thing with, with Starbucks.

[00:32:10] You know, it’s, it’s just a carrier for the, the milkshake and all the, all the toppings. Sugar, sugar, sugar, sugar, sugar, sugar. People don’t truly have, Coffee. I mean, they really don’t, they have flavored drinks, flavored coffee, drinks, Starbucks and orders of black coffee cuz it’s, or they look at you like, what?

[00:32:29] Yeah, it’s, it’s rancid and so Starbucks. You know, imagine how much coffee they sell daily and how much volume, how many farms they have to source all this coffee from, well, there’s no way to have individual unique, you know, micro lot coffee. They, they have some grades, uh, that they’ll sell bags that are smaller.

[00:32:51] But typically they’ll take huge lots from all these different farms and bring them into these huge central roastery operations. [00:33:00] The roasters are, I mean, just one of the roasters is as big as our building. And so they dump all this coffee in and they in what you get. Huh? So you can’t taste any tasting notes.

[00:33:12] It’s just burnt. And, um, that is, you know, that’s the, the polar opposite. That’s, that’s a, that’s a big misconception that, you know, it’s good stuff. Now there are other companies like Pete’s, I’ve been a longtime fan of Pete’s before we got into, if we’re not drinking years, we’re drinking Pete’s. Yeah. It’s great stuff.

[00:33:31] Or Coffee Shack. Coffee Shack in town. Yeah. Um, not familiar with them, but we’re, we definitely prefer, um, local for sure. Yeah, local, well, one of ours. And then you. And then the only other one I will have to say in Destin, um, badass coffee. Badass coffee. Okay. Is it bad? It’s badass. Yeah, it’s from, um, Hawaii.

[00:33:52] Mm-hmm. . It’s a small franchise, just real small. Okay. And actually, weren’t they, , weren’t they from Columbus? No, the one in DEC was [00:34:00] owned. Oh, okay. Or somebody from Columbus. Okay. Mm-hmm. , because we’re going to coffee shop in Florida and it’s a bunch of Ohio State stuff. We are coffee snobs. We are definitely coffee snobs and we go on vacation.

[00:34:10] When we go anywhere, we usually have to have. Coffee, but typically from a coffee shop, I have to, we go on vacation and I’m like, okay, we gotta try this coffee shop and this coffee shop. And that’s, I mean, our support local, I mean, coffee is something we’d drink every day. Yeah. And you know, we sup, you know, obviously we’re in business, we support capitalism and I don’t have any problem with Starbucks.

[00:34:35] It’s just when they get that big. They injure all the other small pla small places. So that’s why we would, you know, how do people, how do you get people to stop buying FOLs and Starbucks to try a local roasted coffee? That’s the, that’s the million dollar question. Uhhuh . It’s a challenge and it’s, it’s very organic for us at this point.

[00:34:55] We don’t have the, the marketing budget of a Starbucks or Yeah. Or a Tim Horton’s, or a [00:35:00] Dunking Donuts, or the location on the highway or whatever, or the location or the thousand locations on the highway that are two blocks from one another and mm-hmm. lines that wrap around the building and out into the street and all that.

[00:35:10] So it’s, it’s very, uh, very organic, very one-on-one. Um, the, like I said, back to the bean buggy, the bean buggy. Definitely elevated our brand and our visibility. Um, and like I I, I mentioned to you earlier before we, uh, uh, started the podcast, um, we are, um, uh, pursuing the possibility of franchising these buggies and, um, you know, turning other people on in different markets to the backroom brand through, um, you know, building out these trailers and licensing backroom, uh, to, you know, other, that’s such an easy, easy little franchise opportunity for people.

[00:35:53] It really is. It’s awesome. You know, it gives, um, it gives the end user a lot more flexibility than a [00:36:00] standalone brick and mortar store where you’re chained to a multi-year lease, right? Landlord, unless you acquire the building. Or the outright owner. It’s a losing proposition. You know, you have to meet that nut every single month.

[00:36:14] And the, the, the idea of the bean buggy, when you’re done with an event, we come back, we pull it into the, our building and you know, we close it up and plug in the, the, the electricity to keep the refrigerators running. And we, you know, on down the road we go How many local roasters do you know? I mean, how many are around?

[00:36:38] Yeah, like roasters typically in a bigger city, you know? Are there a lot? Yeah, there are. Um, here in Columbus, I’d say that there are probably 10 to 15. Do you guys all know each other and stuff? We’re we know of each other? Uhhuh . I wouldn’t say that we know each [00:37:00] other intimately. Um, I’m friends with a couple of them.

[00:37:03] Um, and, uh, you know, we give each other likes occasionally, but at the end of the day it’s competition competitors. Yeah. We wanna like things too. Yeah. Yeah. And that’s, that was kind of where I was headed because I have a, a saying that we talk about all the time. It’s you’re competing together. Yeah.

[00:37:20] Because you, I kind of, when I, when I’m talking to you, I’m thinking about breweries, you know, beer, because even 15 years ago, maybe 20, you can’t make your own beer because Budweiser makes all of it. And Cosman Miller, you know, you can’t compete with them. Now they compete with them. They take a big chunk out of that.

[00:37:41] And a lot of those guys compete together. You know, they have each other’s beer on tap, try each others, and, you know, they support each other because they’re fighting a bigger fight against the, the gigantic people. Well, it’s interesting that you mentioned that. So one of our, um, brewing partners, haptic Brewing, they’re based in Worthington, um, [00:38:00] zaftig.

[00:38:00] Uh, they have used our coffees in their beers for a number of years. Nice. Um, I’m friends with one of the owners actually. Uh, he, he comes up to, to hunt. He’s a deer hunter, big passionate deer hunter. He comes up to hunt on our property and he’s brought his son up here a couple years ago, sun bagged his first buck.

[00:38:19] Big, huge 10 point monster on your property, on that property. Nice. He’s 10 years old and he slayed his first buck. And I, I, I said to, to Jim, my, my friend, I was like, where does, where does your son go from here? I mean, he, yeah. He got the monster. Everything’s retire out and going on top. Exactly, exactly. But, uh, Jim and his partner, um, they just signed a deal with the Columbus crew at the new crew stadium to be selling their beer at the stadium along with, um, uh, Land grant.

[00:38:52] Mm-hmm. . And, um, I like land grant, um, wolfs Ridge. I like that. So no major? [00:39:00] Well, it, I, bud Budweiser has the, the, the main concession stands. Gotcha. The main stuff. But these guys have their own standalone kiosk, I think within the stadium. Mm-hmm. . So they’re going to be, you know, representing the local brands.

[00:39:15] So will one of yours be in there with the copy still working on. Uh, haven’t, haven’t, this just happened last week. Oh. So we’ll be, we’ll figure that out, but Nice. Um, it’s, it’s good to see, you know, the David versus versus Goliath story and them going up against it. You know, one of the things that Budweiser did years ago is they started acquiring, uh, some of these micro breweries, like, uh, red Hook, I don’t know if you remember Red Hook.

[00:39:43] I remember Sam Adams. They bought them up real quick and Yeah. Yeah. You know, that’s how you eliminate competition, right. You know, you, you assimilate. And, um, so from a roaster standpoint, um, you know, it’s, it’s a challenge every day. Um, you know, [00:40:00] there’s a, uh, Crimson Cup here in town there. They’re the 800 pound gorilla in the, in the local coffee roasting community.

[00:40:07] Um, Greg Hubert, the owner, has done a phenomenal job with growing his business. He was, he and staffs were pretty much the first. Third wave coffee roasting companies here in central Ohio. Um, he’s got a number of, uh, franchises and coffee shops around town in addition to interests in, uh, other businesses.

[00:40:28] They go in, they source direct from the farms. They help, um, help the, the, the local economies by, you know, building schools and wow hospitals and, you know, helping, you know, build in a, a, a well, well taken care of workforce. So it’s very savvy. Um, and so you’ve got Crimson Cup up here and then the rest of us are kind of, you know, I don’t wanna say fighting for the scraps, cuz that’s not the right word, but, [00:41:00] um, there’s a.

[00:41:02] a ways to go working your way up to what they did. Working your way up. Yeah, that, I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s so strange cuz it’s not a local product, but it’s finished low. I mean, it’s, you can’t get coffee here, you know, beans. It doesn’t grow here. The beans, you know, the beans itself, you know that it comes.

[00:41:18] was it Equator? Is that the Yep. General. Yep. It’s uh, so they call it the ring of fire, which is basically, you know, the, the equator and the, um, yeah, just hot. It’s gotta be hot. Uh, but high but high altitude in hot, typically regions higher. Yeah, high altitude. Interesting is where most of it’s sourced from.

[00:41:39] So we’ve got, uh, we’ve got beans that we source from Indonesia, from Sumatra, Bali, um, central America, you know, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Costa Rica, um, Mexico, and you know, south America. We’ve got, you know, Venezuela and, um, Columbia and [00:42:00] Brazil and, you know, African beans from Ethiopia and Tanzania, you know, all over the world.

[00:42:07] Was it hard to, did you have any issues when the supply chain stuff was going on? We did, and we, we continue to have issues because, Um, you know, the cost of shipping went up exponentially. Mm-hmm. , and one of the major problems we have is the ongoing conflict between China and Taiwan. The South China Sea is a major shipping route, um, coming from Indonesia and, uh, around the globe to get to the United States.

[00:42:37] Um, and a lot of the ships had. Reroute and not go through the South China Sea. And, you know, you, the, the prices have literally doubled on our shipping. And the challenge is being able to maintain our price without having to price ourselves right out of the ballgame and [00:43:00] still make a profit. And still make a profit.

[00:43:01] So our margins have, have gone down quite a bit. Um, so we have to scramble and, you know, go and solicit more customers and, you know, really shake the, shake the bushes to, to get more, you know, coffee lovers on, on the backroom. The price of the beans change. I mean, that’s a commodity. Is that just up and down all the time?

[00:43:20] It’s, it’s up and down. Um, you know, the, um, Uh, in the case of Brazil, um, Brazil had a major, um, uh, cold snap last year. And so as a result, the supply of Brazilian beans this year has gone down and result price up price has gone up. Um, so it’s, it’s constantly fluctuating. Um, one of the things that, uh, us as a coffee, uh, roasting owners can do is buy a lot.

[00:43:50] So buy, you know, a quantity of beans and res lock in a price. Um, but then that depletes our capital to be able to mm-hmm. go out and do other investments. [00:44:00] So it’s, um, it’s an ongoing struggle for sure. . Yeah. And then the cost of packaging. You know, our packaging, um, comes from as much as we would like to be able to source domestically, there aren’t many companies here that produce the bags that we package our coffee in.

[00:44:18] And so the company that we use, even though, uh, they have an office in Chino, California, it’s a Chinese company. Mm-hmm. , as much as I don’t like having to support that, we really don’t have a lot of options. There isn’t any other option. Anybody out there know any packaging companies? Yeah. Well, yeah. Make coffee bags there, there is, there’s actually a company here in Columbus that does packaging.

[00:44:43] Um, but in order to make it worthwhile for us, we would have to change. All of our branding to fit their packaging and we’d have to purchase, uh, about two. We’d have to purchase substantially, probably two to [00:45:00] three times what we purchase now. And it just doesn’t make economic sense for us. Mm-hmm. at this point, we found a domestic source.

[00:45:07] Um, we tried their bags. Um, the problem is, so coffee bags, Um, what’s called a breathe valve. It’s a, it’s a one-way valve that allows, um, carbon dioxide to escape, and it doesn’t allow the, the oxygen to come in and degrade the beans. People think it’s a sniff valve, has nothing to do with being able to smell the coffee.

[00:45:27] It’s for, so the coffee can breathe. Well. When coffee is first roasted, there’s still, uh, what’s called outgassing. It’s still, there’s still chemical processes that are happening. You want to seal it as quickly as possible to keep that freshness in. And if you don’t have that breed valve in the bags, the bags will, will explode.

[00:45:46] Really, really, it explode on the shelves and didn’t know that. Yeah. And so we found this domestic company to, to make these bags for us, and we bought 10,000 bags, started [00:46:00] packaging them and putting them on our, our retailer shelves. The bags started to blow up. Oh. and it was a nightmare. Oh. Eventually got a full refund after a lot of, uh, a lot of back and forth and battling, but, uh, uh, so we’re back to our original supplier.

[00:46:21] So did it not have the breathe valve or it just didn’t work? It just didn’t work. Gotcha. It was an inferior valve. There’s a lot of, a lot of technology that goes into that little valve. And uh, so did they change it, I mean, based on what had happened with you? No, they said it was, you know, our method and the way that we, we roast and package our coffee, which is baloney cuz our other, our, our existing supplier, their valves worked just fine.

[00:46:45] We never had a problem with it. Huh. So that’s interesting. Yep. I didn’t know that. So that’s something new I’ve learned. Did you know that? I had no idea. , I figured that was the way you packaged it and sucked the air out of it, but not the other. . [00:47:00] Yeah. It actually, it actually allows the, the CO2 to escape.

[00:47:04] And so the, the bag doesn’t, you know, erupt. So, I know, I know. One other cool thing that we’ve talked about, and I, I saw, I did see you post about that something where your, it was with the, um, automated thing, the coffee robot. Yes, yes. Yeah. So tell us about that. I didn’t, what? That didn’t see that, I don’t know what you’re talking about.

[00:47:25] It was about When was that? That was, it was about last year. November. Yeah, late November. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, one of the customers that we acquired as a result of having the bean buggy at these events, um, was JP Morgan Chase. Um, they have their world headquarters here in Columbus, uh, about 15 minutes away on Polaris Parkway.

[00:47:46] And for people that don’t know, Their headquarters is the second largest contiguous building in the United States, next to the Pentagon. And I didn’t know that. I didn’t know that either. Yeah. And so their main hallway, [00:48:00] um, at their campus is a quarter mile long. And in this really center of the, this hallway is an area called the Commons.

[00:48:09] And at in the Commons, they have the busiest Starbucks in the United States. Coffee to 12,000 employees is what they’ve got on campus at any given point. Right now, 17,000 employees is their maximum capacity, but due to covid and everything, um, they’re slowly bringing the workers back, uh, kicking and screaming, kicking and screaming.

[00:48:34] Yes. Right. Um, but these, you know, they, they have to have their coffee. Yeah. And so Starbucks, you know, is making a, a bleeding mint off of them. Um, but back to, back to, um, how we, we came to be with JP Morgan. We’re at this little league soccer event in New Albany with the bean buggy, and this gentleman comes up, orders a cup of coffee, the biker blend, which is our signature roast and mm-hmm.[00:49:00]

[00:49:00] one that I think you subscribe to. Yep. That’s the one we get. He gets this cup of coffee and takes his first sip and he said, Oh my gosh, this is the most amazing cup of coffee I’ve ever had. Want, want to hear the whole story about backroom and how it started and everything, and introduced himself as a Vice president of small Bus business development for JP Morgan Chase and said, I’m going to make an email introduction.

[00:49:25] I think you’d be a great fit for JP Morgan and yada, yada, yada. Well, within 15 minutes of walking away, he’d made this introduction to his vice President of Facilities Management Worldwide and also, uh, the VP of Aramark Food Services, which, uh, has contracted to handle all the food and everything to do with, uh, anything food related at JP Morgan.

[00:49:51] Had a meeting with them, they fell in love with the brand. And so now we’re in JP Morgan. And, um, directly across the hall [00:50:00] from the Starbucks is a grab and go convenience store called the Union, where they’ve got our, our coffee bags as well as our biker bars, which is, uh, coffee chocolate bar that we developed about two years ago.

[00:50:12] Um, and they approached us. I don’t think I’ve seen that either. You haven’t seen him? A biker bar That’s a biker bar. Oh, well the algorithm hates me. . Yeah. We’ll, we’ll show, we’ll show that to you when we’re when we’re done. Okay. Okay. Um, so they, uh, once we were in and generating some, some interest, they approached us about doing this project for this coffee robot.

[00:50:36] And so, um, , this company is based out of San Francisco and there are only two of these units in the United States. The first one they put into into operation is at the San Jose airport, and the second one is right across the hall from the Starbucks. And that’s, and so they serve backroom coffee [00:51:00] exclusively, and it is about a 10 by 10, uh, kiosk, and you order through a QR code and it’s got a full menu.

[00:51:09] So they’ve got backroom espresso. Our biker blend, um, our decaf as well as our cold brew, nitro cold brew on tap. And so you place your order and it’s got a robotic arm that goes and makes, makes the coffee, it’ll make an espresso or make a a latte. Oh my goodness. And puts places the cup in this little, little, um, uh, tray and one a window drops down and you reach in and grab your, your cup.

[00:51:42] And off, off you go. And this has generated so much publicity for us and people when it first was, uh, launched in in November. people were crowded around it, taking pictures and video and oh my gosh, it was just the most amazing thing. Is your branding on there? Our branding [00:52:00] is on there. Nice. Have you gotten, do you know that you’ve gotten people specifically from there?

[00:52:05] Yes. Because of it. You do not. Yeah. So on our, on our website when you order it said, how do you hear about us? And they can type in Exactly. And we’ve had quite a few people. It was like the coffee robot at, at JP Morgan Chase and That’s awesome. That’s pretty, pretty cool. So. Well that’s awesome that you do that and that’s something that we tell people, you know, survey at Ask your people.

[00:52:28] Yeah. Yeah. I mean, where do your customers come from? Because we deal with a lot of local businesses and the answer is always word of mouth, which is the. Possible, but it’s the hardest to get more of. That’s right. Hardest to scale. That’s right. Um, so that was something that we implemented, um, shortly after we took over, uh, the business from the previous owners.

[00:52:53] Um, we added that, which when we were still on the Squarespace platform, um, and it was basically radio [00:53:00] buttons. Mm-hmm. , you can Google, Facebook, whatever. And we’ve kind of done away with all that. Now, basically it’s just a, a window and they can type in what it is. And we’ve, uh, it’s been Google searches.

[00:53:12] It’s been Yelp. Yelp’s been really, even though we don’t subscribe to Yelp, we’ve gotten a lot of it off of there. Um, Instagram has been our big one that’s been our, our main driver. Um, a again, you know, Post and I’m the one that handles the social media. It posts Instagram and Facebook. But for whatever reason, and hopefully you can help shed some light on this face Grant, Facebook just hasn’t performed for us.

[00:53:39] Did you say Face, Graham? Face? It’s Face Graham in Insta book. Snappy, chatty, and yeah. Hey, um, I, my Facebook is nothing of what I want to see. Yeah, you take good pictures. I mean that, yeah. Thank you. That also Instagram is more towards, you know, food beverages that, that, [00:54:00] but you know, what makes difference Easy to look when it’s good pictures.

[00:54:02] Oh, for sure. I mean, we talk about it all the time. You know, most of the time we don’t know where to go to eat a lot of times and we wanna go somewhere new. Yeah. And you know, a lot of restaurants and stuff just don’t understand. Post that special. Yeah. And we had one in town. The pictures just draw me in 1922.

[00:54:23] I always see that. Well, the Marilyn boar, that’s not downtown anymore, but you know their local mm-hmm. Six Chain, something like that. They posted one, they had Sunday brunch. Oh yeah. This was a couple years ago. And it, it was like, she was like, call the phone up and say, we’re going here. . Yeah. And we literally, chicken waffles.

[00:54:40] It was chicken and waffles, it was fantastic. Was brunch. And we went like 10 times because of that post. Yeah. And we didn’t even know they had brunch. And actually I got a lot of people to go because of that post too. Yeah. Well, and so the, the challenge that I have is because we don’t have a retail coffee shop, um, [00:55:00] is our, our, the scope of our contents limited.

[00:55:02] You know, we’re basically in a warehouse here. Mm-hmm. and I can only take so many pictures of. Bags of coffee or the roaster. Roaster or, so a lot of it’s come from the events that we do. Yeah. With the bean buggy and I’ve, um, rehashed some of our posts. You know, I’ll take a picture on the bean buggy and repost it, you know, six months or whatever later.

[00:55:24] But you can only do that so many times for it to be effective. Ads are definitely gonna be more effective for you. Yeah, yeah. So for sure. How wide do you go? I mean, I know you’ve got Whole Foods, you’ve got Central Ohio. Do you have people from other places finding you in ordering? We do. Um, actually I just had, uh, so one of the things that Shopify, they’re constant.

[00:55:55] Upgrading and adding different features. And just recently they have [00:56:00] this Shopify inbox where customer can message you when they’re on the website. And it’ll go to my phone immediately. It’ll go to my email too, but I can respond quicker. I normally respond quicker to this inbox. It’s like a text. And have a customer in Frisco, Texas orders, he’s got subscription and he’s sending coffee to friends and family there locally.

[00:56:23] And, um, he wanted to make a change to his subscription. So he, he inboxed me and we had a conversation and said, no problem at all, Jason, I’ll take care of this. And just had his subscription re-up for the month today and he wanted to make a change from our Sumatra to our Ethiopian. So change is made and you know, I’m able to ship it out to him, but we’ve literally got customer.

[00:56:46] Um, coast to coast. Um, I’ve, we’ve got customers in Seattle of all places, you know, but Starbucks is there, but Starbucks is there. and Stops is there, or Pizza’s up there? Not Stosh, Pete’s. Um, but [00:57:00] for, they just love the, the whole back room, the quality of coffee and the story and everything else. So how many of ’em come from the story are bikers because your bikers blend?

[00:57:11] Yeah. Is it Harley guys? They all think it’s bikers or they understand your story. You know, it’s, it’s doesn’t matter. It’s interesting because, you know, I was a longtime motorcyclist, um, and unfortunately, Had to give that up because of a couple accidents. Um, but, uh, uh, by and large it’s the cycling community.

[00:57:32] But from my years in the motorcycle community and the friends and contacts that I’ve, uh, uh, gleaned there, um, got quite a few motorcyclists as well, actually. Um, one of them, the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum down in Le Alabama. It is the largest collection of vintage, um, motorcycles as well as vintage race cars.

[00:57:55] They’ve got a, they’ve got multiple race tracks, testing tracks, some [00:58:00] Mercedes, Porsche. Bmw. They all take their vehicles there. Barber. We sell our coffee in the barber, uh, motorsports, uh, gift shop. Really? Yeah. Biker blend. Um, I’ve done posts with them, friends with their, uh, um, um, director of, um, uh, restoration.

[00:58:17] Mm-hmm. , um, he’s a cyclist, pedal bikes as well as motorcycles. And, um, he’s a fan and spreads the gospel. So we’ve got, uh, we’ve got that in our, in our arsenal as well. Awesome. Wow. That’s cool. Even had a, so we do a fair amount of private label coffee for different customers. Um, my background is in graphic design and conveniently enough, I’m able to produce labels in-house, not only for our, our bags, but for customer bags as well.

[00:58:48] Um, do you roast for others or just the bags? Yeah, we roast for others as well. Um, and one of our customers is a microgreen farm on, uh, the, the island of Oahu. [00:59:00] And Really? Yeah, because they don’t have any coffee over there because they don’t have any coffee. You know, Konas. Wow. Yeah. That’s weird. Sourcing coffee from Galino, Ohio all the way to Hawaii.

[00:59:11] But I guess they prob, I mean, over there they specialize in Kona, so they probably don’t have all, they don’t have the other kinds. Yeah, it’s true. Is it the story or the, the coffee? It’s, it’s the story. It’s the coffee. It’s the, um, contacts that I’ve made. I mean, it’s, it, you know, it’s relationships. The old adage, it’s, it’s not what you know, it’s who you know.

[00:59:34] Mm-hmm. . Yeah. And it’s as much relationship, but the relationship wouldn’t mean anything if the quality of the product. Oh, for sure. For sure. Mm-hmm. . And so, um, that was kind of a unique one as well. That’s cool. Yeah. That’s really cool. It is. I had no idea. So you’ve got, Seattle taken care of. You got Hawaii taken care of.

[00:59:55] What Texas you got? We’ve got Florida, we’ve got North Carolina, [01:00:00] um, a ship to Arizona. I’ve got a guy down in, in Arizona outside of Flagstaff that orders five pound bags of our biker blend religiously. Um, you know, when, when everything was happening with Covid, we kind of had to revamp our, our shipping strategy.

[01:00:18] You know, when we, when we took over backroom, um, it was buy three bags and shippings free anywhere in the continental United States. Well, it, it didn’t make any sense because we ended up, you know, if we’re shipping banks to California, we’re paying you to drink our. And so we’ve had to adjust that. A lot of companies still offer free shipping.

[01:00:41] I don’t know how they’re making any money unless it’s the economy’s a scale and they’re just buying cheap, buying cheap. But, um, we’ve had to adjust it. We’ll, we’ll still, if people buy four bags of our coffee or hit the threshold of basically a $60 threshold, if they’re in [01:01:00] our zone, a shipping zone, which is essentially the state of Ohio in the immediate surrounding area, we’ll ship free outside of that in initial shipping zone.

[01:01:10] It’s, we’ll, we’ll split the shipping costs with you 50 50. And we’ve had a little bit of pushback, but not much people understand, you know, especially with a small business, you know, nothing’s free. Well, and, and I think people need to really think more about, and I think people like us, we do. Yes. We may be spending 60 bucks on coffee every month on the beans, but you know, all these people go and get Starbucks or any of the big name coffees, if you wanna call it that, that they get, they’re 10 cups of coffee.

[01:01:47] Seven bucks, eight bucks, yeah. If not more for one of those drinks. And they’re getting them daily. Right. You’re spending way more than what I spend on a monthly basis for quality coffee that I can grind myself. [01:02:00] I think that makes a big difference too. Exactly. I like it to be frustrated. You’re the coffee expert.

[01:02:05] What is the key to the perfect cup of coffee? Oh, good. Good question. Because I, I tell her all the time, I love your coffee, but every now and then, I’m like, we drink, we have a board meeting every morning in the hot tub. Yes. The executive committee gets together. It’s usually at like five 30 in the morning.

[01:02:21] Perfect meeting. And that’s where we drink our coffee. It’s, it’s, yeah. And I think it was last week, I said, you know, it’s always good, but one day I was like, that’s really good today. And we make it the same way every time, but every now and then it’s really, really good. Well, um, so there, there are a lot of components that go into it.

[01:02:40] Most people think that the beans are the most important part of the equation. And, you know, being the coffee roaster, I’m gonna say yeah, that’s, that’s that. There’s some truth for that obviously, but it’s quality water and a quality burger grinder. If you do not have a proper grinder to [01:03:00] grind your fresh beans, the, the flavor profile is going to be very, um, uneven.

[01:03:05] It’s not gonna be consistent. You’re gonna have larger granules and you’re gonna have fine powdery stuff. Like if you get one of those blade grinders, those cheapo mm-hmm. stuff that you can get at Target or whatever. Yeah. We don’t have that. It’s not going to give you a consistent quality cup. Um, Water is the most important thing.

[01:03:24] The grinder is second, the coffee is third, and the way that you make the coffee is fourth. So, um, yeah. And how fresh the coffee is. Um, how, how well it’s been sealed. You know, if, if you have a fresh thing of coffee and you leave it out and leave the bag open, it’s going to deteriorate a lot faster. Mm-hmm.

[01:03:51] Um, so if you have it in a sealed container, that’s what we do. APA container, put it inside roof temperature. Oh, it’s not opaque, but it’s in the cupboard, so it’s covered. [01:04:00] Then you’re fine. As long as it’s out of direct sunlight. Another misconception that people have is, um, put it in the freezer and it’ll stay fresh longer.

[01:04:08] Mm-hmm. , you do not want to put your coffee in the freezer because it draws out the moisture and it, it will, you know, freezer burn the beans and it’s not good for it. Room temperature. Out of direct sunlight. Our doesn’t last that long, so our, our strata, it’s, it’s in a airtight container in the cupboard.

[01:04:27] We have a bur grinder. We have the right grinder. We have filtered well water and a and didn’t we get the coffee pot based off of the teal last time? Teal. The last time we were, yeah. Mocha. That’s what we had. I like it. I’m trying my best. It’s a, yeah, it’s a great. For sure. Maybe I just didn’t, of course we battle on how much of a scoop to put, but we used to measure it, weigh it.

[01:04:50] Now it’s about three scoops. Sometimes it’s three big scoops, so it’s, it’s close. But, so for the, for the techno, we’ve got the same brewer in, in the [01:05:00] house. We use it every single day. Uh, 68 grams. 68. That’s the perfect, yeah. I think that’s way more than we were using, so we need to buy more coffee from trench.

[01:05:10] Yeah. . Yeah. What’s you just told us, Adam, 68. Could I use 69? I like 69. Better 70. That’s, that’s a different store entirely, but yeah, that’s my favorite number. That’s of course, you go, this tastes good.

[01:05:26] We’re about to put ’em explicit on this podcast here. That’s hilarious. I, I just can’t keep those comments out. I’m sorry. No, yeah. No, no. Went downhill like a podcast. So 60 grams, we don’t, we don’t use enough then. Six grams. Yeah. I feel like were using Measure 45. You know what we need, we need to measure that when we get home for sure.

[01:05:45] Find out. Have, have you gotten one of our coffee scoops? I do have that, yes. Okay, perfect. Yep. Yep. It’s about, I think it’s about eight scoops. Really? Yep. Eight heaping scoops is about 68 grams. The beans of grounds of grounds. [01:06:00] Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yep. Um, is in interesting that you say about, uh, amount of coffee.

[01:06:06] So I, we have a, um, a commercial customer that buys tons of five pound bags from us every month. And they’re very serious about their coffee, I thought. And they had, um, I don’t know, whoever the, the ladies at the office who were making the coffee, um, were not making it. It was, people were complaining that it was two weeks.

[01:06:33] So my contact at the business just today emailed me, said, um, how much ground coffee should we be using for a 2.2 liter AirPod that we’re brewing into? And I said, well, You need six ounces of coffee. Well, how many cups is that? That’s about two point. What’s exactly 2.11 cups of coffee. Oh, well the girls were using one cup [01:07:00] of coffee.

[01:07:00] I said, well, there you go. Sounds like you’re gonna be ordering a lot more coffee. Double your order there. me twice as much coffee. I think most people don’t know No. What they really should be using. Well, there’s a lot of people that don’t like strong coffee. Older people especially. Yes. Our parents drink brown water.

[01:07:17] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fs. And when they come over to our house, they’re like, oh my God. Yeah. But they also drink it all day long. True. Yeah. I, you know, people are like, you must drink your coffee constantly. I have two cups in the morning, and unless I’m having a meeting, yeah. I’ll have another cup or two. I don’t drink any coffee the rest of the day.

[01:07:39] If I’m out in an event, um, we’ve got nitro cold brew on tap, I’ll have a cup of that or occasionally an espresso, but I, I just, you know. Yeah. We have a big cup in the morning and usually an afternoon cup and try to Yeah. Get out of it. Yes. I can drink a lot. Yeah, me too. And it does [01:08:00] nothing for me anymore.

[01:08:01] Well, it’s, for me, that’s the same, same here, you know, I’ve, I’ve got build up a tolerance to it, like people drinking red Bulls or something. I wish it woke me up, but I could drink a cup of coffee and take a nap. So it’s, um, speaking of Red Bull, one of the, one of the products. That, um, I discovered when we were down in El Salvador, actually it was shortly before that.

[01:08:26] It’s, um, called cascara and cascara, um, is the fruit husk, the, the part of the coffee cherry. So coffee, it grows on a coffee tree. It’s actually a cherry with the coffee bean in the center just like that, which I know so many people don’t know that. Is it the pit of the fruit? It’s the, the pit of the fruit.

[01:08:48] Yeah. And so there are actually two beans in, in a coffee cherry. Um, and the, so the surrounding casca, um, typically the coffee [01:09:00] plantations will discard it or use it as fertilizer after it’s separated during the, the, the processing portion. Um, but you can dry it and it make it into a tea. and it is absolutely delicious.

[01:09:15] It tastes, it’s got a citrus juicy, kind of a, almost like a floral, like a hibiscus taste to it. Mm-hmm. . Um, and when we were in El Salvador, we went onto the, you know, up, up into the different coffee groves and we’re there picking the coffee with the workers. And you can pull these coffee cherries right off the tree and put ’em in your mouth and it is juicy and sweet, just like a, a regular cherry would be.

[01:09:41] And you spit the, the beans out, spit the pit . Um, but it was just absolutely astonishing, astonishingly delicious, how good this stuff was. And so when they were done harvesting a a bag, they would load it on the truck and bring it back down the mountain. They’d [01:10:00] weigh each bag at the end of the day, uh, before taking it to have it process.

[01:10:04] the, the, the weight of the bag with these cherries in, it would compress the juice, right? It was. And so these beans are all shiny and you could just take your finger, drag your finger across these things and taste, this is like the sweetest syrup you’ve ever had. Really? Yeah. And so the Casca, it’s not a well known product in the United States yet.

[01:10:29] I’ve seen a couple roasters that offer the stuff, but by and large, the challenge is, um, it doesn’t transport well unless it’s properly dried and sealed. It has to be at a certain humidity level on everything that, um, but we’re in the process of developing a, an energy drink product with us. Ah, backroom is, backroom is nice.

[01:10:56] And the other cool thing that we discovered down there [01:11:00] was on the plantation, they have beehive. And these bees pollinate the coffee trees and take the nectar from, so the coffee tree has this big, beautiful white blossom mm-hmm. , um, prior to the, the harvest season. And so the bees pollinate the, the, the trees and take the nectar and make coffee, honey.

[01:11:20] And it is no, the most exceptional tasting honey I have ever had. Really, really, I’ll share some with you before you. Okay. And so we are going to combine these two products into a, . So you know who Jake Paul is? Yeah, I am. Well, he started on a podcast, so maybe you’ll be up there with his prime, you know, doing about a billion dollars of coffee, honey energy drinks.

[01:11:47] Well, hopefully I can get, can you box his boxing chops? You know, you just got beat Mayweather. You just got beat. It’s interesting. I actually just learned more about Honey just recently, a friend of mine who I did her logo for, uh, it’s called Lavender [01:12:00] Ridge Farms, lavender Ridge Farm. They have a event.

[01:12:04] Yeah, it’s like a little event center and the harvest honey, and now lavender. And then sunflowers, I believe in the, in the fall. She needs coffee. Um, yes, she does. Wedding venue is beautiful. It it, you’re, you don’t drink coffee at weddings. Do they hope people do? Mm. It would be beautiful up there. I’m telling you.

[01:12:23] It’s, it’s gorgeous. They’ve done a phenomenal job. Yeah. Um, but they, they have spring and fall honey. And I, I’m not a honey connoisseur. I didn’t know that. And so now I have spring and fall. Different color tastes different. It’s totally different color. Yeah. And the beekeepers that. You know, know their stuff.

[01:12:44] Can tell what plants the bees have been p pollinating. Yes. She knows. She knew. Yeah. It’s, uh, I never knew any of this. It’s like the sunflowers in the fall. Yeah. And the lavenders in the spring. And I mean, like, I think Blake said, our son said that he likes the [01:13:00] fall and I kind of like the fall better if I have it on my steak.

[01:13:03] I like the fall on my steak and stuff. It’s just, you’re weird that you put on it on your steak. I know. On your steak. It’s kind of like, uh, it’s like with salt and a little bit of honey. Yeah. It’s like maple sh uh, maple syrup and drag your bacon through it. Yeah. Do the same thing. Well, she puts syrup on her sausage just a little bit now cuz I know it’s sugar.

[01:13:21] So full of sugar. Um. . Yeah. It’s pretty weird that Well, I’m, I’m, you’re talking about the honey i’d, anxious anxiously. Wait, that coffee honey energy drink. It’ll be interesting to taste the honey that you said you’ve got. But yeah, an energy drink with that. So it’s all, it truly is natural. So you’ve got coffee, natural energy drink a bar.

[01:13:46] Yep. Our biker bar, which is Belgian dark chocolate, combined with coarse ground, bits of our biker blend. So each bar has about two cups. of coffee worth of caffeine content in one [01:14:00] bar. Oh, geez. Get out. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Who makes that? Is it, do you make it here? No, because we’re not, you’re not processing, we’re licensed food pro production facility.

[01:14:10] Yeah. But we’ve got a local chocolatier that produces those for us. So I, I designed the, the molds and the, the packaging and everything, and of course you did . That’s what I do. That’s so, that’s great. What’s on the horizon? Mm. What what’s the, what’s the big, giant thing that you want to do that you just haven’t done yet?

[01:14:30] Make millions and millions of dollars go on Shark Tank. Shark Tank with your bean buggy franchise or the, well, no, now the energy drink. Energy drink, I’ll tell you the energy drink. Uh, Jake, I, I haven’t had it yet. I don’t know if the prime drink, it’s not, I mean, he is a master marketer. You know, whether you like him or you hate him, he is getting eyeballs on his product.

[01:14:56] Mm-hmm. , he’s such a showman for sure. Mm-hmm. . And there’s another [01:15:00] group, the boys watch, and it’s from YouTube. They’re called the Milk Boys. Not familiar. They do just same like stunts and that’s stupid. And they’re a bunch of young guys that went ballistic and they made a seltzer called Happy. . I’ve heard it tastes terrible, but they did the same.

[01:15:18] You can’t buy it anywhere cuz it sells out. As soon as they re, as soon as they launch it, it’s gone. And yeah. You know, they make way more money off of their products because they have eyeballs. Mm-hmm. , it’s media. Well, what’s, what’s the old saying? Uh, if you can’t dazzle ’em with brilliance, you baffle ’em with bull bullshit.

[01:15:35] Yeah. Yep. . Yep. So what would you say is, what would you say is your most memorable experience so far then with business? With the coffee business? Yeah. El Salvador. That’s what I figured. Had you never been to Central South America? We’ve never been to Central South America. Never been to Mexico. I’ve been to Canada, been to Europe twice.

[01:15:57] Um, but it [01:16:00] was completely foreign and completely exotic and intriguing. And we were treated like kings while we were down there. Really? And just did you have to fly into a, a larger city? We flew into San Salvador. San Salvador. There’s only one, uh, international airport in the entire country. And that’s San Salvador, San Sal or El Salvador.

[01:16:22] As a country you can fit. At two times into the state of Ohio, so you can get from one side of the country in about two hours. Wow. Yeah. That’s coast to coast. Coast to coast, literally. And so where we stayed, um, the, the, the home that we stayed in the, the fortress basically is, was what it was, had a wraparound deck, um, on it that overlooked the Pacific Ocean.

[01:16:50] And often the distance there were, uh, volcanoes with the, or, you know, Shap, Parsi in the background and just, you know, every night the [01:17:00] sunsets and watching it disappear into the Pacific. Wow. And, uh, just spectacular. And how was San Salvador safety? You felt, you know, yeah. I felt you being an American. You were cool.

[01:17:11] Well, we were, we were, um, escorted. We were escorted. Um, the, the, our hosts are, um, very well connected there. Um, so actually, um, Guillermo his best friend from when they were little kids, Fernando, Fernando, uh, was, uh, worked with a ministry of, uh, agriculture for many years. So he’s, he knows the president personally.

[01:17:37] And, um, so we, it wasn’t That’s nice. It wasn’t your, your VIPs. We were VIPs, yeah. Yeah. So that’s awesome. And it just, it’s, it’s crazy how that little, I mean, you call it networking, but you weren’t even, I guess it was that cars and coffee is a networking meeting. Yeah. And you met. A guy from New Albany that is from El Sal.

[01:17:58] That’s just crazy. Yeah. You know, [01:18:00] and if the small world thing comes in, but it really does. And if itt, what a great connection. If it weren’t for the bean buggy, none of this ever would’ve happened. JP Morgan Chase wouldn’t have happened. Um, we’ve gotten access to other clients. We did a, a Ferrari event, uh, a Ferrari v i p event at Midwestern Auto Group last fall, again as a result of the Columbus cars and coffee and the bean buggy and, and all of that.

[01:18:24] But the access that has given me to another level of clientele Oh, for sure. You know, walk in customers that you would get at a coffee shop is just, um, you can’t beat it. Yeah. So do you have your Lamborghini wrapped with your. No, but it was really cool. We, um, so my friend, uh, Toma Tomas is, uh, their head salesperson and he and I got to be buddies through, you know, just all the events we did out at Mag Glass couple seasons, and he, it was the end of day two and he is like, Hey, you want take a test [01:19:00] drive?

[01:19:00] I was like, absolutely. I got to test drive two Ferrari. Nice. Did you really? Yeah. And we’re in the V I P Ferrari. They have a special, um, uh, lounge area. You know, we’re serving coffee to, you know, CEOs of companies that were waiting for their Ferrari that were on order. So it was kind of an event to, to placate them until their cars came in and, you know, come out and test drive a couple.

[01:19:25] And so yeah, that in. Yep. Is that where you were? Yep. Got to drive some Ferrari and get the bags of coffee in front of the Ferrari. And Shirley got pictures of those. Oh yeah. I’ll, you really haven’t been on the, I’m telling you, I didn’t see that one though. I mean, she does. My Facebook got hacked. Oh yeah.

[01:19:45] It’s been almost two years ago. I mean, we were on, on the boat on Buckeye Lake ago. Cuz it was before co. It was right at the beginning of Covid. Yeah, it was right during, and I get, I, we run ads for a lot of people. Yeah. So [01:20:00] I have Facebook and Google, you know, their limits are usually, once you spend 500 bucks, they, Hey, you just spend 500 bucks.

[01:20:08] I can send you a notification. I get notifications all the time. 500 bucks, five American Express goes through, I’m on the boat and I see $500 all the time. I know what it is. It’s my ads. , I am on the boat, I get 1500 bucks. I was like, you know, that’s from Facebook. You know, sometimes they add up things and Sri Lanka,

[01:20:27] Well, and it was Likeno. 1500 bucks, 1500 bucks, 2,500 bucks. I was like, and we’re on the boat. I’m on the boat and I’m like, your ship’s San. I am calling. I’m on the speed down American Express. I am calling. Stop this car. This is, I am not authorizing this. I got 15 grand right off the bat. You can’t call anybody at Facebook.

[01:20:48] Mm-hmm , you can’t do any. I said, stop. I changed my. My card. I stopped my card on American Express. Well, her, she’s got a card on it [01:21:00] too. It’s a business account. It just rolled over and started taking it from her card. Oh my gosh. Like no and that I couldn’t, you didn’t have a hotline, is Zuckerberg? No, I couldn’t stop it.

[01:21:09] It took two months. Oh my gosh. How much did they end up? It was 15. They took 15 grand, but all of his, I mean all of our shut accounts, they down, I lost all my ad accounts, you know, everything. IED for any company and myself. I, to this day, I still can’t Facebook message money to my kids because my, my account is banned.

[01:21:29] What a nightmare. Oh, it, it was Vietnam. They, I get on my account and it would be all changed to Vietnamese and I’d change it. I, I even had the two factor authentication. I had all the security stuff. They still got in. I changed it. And then once I had changed it, they already had access to it. So they had changed my email.

[01:21:48] Yeah. And the phone. So when I’d say, send me a new car, you know, my, I forget my password. , it would go to them crazy. I got it changed twice and they changed it back. I was going crazy. Oh man. And it’s what a [01:22:00] nightmare. It’s emails this long explaining what happened, why it’s not. I ended up, they, they gave me all my money back, but to this day, my, my account, it’s like burned.

[01:22:09] Yeah. Yeah. Shall I, I’ll say, did you see my approach? I’ll say, did you see my post? She’s like, I didn’t even see it. Mm-hmm. . I’m like, I posted it six feet from you and you didn’t even see it. And that’s one of the reasons, because that happened with him or with us. We really try to make sure people know, especially small businesses, don’t use social media as your main website.

[01:22:33] I mean, there are so many people that still to this day, I will go to, you know, go to their Facebook and then click on their website link and it goes right back to Facebook. I’m like, what are you? Doing, you’re using Facebook as your only website. Your website, and you don’t own any of it. They could shut you down so fast.

[01:22:54] Right. And I mean, it’s, it’s literally, I see it still to this day. Huh. Which is [01:23:00] crazy. It is crazy. That’s, that’s scary. And there’s no recourse. They shut down. I mean, people in my business, they just, you, you can’t say things like they, you can’t make a claim. Like, like we always have, we do a lot of doctors and you can’t, like a chiropractor saying, you know, I can fix your pain.

[01:23:19] You can’t say that, right? They’ll just delete you. They’ll ban your account forever if you say that. Yeah. So you gotta be careful what you say cuz you usually got one or two chances and then it’s just final answer. You can’t have it back. That’s, you can never advertise again. Lost my personal account last, last year and not exactly sure how Facebook.

[01:23:37] Facebook, yeah. Um, I’ve, I had Trent Lundberg, which is gone now. I wondered. Yeah. And tried to, you know, um, appeal and mm-hmm. never got any answer back and gone. Um, so Coffee man, is it? And then you’ve got back room and, um, well, when y’all also start to understand the way the social media [01:24:00] companies valuations, it’s per user, right?

[01:24:02] How many people like you have made to account? My mom’s got two. Everybody, you get locked out, you make another account. Mm-hmm. , their value goes up. Right? I think that’s something to that, but mm-hmm. , what do I know? A lot, , a lot. So we hit everything. I, um, my trustee list of questions. Um, gosh, what, this was a good one.

[01:24:31] What advice would you give to somebody who maybe would want to start up, or, you know, not that we want people to become your competition, but if someone was thinking about doing something like that, what are, what are some tips that you have for them?

[01:24:50] Probably my, my, I don’t wanna say my number one tip, but I would say if at, [01:25:00] if there’s any possible way to go it alone and not take on partners, do it. Even if it means, you know, digging, uh, a hole for yourself temporarily. I’ve found that being in business with partners muddies the waters and, um, too many cooks in the kitchen.

[01:25:23] Too many chiefs, not enough Indians, whatever it is, or it’s, it, it’s a bad recipe. You’ve always heard the, the only ship guaranteed to sink is a partnership. Well, I like that one. I’ve never Yeah, that’s a good one. That’s, that’s, that’s, I get it. Even it’s, you know, there’s strategic partnerships that can work, but for, you know, small business to start Yeah.

[01:25:46] Uh, you know, completely underst understand that it’s a daunting challenge to start a business. Um, I’ve got two of them and, um, you know, I tell people at this point, I don’t know what I would do, uh, [01:26:00] without having these businesses because at this point I’m unemployable, , nobody’d hire me for sure. Um, but. if you can possibly avoid it.

[01:26:10] We have not had a job in 25 years yet. No way I could go back to work. No, absolutely not. Yeah. No way they could afford me, fortunately. Right. That’s exactly right. And fortunately, um, my wife, she still works. She’s a store manager of S fifth Avenue at Polaris, so we, you know, with the benefits and mm-hmm.

[01:26:30] insurance and all that, um, it’s, it’s kind of a luxury for me to not have to worry about that. Um, but would not, um, would not recommend getting into partnerships if you can avoid it. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, too. That’s good. Very. Do you have any other, any other questions? So you’ve got the website. How do you get the word out?[01:27:00]

[01:27:00] Other than I’ve posting on Instagram every now and then. I’ve tried, um, Facebook ads and haven’t had much success, and maybe I’m just not, you know, it, I’m an amateur. Mm-hmm. , I’m a rank amateur. Don’t know the first thing about it, other than, you know, picking your, your, your target demographic and you know how far out your reach goes and how many days and what your budget is.

[01:27:27] Maybe I wasn’t spending enough. I don’t know, maybe I didn’t hit the right keywords. I don’t know. I mean, I’ve gone, you know, Google search, you know, top keywords for the coffee industry, 2022 and mm-hmm. , things like that. But it’s been a, a very, um, shooting rubber bands at the stars kinds of things, you know, very haphazard.

[01:27:47] Um, so that’s been my major. Um, did you get any sales from it? Do you know? Mm, if, if I did From Google? You mean not much? Just from the ads. Oh, not, not much. Was it Google or [01:28:00] Facebook? It was Facebook. Facebook. Oh, okay. I haven’t done any Google ads. Um, Most of it has been word of mouth, been Instagram posts been what we’ve been able to glean from the, um, the events and with the, with the bean buggy.

[01:28:15] Um, you know, we had a number of people that were loyal backroom followers from back when it was still in the truck store that came over. Um, but we’ve got a long way to go, so that’s why I’m, uh, talking to local vibes that maybe can help us. Here we go ahead up our, uh, our brand. Well, the brand, I mean, obviously the branding is fantastic.

[01:28:41] So, you know, just, you gotta get in front of more people. That’s right. That’s the answer every single time is, well, what’s your elevator pitch when you, when you have somebody that, um, why buy backroom? Why, why buy backroom versus somebody else? Because we’re the best. But Starbucks is right around the corner.

[01:28:57] Well, again, I go back to the, [01:29:00] the, the pork rind. Yeah. You know, the, the, is there a type who buys your coffee? I mean, is there a customer age group? Yeah. What are the demographics? What are your demographics? Yes, it’s, um, customers are typically from 35 to 55. It’s not the, it’s not the, it’s not the Instagram girls with their name on their cup.

[01:29:24] It’s not the Instagram girls with the name on the cup. It’s on their frappuccino. Yeah. It’s, um, you know, typically college educated professionals. They, they’re particular about their coffee. They much like yourselves, they like sourcing local. Um, they’re not big supporters of the huge brands. Um, they like to, you know, grind their own beans.

[01:29:51] They like to do, um, you know, specialty, uh, you know, specialty roasts. Um, [01:30:00] well it’s funny. Do we know anybody that grinds their own beams besides us? Yeah. I mean, our family always looks us like Kelly Crazy was the only other, only other person, but they all buy canned coffee and Yeah. Yeah, those, that’s, and I scold them all the time.

[01:30:13] I’m like, why are you drinking this? Yeah. And if dad or mom, you’re listening, you’re one of ’em. I call it. I call it, what do I say? It’s definitely like water. And they always know now that they’re like, Angie needs a different, Angie needs to brew her coffee separately. Even if they, even if I have to be subjected to that other crap, um, it’s like I have to do it after them because I make it, I have to make it like, yes, put coffee in it.

[01:30:42] Yeah. Way stronger. 69 gram, stronger , 69 grams. That’s just right. Perfect. It’s just right for both of us. Oh,

[01:30:56] I think. That’s about it here. How can people find you? [01:31:00] Yeah, throughout your backroom coffee roasters.com. So you can order directly from our website. Um, and as I mentioned earlier, if you order four or more bags here in Ohio in the immediate surrounding area, four more bags shipping’s free as long as you hit that $60 threshold.

[01:31:16] We’ve got, um, mugs for sale. We’ve got travel mugs. We’ve got the biker bars. Hold up your mug. We’ve got, there you go. That’s our lovely ceramic mug. $12, uh, on the website. Um, you can also find us on Instagram at backroom Coffee. We’re on Facebook backroom Coffee roasters. Um, if you go on the website, uh, or on the Instagram, uh, a lot of our, uh, posts have, um, links to the products, so you can go and it’ll, it’ll direct, just direct you through.

[01:31:49] to the website and the ordering and, and all. How many products do you have? Or coffee? How many coffees? We have 16 different roasts to choose from. Wow. In a dif in addition to the biker bar, [01:32:00] um, we are going to be reintroducing our, uh, canned cold brew mm-hmm. here in the very near future. Um, as well as hopefully the Casca Cold Drink Pro, uh, uh, energy beverage.

[01:32:11] Um, so there are some, some things. I’m excited for that. Yeah. Really excited for that. Well, we’ll make sure that we have links, um, links in the description. Yeah. Links in the description for this. Thank you. So they can get directly to it and, And get in touch with you if they need you for anything. Yeah. As well.

[01:32:29] Um, also we do, um, private and public, public events. So if you’ve got a, a wedding or a graduation special event where you’d like to have a unique, uh, kind of a specialty coffee type thing, we, we travel with the bean buggy and uh Nice. Yeah. But we’ll definitely put a link to some bean buggy pictures, cuz that is pretty cool.

[01:32:50] Oh yeah, for sure. Awesome. Thank you. It’s got a, it’s got a local vibe. It does have a local vibe. a really cool local vibe. I like, like those local vibes. Yes, yes. Well I think that’s all I got. [01:33:00] Yep. Appreciate you doing this. It’s fun. Appreciate you having fun. Very educational. Now I know how to make my coffee better.

[01:33:05] Yes. If. Hard to, hard to improve upon perfection, but there you go. Well, I think it was user air. We weren’t using enough coffee. Oh. It was user air being cheap. 69 grams. 69 grams. That’s key. . So I measure it before I grind. It doesn’t matter, right? It, no, it doesn’t matter because that’s what we just measure it and throw it in.

[01:33:25] Okay. Grind it and then dump it out. Yeah. Oh, we’re not using enough. We’ll find out. We’ll measure, we’ll weigh it tomorrow and we’ll find out and we’ll report back. Fantastic. You’ll be, you’ll be, uh, ordering biweekly instead A monthly . We have run out four bags. I know you were, you were kind of in a panic when you, have you shipped it yet?

[01:33:44] I’m sick. I had the order and I was thinking that you were, you were coming last Wednesday, so I didn’t Ah, I didn’t bother. That’s right. The shipping label. That’s right. You know, so, you know, gotta gotta watch every penny I can. Yeah. But I’m glad couldn’t save the shipping, [01:34:00] made it cuz it’s no fun to be, you know, between shipments and not having any, uh, fresh biker blend.

[01:34:06] We will have to order more cuz we’re gonna be using more. Yeah, that’s good. Well, we’ve got five pound bags on the website too. I’ve seen that. Yeah. We’ll have to do that. That’s probably it. More for less. Are we done? I think so. Great. All good. Thanks for listening to the Local Vibes Podcast, brought to you by Local vibes.us, where we help small business owners like you build the ultimate system that generates more leads, phone calls, and most importantly, more customers.

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