Paul’s voice has that croaky sound which is the product of long hours of work at the expense of sleep. While the cafe has dominated his time, he has also needed to continue working on the core business and his additional coaching work. At least he is not bored :) In this episode we talked about the first month of opening of the cafe. Did it go as expected? Were our predictions accurate? This is the final part of our series following Paul's journey in opening the cafe. You can start at episode...

Imagine going to a trade show on tractors and being served coffee that is better than any coffee you have had before. Or rocking up to a wedding in a field and being served coffee that is as good as your favourite local cafe.  In this conversation with Esther Maasdam, co-founder of Manhattan coffee roasters and founder of her eponymous events business: Esther Maasdam coffee connoisseur, we talk about how she has been bringing specialty coffee to the people at events for the past 20...

Since launching the sustainability reporting course from the Chain Collaborative we have been curious about the real world impact of sustainability reports. Why would a company invest time and money in creating one, what are the pros and cons of doing it.  Micah Sherer, our friend at Skylark Coffee in Brighton, UK has been writing their transparency report since launching nearly 5 years ago and it has had a big impact on their growth and on communicating the mission and values of Skylark...

This is the last episode recorded before Paul opened the doors to his cafe for the first time on October 5.  We discussed his menu, opening hours, vision for the cafe and its impact on different stakeholders and we did some predictions for sales in the first month.  Tibor and Andrew have started sharing their reflections on the conversation after the recordings, so stay tuned to hear our post interview thoughts. 

In the 5th instalment of our podcast series following Paul Ross as he opens the bricks and mortar home of Special Guests Coffee, we hear about progress with recruitment and shop fitting. We now have a tentative opening date and the pressure is on to finish the build out and get all the equipment in on time. Will it be opening on International Coffee day, we shall have to wait and see.  Amongst other things in this episode we discussed POS systems, POS stands for point of sale. There are a lot...

Our conversation includes insights into: Growing from one to three cafes.The benefits of co-roastingThe Importance of systems and processes The theme that runs through the interview is people - designing an experience for all the people who are touched by the business, whether it is the people from whom Dagger coffee source products, to the way people are recruited and supported who work in the business and also the customer experience. It is evident that everything is designed as a personal...

Major Cohen grew up with coffee, was a passionate consumer and hobbyist, mentored by George Howell in the 70's and went on to have a 25 year career with Starbucks from the age of 45. He subsequently left Starbucks during the pandemic and wrote the essential foundational coffee book - Coffee for Dummies. Join Andrew and Tibor in this conversation with Major. His experience with Starbucks is full of valuable lessons and gives us a fascinating insight into the incredible growth of Starbucks...

Tibor and Andrew had a catch up chat after World of Coffee in Copenhagen to discuss trends they saw and how they relate to the wider cafe industry. We dig deeper into the question of how do you decide which products to put on you menu using the operational complexity and profit margin matrix. You can see the matrix here: https://community.coffeeknowledgehub.com/c/trending/which-products-to-sell

Episode 4 in the series following the opening of the Special Guests Coffee cafe in Marlebone, London. Join us as we hear more from Paul Ross about opening his cafe. There are valuable lessons for anyone thinking about getting into the cafe business or for people already operating cafes.  In this episode we catch up on progress with the cafe build out and what Paul has been up to since our last interview in April. We discuss, pricing and pricing strategies, customer journeys, competitive...

This was a short episode continuing our series with Paul Ross.  This episode touched on some aspects of the business fundamentals of running a cafe, but we will go a lot deeper into this in future episodes. As Tibor alluded to in his question, there are many first time cafe owners who do not have a good knowledge of targets such as labour and cost of goods sold as a percentage of net revenue. Pricing is based on what a customer is willing to pay, but it needs to cover purchase costs, wastage,...

If you have ever experienced staff shortages, difficulties finding qualified people for your business or find recruitment overwhelming, watch this interview with Ben Szobody.  Ben’s interest in coffee predates many people’s, he was following the US coffee competitions in the 2000’s, in a time before twitter, which was once a big thing in the coffee world and certainly before competitions became a thing. He wrote the chemically imbalanced blog from 2007, chronicling “the way stellar coffee...

Our latest podcast is released in time for WOC Copenhagen, where Ewelina is now based. Over the course of our conversation with Ewelina we learned about growing into new roles and developing skills. We learned about the transition from barista and friend to boss and we learned about retailing. There are some practical tips for improving cafe retails operations, implementing new service styles and also going online. Ewelina has been in the hospitality game for almost a decade. Her...

This is episode 2 of the series following Paul Ross' journey in setting up the Special Guests Coffee cafe. This is a fun one to watch. We recorded it in early April and then travel and a few challenges with the editing got in the way of releasing it. So, you will hear Paul’s projected opening dates which have not yet been realised. He is battling on though. I highly recommend watching/listening to this if you are thinking of opening a cafe or you work in the retail end of the supply chain....

We are Following Paul Ross, founder of Special Guests coffee as he takes his high end specialty coffee business from a digital to a physical experience in his soon to open cafe in Marylebone, London.  This is the first of a multipart series where we follow Paul on his journey in opening a cafe.  This episode covers the origin story of Paul and his business Special Guests. We learn why he is opening a physical location and the steps he has taken to get to the point of finding and signing on...

This is a wide ranging conversation on the business of specialty coffee covering micro and macro trends and some insights in decision making processes across a range of specialty business types.