Thanks for sharing!”

>>>>>>>>>

Great post Jim,

this IS something we think about daily.

I would definitely visit “here” if I didn’t own the place.

1) My wife works there, and she’s pretty.
2) Espresso and coffee standards not touched anywhere else in city.
3) It’s easily accessible.

There’s always something we can improve on, but I always think about the coffee experience from entering to door to leaving, and everything in between. Some would say I go over board to maintain standards, but being a tiny-shop, our standards are what set us apart from nearly everyone in the country. How else can you better serve your customer than delivering something memorable every time? I’m not certain if we succeed every time, but that’s our goal. You might want to hit me from time to time, but I promise, you’ll love the coffee.

I wonder though if more can’t be done to slow down service. Certainly, as an operator, I want to see the line move as quickly as possible. However, I constantly wonder what we can do to slow things down a bit to help keep our focus on the quality we desire.

At The Spro, we’ve never had a “condiment bar.” You want cream and sugar (or other substitutes)? We have them and we’re going to mix them into your drink for you. It’s an inherently slow process that gives us the opportunity for greater interaction, service and hospitality. An extra moment to connect instead of just passing a 12z pressed cup of coffee and letting them put the jacket, lid and whatever else at a different location.

When it comes to operations, we’re always thinking how to shave time and increase efficiency while maintaining standards. Can we place the milk pitchers in a better location? How about the accessories? Are the steps in our procedures as efficient as possible. Just the simple act of pulling and filling a steam pitcher can have exponential effects on service time throughout the course of the day.

To my mind, the important aspect of all this is defining a standard for your company and sticking to it. Earlier this week, I jetted out to Salt Lake City to visit John Piquet of Caffe D’Bolla. It’s a quaint little shop where the standards are high and, in many ways, uncompromising. Imagine a place where the proprietor doesn’t allow you to put sugar or cream in your siphon coffee. No matter what – even in the face of bodily harm. That’s the kind of commitment to standards I find inspiring.

No, never sacrifice quality. However, try to accommodate the customers in some way. Three ways that spring to mind are:

1. Having something for them to do while they wait. Some sort of daily coffee-related bulletin board or informational coffee display (bonus points if it’s some product that, if set up well and informative, may result in a purchase decision while they’re waiting). [This idea comes from architectural design where putting mirrors in the lobby of office buildings led to fewer complaints about how slow the elevators were.]

2. Offer them something while they’re waiting. I don’t know how well a self-serve water pitcher would work, but something that gets a beverage or small snack in their hands (without slowing down the barasti).

3. Perhaps something to stimulate conversation amongst total strangers while they’re waiting. This one is a long-shot and requires a great culture within the shop already, plus some sort of catalyst (be it a topic or a person to keep it going).

Plus, as mentioned above, the regulars who absolutely love the place will not only help themselves, but clean up after themselves when they see the shop is really busy. Make the customer love the place so that it feels like their own.

The hard road and the better one to take is just to be very confident at what you do and learn from as many of your past coffees as possible. I find that if people see the lineup and they see us working like an octopus on speed, they’re generally quite understanding about wait times. If they see a massive lineup and you have baristas that are moving slowly and still talking about what they’re going to do later that night.. that’s when customers get in your face.

How you haven’t been on Oprah yet, I’ll never know.