So there are people out there who seem to believe that the BGA, and for that matter, the SCAA should be held responsible for the quality of coffee at independent coffeeshops all over. Now while I disagree with the premise, I also understand where it's coming from. There is this percentage of consumers who are frustrated at the poor quality of coffee in their communities, and to some of them, the BGA and the SCAA appear to be the ones best equipped to "make things right."
But this got me thinking about some of the big-picture issues at hand, and I thought I'd share some of them to see what y'all think.
I'd like to propose a not-really-very-unique idea that coffeehouses can provide three things: a culinary craft (the coffee), community (the people), and convenience.
It's frankly the community-part that drew me to coffee in the first place. I'd have opened a bar, but I'm not the biggest fan of alcohol. "People" has always been my primary focus from the very beginning, be it our customers, or my staff, or my colleagues in the industry.
But when I think back to when I first got started, there was a point at which I realized that at its core, a coffeehouse is a convenience business. People generally won't travel very far just for a cup of coffee, especially when every convenience store and fast-food joint seems to be brewing a pot. This fact set me on a search for a great location for my shop.
But I had a hunch that the craft of coffee, the culinary experience of coffee, had a hell of a long way to go beyond what the shops around here had to offer. I had the fortunate experience early on of meeting David Schomer, who was wholly committed to the craft of coffee, working to push the bar ever higher. Nowadays, I find myself in the midst of the larger community of coffee professionals, committed not only to improving the coffee in their own businesses, but indeed, in those communities... those very communities with the folks complaining about bad coffee.
So here's my point: maybe the problem with "bad coffee" isn't really that people don't know what good coffee is, or that they don't know about all of the nuanced things about coffee that a lot of us often spend our time talking or thinking about... but that to the independent coffeeshop owners in question, a coffeeshop is simply: community and/or convenience?
Again, nothing that I think of as particularly profound, but this does beg some other questions: does a shop need all three (community, convenience, and culinary craft)? Is it all about the culinary craft? What if you have the best coffee, but poorly executed convenience and community? Of course, the craft has a long way to go... but what about the community and convenience parts? Which is more harmful to the perception in the general consumer base: poorly-executed attempts at culinary-craft focus, or the purely convenience-focused shops? Or is the true enemy purely community-focused shops?
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in order, i'd say that to the general populace, convenience is first, followed closely by community. the craft is pretty much the last on the list to the majority of the consumer base.
ReplyDeleteconvenience states that the shop is providing the basic need. it doesn't demand quality, though there is a demand for speed and ease. convenient is going into a shop, ordering, and getting served in a way that doesn't take a lot of extra effort on the consumers part. this is where places like starbucks and caribou really strive. people know what they want from these places, and they know that they will be able to get that need fulfilled there.
community is definitely more esoteric, but still a good thing. people tend to be with like minded people. that's why bars (alcohol, coffee, sushi, etc.) have regulars. people like to be in a place that they are familiar, where they feel they can be understood, and where they know how things work. people enjoy comfort.
the coffee is the part that is last in th emind of the general populace. this is partially due to the fact that the market is flooded with "decent" coffee and also due to the fact that the average consumer just doesn't care. most coffee consumers have just 2 responses to coffee. good and bad. they don't go out looking for good coffee, they instead satisfy themselves seeking out "non bad" coffee. there are definitely exceptions to this rule, like people in the coffee industry, espressonados, etc., but when you're talking about the soccer mom that just wants a little pick me up, or the college student struggling with studying his biostatistics, they don't care if it's not great, they just want it to be not bad.
In researching coffeehouses for my own business plan there are several models of coffeehouses. There is room for all of them however, some models do better then other.
ReplyDeleteAs for good coffee and bad coffee, once people have had a superior product, they rarely go back to the bad stuff or event the ok-stuff. Does that mean they have one snort of the good coffee and they are instantly hooked? No. Because they have been drinking bad coffee they typically dump a lot of cream and sugar in the cup to cover up the staleness. It takes about 3 months before you see them stop adding all the junk in there coffee before they start enjoying coffee for what it is and not the buzz.
So how do you get people do this? Well it starts with a good location. How do you get them to come in often? Having a place that is pleasant and comfortable. How do you get them to become educated coffee drinkers? You talk to them about the coffee. Where it is from. How fresh it is. Why it is better then the grocery store. How you can make this at home. Low and behold you have another coffee zealot to ding Nick, the Barista Guild and the SCAA on why they don't do something about the coffee quality in this country!
Folks, can you plz get your ATOM or RSS set up?
ReplyDeleteIs www.portafilter.net/atom.xml not working?
ReplyDeletei dunno about the atom, but the RSS is working fine. the atom looks pretty good from here...
ReplyDelete>does a shop need all three (community, convenience, and culinary craft)?
ReplyDeleteNo. If that were the case then the big chains would be out of the business wouldn't they? They offer convenience and community.
>Is it all about the culinary craft? What if you have the best coffee, but poorly executed convenience and community?
I think that we are becoming more of a customer-service oriented society so there is less room for the cranky barista who irritates people. They will always be smallscale in comparison to others but that might be what they want. I have to agree with Gee and Blues. I could summarise my past 14months at the coffeecart with one sentence- Love the coffee your customers will love you!
We also have to consider just how long our customers want to wait for coffee. Whitecollar 9-5'rs don't usually like to wait that long, and weekender/soccermum/mall types are _usually_ a bit more relaxed. This is also influenced by what the cafes around you are doing. So it is up to you to provide a balance of speed and quality to meet your target audience's needs. When I went down to Sydney recently I noticed that in the specialty cafes, baristas were slower in comparison to Brisbane city baristas. However, the eye on detail and the quality level was really much higher. This was expected of them in Sydney. Those same smoking hot baristas would have to adjust their technique or have a wingman on the machine if they came to work up Brisbane since our customers expect coffee to flow out to them much more quickly.
>Which is more harmful to the perception in the general consumer base: poorly-executed attempts at culinary-craft focus, or the purely convenience-focused shops? Or is the true enemy purely community-focused shops?
I think that as long as we are there to provide them with a contrast, then there is no 'enemy'. I also think it is misleading to call anyone an enemy, especially when considering that the big chains paved the way for us by making specialty coffee a mainstream topic. The greater issue I think is how we define ourselves and how we contrast that to the chains and the quick-e-mart superautomatics. There are certainly many points of difference and we can make people aware of this through time, efffort and of course, a lot of education and even a little bit of marketing.
I love this article.
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