There is tremendous excitement about the local coffee community and the big movements recently in our area. A lot of it is warranted because things have grown leaps and bounds the last three years. We are proud of the influence we've had and watching people we've trained move around plus shops responding to the heightened competition. The bar is raising though we often wish it would raise faster and with more purpose. It has not been a cohesive movement nor one that often has a clear message shop to shop. Message is defined by mission statement, something most indie coffee shops owners don't have time to think about because they are too busy trying to survive.
This weekend at the MANE coffee conference, I'm going to take a stab at explaining how you can create a cohesive message in developing a per cup program. It's not an easy thing to talk about and it can get abstract but it's at the heart of our business. We dryly call it developing a manifesto of good coffee because it can sound extreme to the traditional coffee business people. There has to be a reasonable why to what you are doing and why you'd make a customer pay more and wait longer for a cup of coffee.
It's going to be a fun weekend and we hope many of you make it out to MANE! We'll digest what we saw when we get back.
