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Sam Larobardiere, Founder of Theory Coffee Roasters and Podium Coffee Club on Coffee People podcast. · Coffee People Podcast

• 0:01
  Hey everyone, welcome to the Coffee People podcast presented
• 0:04
  by our friends at Rostar Coffee Packaging.
• 0:07
  More on them later. Thank you for being here today.
• 0:10
  I'm your host, Ryan Waltz. You can follow or subscribe to
• 0:13
  our show Coffee People wherever you're listening, but you'll
• 0:16
  only find the bonus context links recaps to the episode on
• 0:21
  coffeepeoplepodcast.com. Our guest today is Sam La
• 0:25
  Robardiere. I had to write that out
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  phonetically to make sure I got it right.
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  He's the Co founder and operator of Theory Coffee Roasters in
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  Redding, CA which has three locations now and more recently
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  was part of launching Podium Coffee Club that shares only
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  award-winning coffee roasters. Learn more about Theory as you
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  listen along today at theorycoffee.com.
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  And I don't know about awards, but this cup that I've got is
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  pretty good, and I hope that you've got one that say it's
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  your desire for a good cup of coffee today as you listen to
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  our episode featuring Sam La Robardiere of Theory Coffee
• 1:02
  Roasters. Enjoy.
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  Sam, I I welcome you to coffee people.
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  I appreciate you're here, that we're meeting for the first
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  time. Would you mind introducing
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  yourself with your full name? Because I didn't want to butcher
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  it by telling everyone what it is and where you work and you
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  know what your role is. Sure.
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  My name is Sam La Robardier. That one's always a mouthful for
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  everybody, but it's pretty phonetic just like it's spelled
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  except for when you get to the end.
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  So La Robardier, I own owned a couple companies.
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  The one that is probably takes a majority of my time right now is
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  Theory Coffee Roasters. So we're in Redding, CA.
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  We are collection of currently we have 4 shops, we have a
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  scratch bakery and then we have obviously our wholesale roasting
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  arm as well. So that's kind of the, the
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  overview of the business and then my role day-to-day.
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  You know, I, I have, I've done a decent job.
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  I think of working myself out of the out of a lot of the
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  day-to-day roles. And so I spend my time focused
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  on, you know, growing the business, handling things that
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  are not able to be handled by managers or helping managers
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  work through things that they're unsure of.
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  And then I'm also heavily involved with the green coffee
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  buying side of our business. Actually, that's my role.
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  And then also quality control. So every week we taste all of
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  the coffees that we roasted for the seven days prior just to
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  make sure that quality is on point.
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  And also, if anything you know is tasting better, then we can
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  reset profiles or change profiles if something's not
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  tasting great. So we're always just kind of
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  optimizing coffees week to week. So that's the overview of my
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  role there. You said something right at the
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  beginning of that, that you were successfully worked yourself out
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  of the dated a lot of day-to-day roles Doesn't mean there's
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  nothing to do, it just means there's new things to do.
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  I'm assuming when you started this, the day-to-day was your
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  focus. And you know what got you going
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  and excited about it? Was it always a plan for you to
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  become this bigger picture puppet master, so to speak?
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  I think I, I think, no, I think this has been a, a journey of
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  just figuring it out as I go. And so initially I didn't want
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  it cafes, I thought, you know, I'll just be, I just want to
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  roast coffee, right. Like that's what most coffee
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  roasters, if you ask them what they want to do, they just say,
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  I just want to roast coffee, you know, And so I, I love roasting
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  coffee. I still do love roasting coffee,
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  but I also got bit by this other bug that I wasn't necessarily
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  expecting, which is wanting to wanting to grow.
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  So we opened our first Cafe in 20/20/18, I think 20/17/2017.
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  So we opened in 2017 and within a year we were kind of bursting
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  at the seams. Thankfully, like we had really,
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  really good response to what we're doing.
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  And, and so at that point it was like, you know, well, I think we
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  need to start thinking about a second shop.
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  And so then we started thinking about a second shop.
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  And in order to get the second shop off, I realized like, hey,
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  I've got to pass off some of these, you know, spending 8
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  hours a day behind the roaster no longer made sense.
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  So it wasn't necessarily that was the plan from the beginning.
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  It was just more of a function or result of, you know,
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  necessity to grow or, or I mean, we could have, we could have
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  stayed one shop, but then, you know, that thought of opening
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  the second shop just became, I don't know, it a little
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  intoxicating. And the thought of taking
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  another risk, you know, it, it, it felt good on me, you know,
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  so, so I, I was like, yeah, let's try it.
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  And so then two became three and three became four.
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  And along the way, it's just like if you, if you can't figure
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  out how to trust team and build team and pass off your
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  day-to-day responsibilities more and more and more, especially
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  like routine things that you're doing every single day, man,
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  that's going to be a stressful, stressful scenario for you.
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  So in order to remain sane and healthy and, you know, happy I
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  had, I had to pass some of those things off.
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  I think it's an admirable goal to assume that any hospitality
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  person is happy and healthy and sane for a good chunk of their
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  career. It's a.
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  It's a naturally chaotic, insane industry to work in.
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  I, I never realized it 'cause I grew up in it.
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  But when I met my wife and she, the, the idea that I would work
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  these weird hours and make bursts of income and then have
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  no income and then the lifestyle that came with that in my early
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  20s was confusing for someone who had worked in retail or as a
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  teller in a bank. You know where they work 9:00 to
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  5:00 and then go home. Yep, Yep, it's a shock to the
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  system. It's a different environment.
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  The people around you have to want to come along a little bit
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  for the ride. And I'd like to just go back a
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  little bit. You know, that's a little bit of
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  my background. But you know, what?
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  Do you have a a first memory of coffee even before you were in
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  it, or a first experience that got you started in this?
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  Man, This is interesting sort of phase.
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  I have, I think of what, what I would call a collection of
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  memories, you know, some very specific, but, you know, I was
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  very close with my my grandfather, who is a who's a
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  blueberry farmer in Michigan. And he would, he would wake up
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  bright and early. Like, you know, this is like
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  when you're waking up to go to the bathroom as a kid in the
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  middle of the night and you're like, what are you doing sitting
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  on the couch? You know, So I just remember
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  getting up, you know, as a, as a kid and seeing my grandpa
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  sitting on a couch, she just always had a cup of coffee.
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  He always looked so relaxed. And I, I knew somehow it was
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  like, you know, this, this ritual he had before he started,
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  you know, his incredibly challenging day farming and
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  whatever comes up in that sort of, you know, lifestyle, it's
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  just, you know, unpredictable. But during during those morning
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  hours, he was just very peaceful and always had a cup of coffee.
• 8:41
  Hey everyone, just a quick break.
• 8:43
  I want to say thanks for tuning into the Coffee People podcast.
• 8:46
  The show is presented by our friends at Rostar Coffee
• 8:49
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• 8:53
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  Check out rostar.com. And now back to the show.
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  I know what that farming community is like.
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  I I've spent early mornings with my grandpa trying to understand
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  why we were outside before the sun had come up.
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  Oh yeah. Certainly that's AI think a a
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  memory that has guided me a little bit because at least
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  ingrained in me the idea that like, work doesn't stop just
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  because, you know, some clock tells you it's supposed to.
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  Yeah. I think at at especially at, you
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  know, the ownership level, that's very true.
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  Which is what all farmers really were.
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  I mean, they were small, whether they thought of themselves that
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  way or not, they were business owners.
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  Oh. Absolutely.
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  I think that's, I think that's something that maybe gets lost a
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  little bit. And I don't mean to go off too
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  far on a philosophical bent, but with our with the distance that
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  we've put between most of ourselves and farming or most of
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  ourselves and some of those jobs that were more common at that
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  time, say fifties, 60s, seventies, 80s, you know, kids
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  don't grow up seeing that. And if you don't have a role
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  model for that kind of work, then you don't realize that
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  that's sometimes what it takes. And I worry about that for the
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  future. I worry about, you know, when I
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  was 14, I went out and got a job at Wendy's, but that job isn't
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  really available anymore, you know, for a 14 year old anyways,
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  you know, either an adult has that job or they've automated it
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  in the way. And so you've been running
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  theory now for how long? Give or take theory started in
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  2016. OK, so almost 10 years.
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  Yeah, yeah, it's about 10 years. So we started off more of like,
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  well, I had a coffee company before theory and for about 2
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  1/2 years and then form theory with another roaster in in our
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  town. So we decided to collaborate and
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  start a company and we started as like a mobile pop ups.
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  We had carts, we had a trailer, you know, so we just kind of,
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  you know, follow the opportunity around town, try to make make a
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  few opportunities for ourselves. And and yeah, so theory, theory
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  was really a product of that collaboration and the momentum
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  that it brought. Why?
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  Why pursue the collaboration in the 1st place?
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  Why? You know, if you're both doing
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  your own thing, what made you think, oh, we should actually do
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  this together? Well, it started on a, a
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  sourcing trip. So there are three, there was at
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  the time, there were three coffee registers in town, all
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  about the same age. You know, one of the guys had a
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  shop I was doing like farmers market and wholesale.
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  And my, my future business partner Jason was doing, he was
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  roasting, you know, small batches, just selling hand to
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  hand. Actually, he worked at another
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  cafe in town and people would come in and he'd be like, he'd
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  have his Money Box with him and he'd sell him bags of coffee
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  while he was on bar at another coffee shop.
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  He was like, you're going to get fired, bro.
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  So we went on a sourcing trip to Nicaragua.
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  And while we were there, Jason Miller, who was my former
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  business partner, and I, you know, we were just having these
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  conversations. We were both in a very similar,
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  you know, state of state of our businesses.
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  And we were talking about, oh, when I get a shop, I want to
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  have this equipment or I want this culture.
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  I want, you know, and we would just have these conversations.
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  And it was just like this. Yeah, me too.
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  Like, that's what I want. Like, I want the same thing, you
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  know. So I kind of was mulling it over
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  after the trip and I was like, he and I are either going to
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  compete super hard. It's a small town.
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  It's like a town of less than 100,000 people.
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  And we're going to either compete really hard and one of
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  us is probably going to lose, you know, just by, you know, the
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  odds of things. But what if we combined our
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  forces? Like what if we took, because we
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  were, we were operating in different spheres and I was
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  like, what if, you know, what if I brought this sphere that I'm,
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  you know, working in and, and the customers that I have and he
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  brought, you know, his customers into, into and we combine them
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  together. Wouldn't we be stronger for
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  that? And so, yeah, I started thinking
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  about this like collaborative business model.
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  And I was like, oh, collaboration is really
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  interesting because collaboration creates a little
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  bit more of like a flywheel effect where, you know, you, you
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  start off slow. But then when you start
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  collaborating, whether it's, you know, with like, you know,
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  minded people in, in the same industry, we actually found a
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  lot of success early on with collaborating with people that
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  were like minded makers, artisans.
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  And then we would find a spot and we would pop up and we would
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  invite all of them in. And what, what we found was that
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  like community would show up. So, you know, if you're a pillow
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  maker, all of your friends and all the people that were
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  supporting your business, they would all be in the same spot at
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  the same time. And it just created this vibrant
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  sense of community that I don't think, I don't think if we would
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  have, if we would have tried to do it on our own, I don't think
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  we would have had that level of traction as like as quickly as
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  we did. Once that started taking place,
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  it was like a flywheel where I was like, oh, now we're trying
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  to keep up with the business rather than just make things
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  happen. You know, it changed the energy
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  and the momentum pretty obviously and pretty quickly.
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  You know that period of time we were all young and innocent and
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  pre pandemic. Somewhere along the line you and
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  your and your business partner decide to open this first cafe.
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  Did you agree on the branding upfront?
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  Yeah, yeah, my, my business partner's wife is a very former
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  business partner, Jason, his wife is a really great designer.
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  And so she, she actually contributed to that.
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  And we, yeah, we all, we all agreed on the branding.
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  You know, it was kind of this timeless classic element, but it
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  had a boldness about it. You know, that's, that's what we
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  were, that's what we were after at the time, so.
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  I don't know if it's intentional, but I can't see
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  that hat that you're wearing, which I've seen in photos and
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  think of like the 1980s Minnesota Twins.
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  Oh yeah, yeah, we get, we try to have a little fun with our
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  merch. Like this isn't even actually
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  our logo. We use this scripty thing but
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  but merch is just kind of like let's just have a good time with
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  it. So, so at, at, at some point in
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  that, in those early days, you, you end up opening this cafe and
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  you're off and running. What is the you, you've built a
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  little bit of a community, but what is the the response once
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  you have brick and mortar and you become, for a lack of a
• 16:37
  better term, like a legitimate business, which I think a lot of
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  people think of when they think of coffee companies.
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  Honestly, our response was overwhelmingly positive.
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  So we were doing weekend pop ups before we opened the shop and we
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  still had those weekend pop ups going.
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  And then behind the scenes we are just building this place
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  out. This is the where we're at.
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  Where I'm located right now is, is the place where we started
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  our first shop. So we started building it out
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  and I, I come, I came to Jason. I was like, hey, dude, we're out
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  of money. Like we, we have to open this
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  week or this weekend. He was like, we can't open this
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  weekend. I was like, we have to open this
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  weekend. And I was kind of the I was on
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  the the book side of things and you and he and he was just, you
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  know, on the training side and making sure that everything was,
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  was going to open up operationally well.
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  And I was like, we've got to do it.
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  So we just did it and we opened up.
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  I wouldn't recommend it, but we opened up before we got our
• 17:52
  certificate of occupancy in our building just 'cause we had to.
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  I like, I was like, we have no other choice.
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  And we had a line out the door. And so we were doing about like
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  on the weekends with our pop up, we were doing like 800 bucks,
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  you know, a day. It was a really good day for us.
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  And then when we opened the doors, I think just all of the
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  community, the pouring into the community, the, the events that
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  we'd done, the collaboration, it all just came to fruition like
• 18:24
  when we opened those doors. So then we started doing like we
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  did like $1800.16 to $1800 on our, on our first day and we
• 18:32
  didn't really make it an announcement.
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  And then it just kept building and building and building.
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  And before, before we opened our second shop, we were, we were
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  averaging like a little over 3 grand a day at the shop in, in a
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  small town. And I was like, what the heck is
• 18:48
  going on? And I think I, you know, I, I
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  look back at those days, I'm like, I don't know.
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  I just feel really thankful because I know this is not
• 18:57
  always the norm with people's stories and when they open the
• 19:01
  door. But I think just that, that
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  foundational work that we did that we didn't even know was
• 19:08
  going to, you know, we didn't know what the future effect of
• 19:12
  that was going to be. I just came back and like people
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  showed up and really supported and kept supporting and we kept
• 19:18
  trying to give him a reason to support and minimize our reasons
• 19:24
  that they wouldn't come back, you know, So we were just very
• 19:27
  diligent with that sort of thing.
• 19:28
  Just wanted to make sure everything was, was, you know,
• 19:33
  better than you would expected to be from a new business.
• 19:35
  So it was a fun time. Yeah, between so between you and
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  the town there, there's this I would imagine a loyalty of
• 19:44
  sorts. And your your thought earlier
• 19:48
  that you would eventually compete if you guys both went
• 19:50
  off on your own seems prescient, I think in retrospect, because
• 19:55
  you've you were able to succeed. But part of that is because
• 19:58
  there wasn't someone else filling the space at the time
• 20:02
  They're. Right, I think so.
• 20:04
  I think, I think it worked out. You know, who knows exactly how
• 20:09
  it worked out, but but yeah, when you say that it's like,
• 20:12
  yeah, I think if there would have been more resistance, I
• 20:17
  don't think, yeah, I don't think we would have been able to do
• 20:20
  the other stuff. You know, the bringing 2 spheres
• 20:27
  of, of people in the our community together into the same
• 20:31
  place. I think it would have been one
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  or the other. I think, honestly, I think we
• 20:34
  would have cut, at least cut, you know, that success story in
• 20:39
  half I I would assume, if not more.
• 20:43
  You know, the opposite seems to be trending now where we have
• 20:47
  almost more coffee shops than we can sustain in a lot of places.
• 20:50
  Not every small town yet, but certainly, you know, where I
• 20:55
  lived in Southern California, you know, for the last 10 years,
• 20:58
  I could, when I moved to my neighborhood, there was one,
• 21:02
  maybe two people roasting. Yeah.
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  When I left, I could walk to 7 roasters that had open Cafe.
• 21:08
  Oh, my gosh. And so does that.
• 21:11
  Is that something that you see in the market, even in, say, a
• 21:15
  smaller community of 100,000 or less, where there seems to be
• 21:18
  this saturation point coming? Or is that something you're
• 21:21
  concerned about as a wholesaler and online seller?
• 21:26
  Yeah, it is, to be honest with you.
• 21:28
  I mean we have, we have 3 the, you know, three really good
• 21:33
  roasters in town right now. And I think for a town our our
• 21:39
  size, I would say, I would say we're set.
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  We're fairly well saturated. We have 3 roasters and we have a
• 21:48
  lot of different coffee shops. Everybody seems to be doing
• 21:54
  pretty well though. You know, if somebody new opens,
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  we'll, you know, we'll, we'll plan for a, you know, 5% decline
• 22:05
  for, you know, three months, three to six months, just
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  because it's a small town And it's like everybody just, you
• 22:13
  know, you got to go check out the new thing and you got to
• 22:15
  check it out for, for a while. But you know, by and large,
• 22:18
  we've always come back to, you know, we, we've, we've steadily
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  grown. We, I think we had one down here
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  in the past eight years. So overall it's worked out for
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  us. But I know I, I, I get to chat
• 22:35
  with a lot of roasters and, you know, especially in metropolitan
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  areas, I think, you know, there seems to be a coffee shop and a
• 22:44
  coffee roaster every corner. And, you know, I don't know how
• 22:49
  they, I don't know how they do it.
• 22:50
  They're their numbers are often surprisingly, you know, low.
• 22:57
  So yeah, saturations saturation is a big deal, but it's also,
• 23:00
  it's interesting. It does, it does tell us a
• 23:04
  little bit about, you know, how the specialty coffee market is,
• 23:09
  is growing and that feels optimistic and positive.
• 23:14
  You know, I know it's, you know, it's one of the fastest growing
• 23:17
  segments in in coffee. So, yeah, if you could figure
• 23:20
  out how to, you know, how to, you know, stay relevant, I
• 23:25
  guess, and serve people really well and be consistent with your
• 23:29
  product and not give people a reason to to leave it or leave
• 23:34
  for forever. You know, I think that's the
• 23:39
  hard work that we have to do during the the times where, you
• 23:42
  know, seems like everybody, something's popping up on every
• 23:44
  single corner. The leaving forever part is the
• 23:48
  the hard part because it only takes 1 bad, bad experience for
• 23:53
  someone to say F it, I'm out of here.
• 23:55
  Yeah, I don't, I don't need you as much as you need me.
• 23:58
  Versus like the 300 times you'd serve them well prior to that?
• 24:03
  It's true. It's true, especially when you
• 24:06
  have options you. Oh yeah, for sure.
• 24:10
  Sorry to interrupt there. I just wanted to follow up.
• 24:13
  At what point did the second cafe come around in the
• 24:16
  timeline? I think we're about two years
• 24:19
  in. OK, so about two years in post
• 24:22
  COVID. It, it was kind of during COVID.
• 24:26
  So what year would that I think it would have been yeah, kind of
• 24:30
  the tail end. So we, we signed the lease
• 24:33
  during COVID. So I think we opened in 2022.
• 24:39
  The Second Cafe, 2020-2021 2021 Yeah.
• 24:46
  Well, that ties into what you we were just talking about because
• 24:49
  even though it's still you, it's still a potentially takes away
• 24:54
  from the original stores business.
• 24:56
  So how did you, what made you think now is the right time to
• 24:59
  expand this in our, in our market, which has been for, for
• 25:06
  I, I mean, I think one thing COVID did when it sent everyone
• 25:09
  home is everyone got to sit on the couch and look at their
• 25:11
  phones and be like, oh, that's cool.
• 25:13
  I actually wish I was doing that and not the thing I'm doing.
• 25:16
  Yeah, coffee is one of those things.
• 25:18
  Oh, for sure. So what made you think we're
• 25:21
  going to come out of this not just, you know, holding tight,
• 25:24
  but actually expanding? And I don't know, I think, I
• 25:32
  think our numbers were at a point where, you know, we were
• 25:37
  starting. So, so it was, it was getting
• 25:40
  challenging because, you know, I think we could have, I think we
• 25:46
  could have built in some efficiencies to our original
• 25:49
  cafe, but but the numbers were. So we're, we're at the point
• 25:53
  where, you know, I was like, you know, we can keep just like
• 26:00
  pound in this one cafe, you know, with, with business and
• 26:04
  customers. And, but I think, I think we
• 26:08
  have enough customers and enough people are excited about what
• 26:15
  we're doing. We have enough momentum that I
• 26:18
  think we can open a second cafe. And you know, it's only, it's
• 26:23
  only about two miles away from our first cafe.
• 26:26
  But it's like if, if you could, I don't know if you've ever been
• 26:29
  to Reading, but Reading Reading is split up by the I5.
• 26:33
  So you have the West side of town, which is all old downtown.
• 26:36
  Then you have the east side of town, which is like your Sprouts
• 26:39
  and chick-fil-A's and you know all that stuff.
• 26:41
  So we start on the West side of town and east side of town.
• 26:46
  If you live on the east side of town, you rarely come to the
• 26:48
  West side of town. If you live on the West side of
• 26:50
  town, you rarely go to the east side of town unless you're going
• 26:52
  to Costco or whatever. So we posted up on a new, a new
• 26:56
  shopping center on the east side of town, not honestly not
• 27:01
  knowing what the overall net effect would be, knowing that we
• 27:04
  would slow down some of the business from our first original
• 27:08
  Cafe downtown. But it was just one of those
• 27:12
  things where it was like, this is a great location.
• 27:14
  It's in a, we're in a shopping center next to a Sprouts and
• 27:19
  across the street or across the same parking lot as a
• 27:21
  Chick-fil-A. So it's like, well, there's
• 27:24
  going to be people coming here and so having a shop where you
• 27:29
  have built in foot traffic, like people are already going to be
• 27:31
  here, whether we have one shop or two shops, people are going
• 27:35
  to be in this location. And so it felt, you know, like
• 27:39
  just a lot of stars aligned. Sales were great at the first
• 27:42
  Cafe. A really good location was
• 27:45
  opening up at, you know, where we chose our second location and
• 27:50
  it was we were negotiating leases during pandemic.
• 27:54
  So negotiating a lease during the pandemic was?
• 27:59
  Favorable. Favorable.
• 28:01
  Yeah, yeah, we negotiate that same lease now.
• 28:03
  I think we'd be paying, you know, 1000 more a month maybe
• 28:06
  maybe more, you know, so it's just all kind of lined up and
• 28:10
  we're like, and then, and then we, you know, the other part was
• 28:13
  like we had to, we didn't have, you know, a ton of cash reserves
• 28:17
  at that time. So we just had, we had to find
• 28:19
  a, a part, someone to partner with, to invest and we found
• 28:22
  that person. And so we open the second cafe.
• 28:29
  That's interesting. So the the partnership for the
• 28:32
  new cafe is not part of the partnership for the original
• 28:35
  cafe or investor original cafe? Or did you kind of work
• 28:38
  something out? And I asked that because I think
• 28:41
  there's people listening who maybe have a cafe or have a cart
• 28:45
  and are thinking about taking on money.
• 28:46
  And that's always scary because with money comes expectation and
• 28:51
  opinion that you got to incorporate.
• 28:54
  Absolutely. So.
• 28:57
  So the original partnership was Jason and I, and then we brought
• 29:02
  on an investor friend of Jason's who helped us build out our
• 29:09
  first cafe. And he was a great partner.
• 29:12
  He's still in the business. He's a great partner, very
• 29:16
  helpful. You know, couldn't, couldn't
• 29:18
  have opened the first cafe without him.
• 29:19
  Just really a lot of, I mean, that's a whole other story, but
• 29:25
  you know, at some point maybe we should talk about that because
• 29:28
  that was, that's always, that's always the hardest part of
• 29:31
  getting started. It's like, how do you like,
• 29:33
  where do I get the money? You know, and so that, so then
• 29:37
  when we went to open the second Cafe, well, sorry, let me back
• 29:42
  up. Jason.
• 29:45
  We bought Jason out. Joel, my second business
• 29:47
  partner, and I bought Jason out a few months into opening the
• 29:52
  first cafe because because Joel and I started talking about
• 29:58
  opening the second cafe and Jason was like, I don't, no, I
• 30:02
  don't really want anything to do with that, to be honest.
• 30:05
  Like I'm happy with where we're at right now.
• 30:10
  And so he asked, he has to be bought out.
• 30:13
  We're still good friends, but we ended up buying Jason out pretty
• 30:18
  quickly. So we had some space to take on
• 30:23
  1/3 equity partner that could also bring in some much needed
• 30:30
  capital. So we secure, you know, we
• 30:33
  secure, we didn't secure quite enough to open, but it would
• 30:36
  also allowed us to use our investors credit worthiness to
• 30:41
  secure, you know, some loans and stuff to to get the rest of the
• 30:47
  the the second bit of funding that we needed for the cafe.
• 30:50
  So, so yeah, I think honestly, there are a lot of horror
• 30:56
  stories of business partners. I don't have those, thankfully.
• 31:03
  I have great business partners and in all of my businesses I
• 31:07
  have great business partners. So it but, but it is, it is a it
• 31:15
  is a real commitment that I don't think that I necessarily
• 31:19
  realized when I was bringing partners on is that they want to
• 31:23
  make money. They don't want to just give you
• 31:26
  money. They want to make money.
• 31:27
  So, so now the challenge becomes how do you, how do you make
• 31:32
  enough money that it still remains worth it to the to me,
• 31:38
  the founder. And I can pay my business
• 31:43
  partners a reasonable sum of money that makes them interested
• 31:50
  to either keep going or, you know, stay on as a, as a
• 31:54
  business partner and not sell their shares to somebody,
• 31:57
  somebody else. So, so, yeah, that's a whole,
• 32:01
  that's a whole thing that I don't think that most people
• 32:04
  early on understand. There's a lot of business
• 32:08
  partner stories. I mean, anyone who's thinking
• 32:11
  about taking on a business partner should talk to as many
• 32:15
  other people who have had partners as they can and just.
• 32:17
  You. Because everyone's story is a
• 32:19
  little bit different, and you'll learn little things that'll
• 32:23
  change the trajectory of your life.
• 32:25
  For me, I learned that you shouldn't have a 5050 business
• 32:28
  partnership because at some point someone's going to have to
• 32:31
  make a decision that you disagree with or vice versa.
• 32:36
  You know, Speaking of partners, I believe you have a, a life
• 32:40
  partner and you have kids. How do you balance and, and
• 32:45
  beyond theory? I want to make sure we talk
• 32:46
  about Podium, which is your new venture as well.
• 32:49
  Yeah. So you've got multiple
• 32:51
  businesses going, which feels like it's $100 a week, but you
• 32:54
  also have a family. How do you find balance in
• 32:56
  there? Or do you?
• 32:58
  Is that a is that a myth that business entrepreneurs can have
• 33:01
  balance? I would like to call it more of
• 33:03
  a myth. I would assume.
• 33:05
  I would assume if you're starting a business and you want
• 33:08
  your business to be successful, I think going into it, you know,
• 33:14
  to, I don't know with, with, with rose colored glasses on is
• 33:20
  probably not you're not going to be your, your your best
• 33:24
  perspective. I think you should more plan to
• 33:28
  work, you know, 60 to 80 hours a week, four months at a time.
• 33:36
  I think you should plan to watch your family go on vacations.
• 33:41
  And you know, and you're not necessarily going to have that
• 33:46
  luxury. It's hard, you know, it really
• 33:50
  is if if you're going to start something and you're going to
• 33:54
  build it out, unless you unless you're already wealthy, you're
• 33:58
  going to scrap and you're going to scrap really hard and it's
• 34:01
  going to bring you to the end of yourself and everything that you
• 34:06
  know, and it's going to potentially, you know, break you
• 34:11
  a little bit over time and hopefully you can mend and you
• 34:14
  know, be put back together. But I think that process builds
• 34:19
  resilience and over time, I think when you when you see
• 34:22
  these business owners that, you know, seem like they don't have
• 34:26
  a care in the world, a lot of times they've exited, exited a
• 34:29
  business or they've they've done that bit of work, you know, the
• 34:36
  80 hours a week so that they can, you know, restructure their
• 34:39
  lives. So now they're paying people to
• 34:41
  buffer the stress for them. But you can't do that right
• 34:45
  away. I don't, I don't think so.
• 34:48
  I think the work life balance needs to be called a myth for
• 34:52
  the first 5 to 10 years of starting a business.
• 34:56
  That's my personal opinion. Sure, I mean or there and I I
• 35:01
  know people like that are very good at this.
• 35:03
  They're cool as a cucumber, you know, kind of from they're
• 35:07
  they're a duck. They're cool as a cucumber from
• 35:09
  the waist up as they go through the cafe and talk to everyone
• 35:12
  and smile. But underneath it's just chaos.
• 35:15
  You know, there's there's a million things going on and
• 35:18
  there's a weird, I think there's a weird line in hospitality in
• 35:24
  particular where you give so much of yourself to your
• 35:27
  customers and to your staff and your teams if you're if you're
• 35:30
  in charge. But there's still this forward
• 35:34
  facing personality that doesn't quite allow all of the chaos or
• 35:39
  all of that to come forward because that isn't your role.
• 35:44
  Sometimes you want to say it's when someone says, how's it
• 35:46
  going today, Sam? Yeah, I'm assuming you'll be
• 35:48
  like Oh my God, you don't want to FNL.
• 35:52
  But. On the other side of that, you
• 35:54
  know, they're coming there for their one luxury, you know,
• 35:56
  experience of the day, so you don't want to take that from
• 35:59
  them. Correct.
• 36:01
  I totally agree with that. I think that that's a great
• 36:03
  metaphor like the the the duck with the legs just like going
• 36:07
  crazy. And I and we've talked about
• 36:09
  that as a team. I'm like, I don't care what's
• 36:12
  happening behind the scenes. Like you could be an utter
• 36:14
  chaos, but the customer does not need to know any of that.
• 36:19
  You know, like you can be one minute, but not the biggest fire
• 36:24
  of your life. But as soon as you're
• 36:25
  interfacing with a customer like that, all that's, that's you
• 36:31
  have to compartmentalize that and put that behind you, you
• 36:34
  know, and I think customers deserve that.
• 36:37
  Like none of us want to know that you're tired.
• 36:39
  None of us want to know that, you know, like, man, it's just
• 36:44
  like a really rough season for me right now.
• 36:47
  Like I, I, I know that that can seem disingenuous, but to be
• 36:52
  honest, he, it's not, it's not what you want from hospitality
• 36:57
  and customer service. You know, you know, maybe if you
• 37:00
  get to know somebody really, really well as, as like baristas
• 37:03
  do over the years, there might be a few people that you can be
• 37:06
  like, and, you know, rough day. But by and large, I think the
• 37:12
  customer needs to see that cool as a cucumber duck, just
• 37:17
  providing a great experience for them and making their day
• 37:21
  better. So I always tell our our team
• 37:23
  like we're here to provide the energy for the conversation.
• 37:26
  So soon as you start sucking the energy out of the room or out of
• 37:30
  the conversation with your I'm tired or you know, that sort of
• 37:34
  thing, It's like, it's not, it's not hospitality in my, in my
• 37:38
  opinion. I had a early service job in
• 37:43
  which we had what was essentially A broom closet in
• 37:46
  the back of the the restaurant, but we called it the Scream
• 37:50
  Closet. And so you could be smiling on
• 37:53
  the floor and then walk down a long hallway and step into the
• 37:55
  Scream closet and just have a moment to yourself.
• 37:59
  At some point you decide one cafe is not enough, 2 cafes
• 38:04
  isn't enough. I'm going to keep going with
• 38:05
  this. And more recently you launched
• 38:08
  something called Podium Coffee. Can you tell us about Podium?
• 38:12
  Yeah, so podium. Podium.
• 38:14
  The partner I had, my dad, seems to be, yeah.
• 38:17
  Yep, I have a business partner who's a really great guy.
• 38:21
  I'm not going to name him because he has a a full time job
• 38:25
  that if you know, I can get him in trouble.
• 38:27
  So he's a really great guy. You're assuming someone else is
• 38:32
  listening to this, Sam. I sure hope so.
• 38:38
  So podium started started I started competing probably a
• 38:43
  year and a half into into theory, started competing and,
• 38:48
  and, you know, having some good results with that and found it
• 38:51
  to be a lot of fun and a really great way to, you know, keep my
• 38:58
  edge as a as a coffee roaster because I was still roasting a
• 39:01
  bit at at that time and keep my edges a coffee roaster.
• 39:05
  And also, you know, get a get a feel for what, you know, what's
• 39:12
  happening in the specialty coffee world, kind of at the,
• 39:17
  you know, the bleeding edge of it.
• 39:19
  And also met a lot of incredible people at these at these
• 39:25
  competitions. So a couple years in, I think I
• 39:28
  found myself sitting there like, man, a lot of these roasters are
• 39:33
  not well known, but they're super duper good at their job.
• 39:37
  They're just maybe not the best at marketing.
• 39:39
  And I sat there and I was like, what like, what can we do, you
• 39:45
  know, to put these roasters, you know, front and center in the
• 39:51
  coffee roasting world? And I was like, I think we need
• 39:53
  a subscription that features all these award-winning coffee
• 39:57
  roasters, so. Fast forward to we, we theory
• 40:03
  won the Golden Bean roasting competition in 2023 or 2024.
• 40:08
  I can't, I guess it's 2023. So he won the Golden Bean in
• 40:12
  2023 and this guy reaches out to me and he's like, Hey, I, I just
• 40:18
  exited a company and I and I and I've owned this domain name for,
• 40:22
  you know, forever. And I want to, I want to start
• 40:24
  acting on it. And the, the domain he owned was
• 40:27
  award-winning coffees.com. And I was like, cool man, like,
• 40:30
  yeah, we'll be on your subscription.
• 40:31
  But I also, I've been thinking about this for a while.
• 40:34
  I don't know if you want to chat.
• 40:36
  I don't want to overstep my boundaries, but if you want some
• 40:39
  thoughts, I have plenty. And so he was like, sure, like,
• 40:43
  like download everything you've got.
• 40:45
  And so we just started talking and little by little, you know,
• 40:52
  we just kept the conversation going.
• 40:54
  And he came to visit me. He he lives in Seattle.
• 40:58
  He came to visit and he's like, hey, do you want to be the
• 41:01
  coffee guy in this whole thing? And I was like, yeah, but I have
• 41:04
  some non negotiables. He's like, what?
• 41:06
  I was like, we need to change everything basically, you know,
• 41:09
  so we went from award-winning coffee to Podium Coffee Club.
• 41:13
  And so change the name, you know, change the website.
• 41:19
  And the concept, just because I don't want to get too far down,
• 41:22
  that you rebrand the podium because it's all coffees from
• 41:25
  people who've been up there on the podium.
• 41:27
  Yeah, every every month we. Yeah, correct.
• 41:30
  Every month we send you we. So we kind of curate the list.
• 41:34
  We send you a coffee from a roaster that stood on the podium
• 41:38
  of a major US coffee roasting competition.
• 41:41
  So we pull from Golden Bean, we pull from US Coffee Champs, we
• 41:45
  pull from Good Food Awards. If you've done really, really
• 41:48
  well at coffee review, we'll definitely can consider you the
• 41:56
  Roastronics pro cup, which a lot of people haven't heard of.
• 41:58
  It's in its second years, but it's a it's a really great US
• 42:01
  coffee chant. Kind of similar roasting
• 42:06
  competition happens in in parallel with the golden bean.
• 42:11
  So yeah, we'll, we, we, we find these really great roasters and
• 42:15
  then we, you know, have them send us samples and then we'll,
• 42:20
  we'll queue them up to be the roaster for, you know, whatever
• 42:23
  month fits the best for them. We have two products.
• 42:28
  We have a platinum subscription and a gold subscription.
• 42:30
  The gold subscription is more like washed coffees, 86 point
• 42:35
  plus coffees. So they have complexity to them,
• 42:39
  but there's nothing super duper crazy.
• 42:43
  And then the Podium Platinum product is like prized
• 42:46
  varietals, fermentation projects.
• 42:49
  So we send out a lot of like Co ferments and anaerobics and, you
• 42:53
  know, heavily fruited naturals and some geishas.
• 42:59
  You know, the last, the, the one that we're sending out this
• 43:03
  month's coffee is from Goshen Coffee, who won the Golden Beer
• 43:07
  overall winner at the Golden Bean this year.
• 43:12
  So we're sending out Goshen and he, Tony Auger has been top of
• 43:17
  the heap at US coffee champs as well.
• 43:18
  He's just a fantastic, fantastic roaster.
• 43:22
  And so, so I think let's see, it's a, a wine yeast Lychee Co
• 43:31
  Fermat and it's super duper good and.
• 43:35
  Then the honestly, it sounds terrifying to me because that's
• 43:39
  the kind of coffee I get at home and I just think, Oh my God, I'm
• 43:41
  going to F this up. So hopefully you have advice for
• 43:44
  people on how they roast or brew their coffee when they once they
• 43:47
  get in at some point. Yeah, we, we could be a lot
• 43:50
  better about that for sure. We, we're in the talks of like
• 43:53
  we're bootstrapping it. So it's like, you know, you do.
• 43:56
  And we both have day jobs, so it's like we're doing what we
• 43:59
  can. But brew guides are, are coming.
• 44:02
  They're just, you know, yeah, we don't have them yet.
• 44:05
  So hopefully, yeah, you don't screw it up.
• 44:07
  But you know, if you're, if you're an avid coffee drinker
• 44:10
  and coffee maker, I think this is for that type of subscriber.
• 44:13
  So, you know, usually, usually they have, they have the gear
• 44:17
  and the chops to be able to get it right, you know, a brew or
• 44:20
  two. I find that it's one of my
• 44:23
  problems is I have too much gear and so then it's like that
• 44:26
  grocery store problem, right? There's too many choices and.
• 44:29
  It's like. I end up doing the same thing
• 44:31
  over and over again, you know, on that.
• 44:34
  I'm wondering, I do this thing with Rostar, the sponsor of the
• 44:37
  show, where we try to help educate, you know, anyone
• 44:42
  listening, Future aspiring coffee entrepreneurs, is there
• 44:46
  any piece of advice that you've received or that you'd like to
• 44:48
  offer to somebody listening who's thinking I want to get
• 44:51
  into a coffee business? Yeah, I think, I mean, I, I
• 44:59
  really like the way that we started, which is, you know,
• 45:03
  inserting yourself into the community as much as possible.
• 45:07
  You don't need a ton of gear. Like when I started, I was just
• 45:10
  brewing French presses and, and I would make Aeropress or, or
• 45:15
  pour over like for single cups and then eventually added a, you
• 45:21
  know, an espresso machine. I would say as quickly as you
• 45:24
  can get to that espresso machine, the better you are
• 45:27
  because people, you know, obviously if you, if you own a
• 45:30
  coffee shop, you know that your lattes are your number one
• 45:33
  seller. So that that's going to help you
• 45:37
  turn the corner. But I think just inserting
• 45:39
  yourself into the community and being a part of the community is
• 45:44
  really, really important. A lot of people like to just
• 45:48
  like open up a brick and mortar and open the doors and hope for
• 45:55
  the best. You know, I think that the
• 45:57
  ground that you plow before you do that is really, really
• 46:01
  important. I would also say that would you,
• 46:05
  if you do open a shop, do it well.
• 46:11
  I think that I think that a lot of people get really, really
• 46:15
  excited that, you know, they did go into debt to open the shop
• 46:19
  and and I think by a lot of their finishes, you can tell,
• 46:25
  you know, finishes being, you know, your furnitures, your
• 46:28
  fixtures, your countertops, your bar front, your lighting.
• 46:32
  Never underestimate lighting. I would also say that it's a
• 46:35
  minor, but it it's amazing the difference that it makes.
• 46:39
  So when you're, when you're imagining this, I would say get
• 46:44
  professional help when you're building out your, your cafe.
• 46:49
  I think people initially are really, really scared of debt
• 46:52
  debt. And I think that that's smart to
• 46:55
  be scared of debt. But I think understanding how to
• 46:58
  use debt wisely. If I can borrow money at 8% and
• 47:06
  make 30% net profit, you know, and I'm assuming that I'm an
• 47:11
  owner operator at this point, right?
• 47:14
  I don't make 30% net profit. Don't, don't let me skew that.
• 47:19
  But I think as if you're an owner operator and you're
• 47:22
  holding jobs that you would normally pay somebody to do, you
• 47:26
  might be able to see, you know, let's say, let's say you see 20%
• 47:29
  net profit in your cafe. I would borrow, I would borrow
• 47:34
  at 8-9 percent all day long to build out the cafe that's going
• 47:39
  to last go the long haul rather than, you know, one that looks
• 47:45
  like you, you know, you use popsicle sticks and rubber,
• 47:48
  rubber bands and, you know, duct tape to build it, you know?
• 47:52
  There was definitely an era though, where the the thrift
• 47:56
  store coffee shop vibe is a real thing.
• 47:59
  It sure was, and I think it it still can be.
• 48:02
  I mean, you know, it's. If it's done well.
• 48:06
  Yeah, We had in our during our time, we were like, OK, no
• 48:10
  black, you know, no black gas pipe shelving and no reclaimed
• 48:15
  wood. Those were our two.
• 48:17
  We're not going to do this because it was just at that
• 48:20
  time, it was like reclaimed wood, barnwood, you know,
• 48:24
  everybody wanted that. And we're just like, no.
• 48:26
  You are perfectly describing the last restaurant that I ran for
• 48:32
  you. What?
• 48:35
  What is what makes a good cup of coffee or a good coffee?
• 48:38
  Is it the coffee? Is it the experience?
• 48:40
  You know, how do you define it? What makes you go, Oh yeah, this
• 48:43
  is the right thing? I think it's all the above.
• 48:50
  I think you should really focus on, you know, sourcing good
• 48:55
  quality coffees. I think if you're roasting your
• 48:58
  own coffee and you're not calling for samples before you
• 49:02
  purchase coffee, I think you're you're going to have a lot of,
• 49:07
  you're going to have some hits, but you're going to have, you
• 49:09
  know, a lot of misses. And I think being really
• 49:13
  intentional about the product is very, very important.
• 49:17
  So setting a setting a high expectation for the quality of
• 49:22
  coffee and then living up to that, you know, day after day,
• 49:26
  week after week, month after month, year after year, I think
• 49:30
  is, you know, it, it produces believability for the long haul.
• 49:37
  And you know, as soon as I, I, I talk about this with our team,
• 49:41
  but as soon as your favorite Taco shop, you know, disappoints
• 49:45
  you one time, you're going to give them a second chance
• 49:49
  probably. But if they do it twice, you're
• 49:51
  going to start looking for another, another Taco shop.
• 49:54
  It's the same with coffee like that.
• 49:56
  Consistency is super important. I also think a lot of coffee
• 50:00
  shops, a lot of people don't have the true heart for
• 50:07
  hospitality. And I think that can be a
• 50:09
  disservice. You know, really, truly wanting
• 50:12
  to make people happy, really truly wanting your customers to
• 50:17
  have the best day they've ever had or the best coffee that
• 50:20
  they've ever had, or at least something that you know, they
• 50:25
  can be excited about, I think is really important and an
• 50:29
  experience that they could be excited about.
• 50:31
  So, you know, our baristas, I want them to be warm and
• 50:35
  friendly for, like I said, provide the energy for the
• 50:38
  conversation. We have a, a core value.
• 50:41
  You know, I, I don't know if it's worded exactly right, but
• 50:45
  it's the customers cooler than we are.
• 50:46
  Like, I want us to have that perspective that, you know, if
• 50:51
  you have piercings and tattoos, like you have something to
• 50:53
  overcome when you're engaging with a customer.
• 50:55
  Like you have to, you have to make sure that they know that
• 51:00
  they are super duper welcome in the space no matter what they're
• 51:04
  wearing, no matter what they look like, you know, treat them
• 51:08
  like gold. I think those are all really
• 51:11
  important things. Really great quality product
• 51:14
  with really great customer service.
• 51:16
  It's a fairly simple recipe, but it seems to work.
• 51:22
  And let your decor match your, you know, your, your, the
• 51:24
  quality that you're trying to express.
• 51:26
  I feel it's really important. Just real quickly then based on
• 51:31
  what you just said, do you hire more for skill or personality?
• 51:36
  I hire personalities are are #1 benchmark for hiring.
• 51:42
  I always think that's an interesting 'cause you obviously
• 51:45
  you want people. It's helpful if somebody comes
• 51:47
  in and knows what they're doing, but at the same time.
• 51:50
  Yeah, yeah, it is helpful. And and when they have the right
• 51:53
  personality, it's just like it's amazing.
• 51:57
  But if they don't have the right personality and they know what
• 52:01
  they're doing, I'm, I'm not very, I'm not so interested
• 52:05
  because I can teach you and I'm probably going to have to re
• 52:08
  teach you a lot of what you do know, because we're probably
• 52:13
  going to do it differently. So there's still a fair amount
• 52:15
  of training involved if we want, you know, the consistency from
• 52:18
  barista to barista. My my final hiring thing is
• 52:23
  like, do I want to hang out with this person?
• 52:25
  You know, And if the answer's, yeah, I want to hang out with
• 52:28
  them more then they're going to, they're going to have a leg up
• 52:32
  on somebody that's like, you know, can pour a swamp.
• 52:34
  So. That's how I vote.
• 52:37
  I think a lot of people do, yeah.
• 52:41
  Do I want to spend an hour having a beer with this person?
• 52:43
  Yeah, exactly. And if I can't, well, OK, then,
• 52:46
  then I'll go to the next step, which is policy.
• 52:49
  Yeah, we'll see how it goes. I feel like there's a lot of
• 52:53
  things that we didn't get to today yet, and I'd love to have
• 52:56
  you come back and just talk about money for a show.
• 52:59
  Sure. Or, you know, kind of what led
• 53:01
  up to this whole, the younger version of Sam before you.
• 53:04
  You grew a beard that the rest of us strive for.
• 53:07
  God, it happened so fast. It, you know, I, we just
• 53:12
  celebrated our wedding anniversary and so my wife had
• 53:15
  some photos up that popped up on her phone from years before and
• 53:18
  then everyone, I didn't recognize myself because my
• 53:21
  beard was so dark. It was so brown, or I mean, it
• 53:26
  was shocking. I was like, I don't know who
• 53:28
  that person is, but what did I miss?
• 53:30
  Is there anything you want people to know before we go
• 53:32
  today on the show and what's coming next for you?
• 53:38
  You know, I think we covered some good ground for sure.
• 53:41
  I think, you know, I'm a, I'm not, I'm a pretty, I'm still a
• 53:46
  fairly collaborative guy. So, you know, if anybody has
• 53:52
  questions or you know anything about what we've talked about
• 53:57
  today, if they have questions, yeah, my e-mail address is
• 54:01
  available. They can hit me up on Instagram,
• 54:04
  on my personal Instagram or the Theory Instagram.
• 54:07
  I checked both of them. Happy to take some time with
• 54:11
  people and just help. I think I'm at that that point
• 54:14
  in the game where it just is a lot of fun for me to help other
• 54:18
  people, you know, figure out the treacherous waters of starting
• 54:25
  and navigating what once you start right, There's no there's
• 54:28
  no great playbook. I did, you know, we were talking
• 54:32
  today with I just hired a new general manager and she's like,
• 54:36
  well, you know, what are what are some book requests that, you
• 54:41
  know, that I should read? And so we had a little thread
• 54:45
  going on, and I think a couple of the ones that were mentioned
• 54:50
  were Setting the Table by Danny Meyer and also Unreasonable
• 54:56
  Hospitality by what's that guys? Will Ghiadara, I liked Daring to
• 55:06
  Lead, I think it is by Brené Brown.
• 55:08
  And then the one that was the most practically helpful for me
• 55:11
  was Everything I Know About Running Coffee Shops by Colin
• 55:16
  Harmon. It was just Brass tacks
• 55:18
  operational. Yeah, you can read a chapter and
• 55:22
  then just like literally go implement it.
• 55:25
  And so, you know, those are some good resources for people.
• 55:29
  We'll be sure to share those in our newsletter.
• 55:32
  I know as a going away gift I gave my managers at at the last
• 55:36
  place I was in a copy of Yvonne Chouinard's Let My People Go
• 55:41
  Surfing, which I took a lot of. Lessons from.
• 55:46
  I've got a few copies. I'll send you one we'll.
• 55:48
  Call them. Oh, thank you.
• 55:48
  You're. Welcome.
• 55:51
  Our last question of the hour and the most probably important
• 55:55
  one. Actually I should say I've got 2
• 55:57
  very quick ones, but the first is when you are out and about
• 56:00
  and you stop into someone else's coffee shop.
• 56:02
  When do you get an order? I'll probably order 2 drinks.
• 56:08
  One's going to be an espresso and one's going to be a pour
• 56:11
  over or, or filter coffee, depending a lot.
• 56:14
  It's interesting. A lot of shops have, you know,
• 56:16
  started to move away from pour overs post pandemic.
• 56:19
  So. So I'll order a pour over.
• 56:23
  If you don't have that, I'll, I'll order your drip coffee.
• 56:27
  Yeah. And I'm looking for something,
• 56:29
  something that's, I don't know, sounds interesting to me, maybe
• 56:34
  maybe a coffee I haven't tried before.
• 56:36
  So that's that's my order, pretty basic, but some form of
• 56:42
  espresso, espresso and water, coffee and water, you know?
• 56:46
  And then my last question, the one that I will take with me
• 56:50
  later today, is what's your favorite Keanu Reeves movie?
• 56:57
  Oh gosh, I do love I do love the the matrix and and then what is
• 57:07
  it? What is the one?
• 57:09
  Is it point break? Is that is?
• 57:10
  That the point break with Patrick Swayze.
• 57:14
  Yeah. Is that a Keanu Reeves?
• 57:16
  It very much is. Yeah, it is.
• 57:19
  I recently, well, not recently, but I've gone to there's a
• 57:24
  troupe. If anyone's listening, check
• 57:25
  them out. They go around the country doing
• 57:27
  point break live on stage. It's like a dramatic creative
• 57:32
  reading and well worth the endeavor.
• 57:35
  Sam, I, I can't thank you enough for being here.
• 57:38
  We'll be sharing theory coffee roasters, social and theory
• 57:41
  coffee.com everywhere and podium as well.
• 57:44
  Thank you for being here and sharing an hour and and maybe
• 57:47
  thinking about coming back someday.
• 57:49
  Yeah, thanks for the invite. This is super fun.
• 58:21
  The. None.