Latest / Coffee People Podcast / Arda Barlas, Owner of Boxx Coffee Roasters LA joins the Coffee People podcast.

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Arda Barlas, Owner of Boxx Coffee Roasters LA joins the Coffee People podcast. · Coffee People Podcast

0:31
Hey everyone, welcome to the Coffee People podcast, presented
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1:00
Our guest today is Arta Barless. He's the owner operator of Box
1:03
Coffee Roasters in the downtown LA Arts District.
1:07
LA. Case you were wondering, he's
1:09
short for Los Angeles, CA Box Coffee's original location is
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way over on the other side of the globe in Istanbul, Turkey.
1:18
Arta joined into the already established company in 2021 as a
1:22
partner, which gives him a unique perspective.
1:25
It comes up on the show, but Arta and I ran into some
1:28
technical difficulties. We ran into a lot of technical
1:31
difficulties getting going. It was a challenge, which is why
1:34
today's episode is primarily audio only.
1:38
I'm glad we worked through it though, because I've learned
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quite a few things that I'll take with me into the future.
1:42
In particular one important one about Turkish coffee.
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Unfortunately for me, I've already run out of the coffees
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Arta sent me to sample from Boxed Coffee Roasters.
1:54
Scupp. I'm drinking is still pretty
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good, and I hope that you've got a full mug of drip or a latte, a
1:59
cold brew cappuccino, some other style of coffee that you enjoy
2:04
to drink while you listen to this episode of the Coffee
2:07
People podcast featuring Arta Barliss of Boxed Coffee
2:12
Roasters. Cheers.
2:20
I'm Marta. I'm from Boxed Coffee Roasters,
2:24
one of the owners. What I do changes very much
2:29
based on the day. Yesterday I was in CCES in Vegas
2:35
with a new coffee robotics sort of company, and I drove back to
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LA. This morning I was in LA, 3:30
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AM, 9:00 AM I was in city of Berlin to get permits for our
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new roster. So what I do changes so much
2:52
during the day. I don't I can't even keep up.
2:54
Yeah. I was just thinking you and I
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are talking about one year after the Palisades fire and I know
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that's been, you know, people talking a lot about what that
3:04
impact that had on Angelino's today.
3:08
I think LA has had a pretty rough.
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I'm going to say not one, but 2-3 years back-to-back, like
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maybe it's safe for every city just because we live here, we
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feel certain things a little bit more deeply.
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Obviously that's been catch up all the time, but last year FIRE
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was a pretty rough event for everyone involved.
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So many people lost their homes, their life's lifestyle for for
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some of them, and it really affected well, let alone city
3:48
that those those people. Certainly, and it, it gives me,
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I only bring it up to just kind of comment on how coffee is one
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of those things. Having a cup of coffee makes
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people feel normal after a rough event, after something bad
4:03
happens. You know, it's one of those
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daily things that we do. And I'm, I'm hopeful that people
4:10
in Los Angeles are able to enjoy a cup of coffee today and maybe
4:14
get a little bit of a break from.
4:16
Different. We all need a little bit of a
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break. Yeah, well, I I appreciate you
4:23
being here, Arta. And I also appreciate I I have
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some coffee bags here. There's no coffee left.
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You sent me some coffee a while back.
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I finished all of it. Well, we can always arrange some
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more I. I have some comments I'll share
4:36
on the show here in a bit about it, but I'm wondering could you
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give us some background on on who you are and and how you
4:43
ended up in, in Los Angeles? You know, where'd you come?
4:46
Where Where are you from? I'm from Ankara, Turkey.
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I came over in 2017. I wasn't going to do coffee at
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all. At 2017, I wasn't even
4:59
interested in coffee. I didn't know anything about
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coffee. Most people, I think, find
5:06
themselves in coffee, specialty coffee.
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They go, they sip a cup, they get blown away.
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That sort of pushes them into coffee.
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I was one of those guys. My friends would go to these.
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I'm still saying that. So these third wave shops,
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specialty shops in the it's the same thing.
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What is the, what is the point? I, I was that guy.
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So 2017 I moved here. I was about to do something else
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on food and beverage that didn't pan out.
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So we are thinking coffee because when you look at it, you
5:42
know, from outside as a business compared to other food and
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beverage businesses, what you think from outside is OK coffee,
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shorter hours, fewer people, easier for us.
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So let's start there. That's the that's the first
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thinking. That's not like.
6:01
Somebody who's that sounds like somebody's who worked in a bar
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or a nightclub at some point. Well, that was my first food and
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beverage education. So you, you are correct.
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So the the issue is I don't know anything.
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So all my connections are at that point, because this is just
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six months in from me moving here.
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Still most of my connections are back in Turkey.
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So I found this SCA authorized training center and went go went
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to my first Parisa training and my first day I don't forget
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this. I go there.
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I asked the guy we are chatting before the lessons and he asked
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me oh, what kind of coffee would you like to make you a porn?
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I'm like yeah, sure. I don't know what a porn was,
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but sounds sounds cool. Yeah, why not?
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He makes me a natural process Ethiopia from Yoga Shaft region,
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Tokyo Washing station. And because I don't drink
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coffee, I might just ask, hey, is there any milk and sugar?
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So this is quite formative. And I still use this trick.
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He goes, yeah, sure, you take a sip and I'll grab the milk and
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sugar. So he gives the initiative for
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me to taste as opposed to saying taste and decide he's like
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leaving the freedom of tasting to me, which then pushes you to
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taste. Anyways.
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So I tasted that. I was blown away.
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This isn't coffee. This is just fruit juice in that
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moment. I mean, I I went into coffee
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from a business side, then delved into the specialty side.
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Most people just drink that coffee and get into coffee.
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I was getting into coffee, but that affirmative experience kind
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of pushed me into specialty coffee and down this rabbit hole
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of just chasing better coffees. That first Ethiopia washed is a
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lot of people's first thing that they go.
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This doesn't make sense to my brain.
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And not for me. And it was a natural, natural,
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natural process. But those fruit flavors in that
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in Ethiopia coffees, a lot of people, it confuses them when
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they first try. It's a story I've heard before.
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You're from Turkey, from Ankara. Turkish coffee is is been around
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a lot longer than our specialty coffee that we've been doing.
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Were you a cough a Turkish coffee drinker back home?
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Or was this still kind of something new to you as you came
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into Los Angeles? Not to most people that drink
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Turkish coffee. So I'm one of those people in
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Turkey who drank Turkish coffee with sugar because the reason
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for that is what we did to Turkish coffee pulled.
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And I learned this after obviously after I started to get
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my education Chase special to coffee.
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What we did to Turkish coffee post 1950s is pretty much the
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same thing Folgers did to filter coffee in America,
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commercialization of coffee. So what used to happen was and
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Turkey in terms of its city layout and zoning is more
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European than American. So you will have a lot,
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especially I mean not American, but more vest more European than
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vest post American. Let's say you would have corner
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grocery stores, corner snack stores, just stores, all stores
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all around. Now those in Turkey, there's a
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specific store type for nuts and dried fruits.
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Most of those shops have a small roaster for nuts and a grinder.
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So this is pre 1950s. So as a house user you will get
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your coffee freshly roasted. Maybe it's not special, but
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roasted and in that case, ground at least in two weeks or so.
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So you would get the coffee, you would finish it, Yes, it's
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ground at the shop, but you would still finish it in two
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weeks. But post 1950s commercialization
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starts and you start to get bigger grocery stores, you start
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to get ground coffee prepackaged God knows how long ago.
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And the coffee quality also equates because historically
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it's only imported from Yemen and Ethiopia, but post 1950s
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globalization effects Turkey as well, and they start to buy from
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Brazil. That means Noble buys from
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Brazil and start to roast them, grind them, bag them, grocery
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store. So this declines equality, but
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obviously increases convenience massively.
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So that's the coffee I'm used to when you say Turkish coffee, and
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that's not a nice coffee. That's a good.
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Point because when I think of Turkish coffee, all of my
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Turkish coffee experiences have been with kind of very craft
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forward traditional historically Turkish here in the United
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States. I have not been unfortunately
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yet, but I'm thinking about, you know, using the brewing with the
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say the hot sand and heating up the water that way and, and the
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whole process. So, so I've been, I'm going to
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make a note about, yeah, the same thing.
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Yeah, not a thing like. Not a thing.
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It's it, it drives me up the wall.
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The same thing. So it even Arabia, I would
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suspect it would not get that hot that you can promise them
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maybe certain times of year, but definitely not all around the
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year. The historic way, if you're
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looking for a historic way, is if you were to cook with coal
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after your dinner is finished, when you have embers of the
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coal. That's the historic way.
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Like if you're looking for any historic way to brew, Turkey's
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not even that hot. I'm, I'm just saying, I mean all
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of my experiences are in Southern California, so.
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Yeah. So.
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Or maybe New York once. But but this whole thing did
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originate from Turkey. But it is a gimmick.
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It's maybe 10-15 years old, but it is a gimmick.
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It doesn't improve brewing. It doesn't.
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It's not historic, it doesn't have any authenticity.
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So it's just drives me up the wall that this is the way it's
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known. This is why I do the show,
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because now I know this and I can I can pass that word along.
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But but if anyone wants to brew with specialty Turkish coffee,
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literally type specialty Turkish coffee.
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So that yield is a who I believe is I forget the year but he's
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2013 or 2014 should be done. Is world jazz a brick champion?
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He has a website dedicated to brew.
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This method just uses equipment and you can buy whichever cuff
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you want, grind it super fine and prove it in a jazz way or a
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brick, whichever way you want to call it, and you would have a
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really nice Turkish cuff. So you start falling, you start
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thinking about coffee as a business.
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You fall into this love, this, this.
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You taste the coffee and it changes maybe your perspective a
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little bit. The business is still part of
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it. How do you get to box coffee
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BOXX so. That came from a connection
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essentially a family friend. You have a family friend of Box
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and be it's, it's kind of the set up marriages sort of thing.
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That's the first. That's the best way I can
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describe how it, how it started, not not how it's going, but but
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how it started. So they say, a friend of our
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family says, hey, there's this guy in LA wants to do this.
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And their friends say, yeah, why not?
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So we meet up in LA and I showed Mert who's one of our founders.
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Mert and all 2 are the founders of box and it came in later as a
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partner. It is a partnership, but they
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are there's they have started it in in Turkey.
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So Mark came into LA and we did the tour coffee tour together.
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And that was to understand. OK, Do our like with visions and
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personality align then? Do we enjoy tasting the same
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things because we are both in coffee?
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We know like we might still be great people, but if I like an
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Arabic naturals and Co ferments and a few likes washed canyons,
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that's our coffee vision. That doesn't really I mean you
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can like both, but not to the same extent.
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You will have a fifth eventually, but our favorites
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matched sort of. So that's what we were trying to
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see and I think we were looking at each other as a person.
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So that matched and that's kind of how it started to.
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Obviously that's just the start. Then you start working on it and
14:57
work on the projects and see if your business visions alike.
15:03
Hey, thanks for tuning into the Coffee People podcast.
15:06
Our show is presented by our friends at Rostar Coffee
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Packaging. You can find them online at
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rostar.com. They provide high quality,
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I thank them for supporting coffee people the show and
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packaging for your company. Check out rostar dot.
15:32
Com And now back to the show. And just to clarify for anyone
15:37
listening, there's a Box Coffee in, in Turkey, in Istanbul, and
15:43
then you have Box Coffee LA in Los Angeles.
15:46
You know, beyond just that your, your tastes align with your Co
15:51
owners, the original founders. You have different drinking
15:56
audiences. Do you find overlap in, you
16:00
know, the, the Los Angeles community and what they like and
16:03
what they're drinking and what you're selling to them and the
16:06
Istanbul? Or are you saying, hey, no,
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we're going to do what we do and what we like and present it to
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you? Exactly.
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That's the second, second version is what we did.
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So I mean, you think about that. Here's what I think for not just
16:23
for coffee, pretty much for anything, food and beverage.
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Let's say there's a scale of 1 to 10 right now.
16:30
One to three will be universally hated by everyone. 3 to 8 is
16:36
pretty much subjective. OK, if I like a certain thing, I
16:41
will. I might be tolerant towards a 3
16:44
1/2. And if you don't like that
16:46
thing, you might really hate that.
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But if it's eight to 10, if you do something well, really well,
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even if that's not maybe your thing, you won't hate it.
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So our idea was we know who we are.
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If we try to chase every single trend, first of all, you'd never
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know what the trends are until they emerge.
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And when they emerge, it's already too late because you're
17:14
at the peak of that and it will start to decline anyways.
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So you both lose yourself in the process.
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You'll keep chasing a chasing the perception of a customer
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that you don't have any idea what it's going to be.
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So it just didn't make any principle.
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Like it doesn't make any sense in principle.
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It doesn't make any practical sense for us to try to guess
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what the customer wants, sure. But if you keep doing your
17:43
thing, you might build a community, you might build a
17:46
base around what you do, which is what we try to do.
17:51
Well, and and beyond you have roasting you do wholesale, you
17:55
don't have a location in the Arts District in downtown LA.
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Yes, one of the things that I noticed when I was kind of just
18:02
looking up the Cafe and reading a little bit about what you do
18:04
there, there seems to be a focus on, I would like I say, call it
18:09
coffee cocktails, like creating an experience around a cup of
18:13
coffee or a drink even beyond just a black coffee.
18:17
How does the the location version of Box represent what
18:21
you guys want to do and how have you made that part of the coffee
18:25
community? Because Ellie's coffee community
18:28
I think is a lot more expansive, but there's a lot of great
18:32
talent. I know you guys have hosted and
18:35
events and it's concentrated in in that Los Angeles area.
18:40
In terms of location, allowing us what we do, first of all, I
18:44
think for to do anything successful, you need people like
18:50
local people living in the neighborhood.
18:54
Because if if you don't you, it becomes really hard to have a
18:59
sustainable and long lasting impact with what you're trying
19:03
to do, because it's, it's just luck.
19:06
However, if you have a lot of local residents it with enough
19:13
perseverance and verge, you might beat being lucky or
19:18
unlucky. So we tried to from day one, we
19:24
said OK, no syrups. That was the one thing we really
19:29
fixated on because, and it shouldn't come from a place of
19:36
no syrups but nothing else like we always had.
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OK, we have 6 borrowers and three espressos and two cold
19:44
brews. So what can we do?
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And whenever you come into the shop, one of the first things
19:50
you'll hear, if we understand from the way you feel inside the
19:56
shop it's your first time or through your questions, you'll
19:59
get tasters. Today's Strip cold brew and Ozi
20:03
drip, which is, you know, the Kyoto style cold brew tower, you
20:07
get tasters of those and from your reactions to those we will
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say, OK, you're more this type of coffee drinker so you might
20:14
enjoy this. So the no syrup thing has to tie
20:19
into a functional place. It can't be just no syrups but
20:24
no syrups because there's a lot of value and flavor variety that
20:28
we can find something for you. I'm I'm not sure if I answered
20:33
your question but I kind of went into my own answer I think.
20:37
You're leaning into a part of it and I think where I maybe I went
20:41
too far where, where I was getting confused is I was
20:45
reading about how you had this, this coffee drink program
20:48
through the. Oh, monthly drinks.
20:50
The new the new stuff. So how do you, how do you go
20:54
from like we're sticking with these, these pure, flavorful
20:58
coffee into a program like that? And I think, you know, just
21:02
having, you know, even from your comments before, like what
21:06
you're describing to me is how I would run a cocktail bar or a
21:09
beer bar. You come in, ioffer you tasters.
21:12
We work together to find the thing that you that you like.
21:17
And so then when you're adding a with coffee, it's, I think it's
21:21
a little harder because it's harder to, it's harder to keep
21:24
things prepared properly and freshly for everyone that's
21:28
coming in to do that. So I'm, I'm wondering how you go
21:31
about that? And then how did you come about
21:32
with the coffee the drink program?
21:35
So for first of all, batch brew or drip coffee, whichever you
21:39
prefer. We prefer batch brew as a
21:43
terminology. It is a very important drink to
21:46
us and it has always been since day one that this is a bit of a
21:50
hot take maybe, but I don't like shops not serving batch brews
21:53
after a certain hour because we all know the logistics of this
21:59
business. If you make a 1 cup sale, you'll
22:01
make that cost from a restroom. There's there's no secrets here.
22:06
So I I don't get the reason behind that.
22:08
And it's such an easy product to keep stable, consistent because
22:13
once you have filed in your restroom for the day, that's not
22:17
going to change. It's not espresso.
22:20
Once you have your brain sesame recipe ready, it's ready.
22:23
Like you can keep it stable and good all day as long as you're
22:27
discarding in the time limits. Whole brew.
22:31
It's already a big volume drink so once we've prepared we have
22:35
maybe 3640 liters depending on the recipe we are using for that
22:40
specific bean. So that's not hard.
22:43
Kyoto style cold brew or G drip is the only thing because it's
22:47
such limited quantity, it might run out.
22:51
And if it turns out I have two drinks for you to taste and
22:53
that's kind of enough for me to get a feel because we don't
22:58
have, at least for us, we use our pour over coffees in these
23:03
drinks. We don't have a dedicated, I
23:06
don't want to say this, but love post batch group bean that's
23:09
sitting on the bar just for that.
23:11
No, I want you to taste the good beans because once you taste
23:15
that and if you like it, you might say, well, I really
23:18
enjoyed this. I now you kind of start to
23:22
understand what you enjoy and what you don't enjoy.
23:25
That makes you appreciate coffee more.
23:27
And next time you see something on a power menu, now you might
23:30
be willing to spend a lot of it as well because now you know
23:33
what you like. So I think it's worth the
23:37
investment keeping those products good and consistent.
23:39
To your signature drinks thing, question, how did we come up
23:46
with that? We first started thinking about
23:49
this last year. I had my first ever vacation
23:54
last year as I was on my vacation and we never had that
23:58
signature drink menu because signature drink menu inherently
24:03
like implicitly means syrup. And we are like well, we don't
24:08
do syrup so we don't have a signature drink menu.
24:10
But as I was having that vacationer starting to think,
24:13
well, does it have to meet serves?
24:16
Maybe, maybe it doesn't have to. Maybe we can do other things.
24:19
Maybe we can play with temperature, maybe we can play
24:23
with presentation, maybe we can play with texture or kind of
24:28
deceive people into something is I think that it's not.
24:34
So we we have something we are playing with color coming up.
24:38
And the first thing we made was quite simple.
24:41
It was AI forgot to without any sugar.
24:44
So we tried to see if we can make sugar sugar free ice cream,
24:49
which we did. The second drink I think we put
24:52
over was it's called Novocaine. But it's have, it's basically
24:57
the method is from Chris Young who worked at the Fat Dog in
25:03
Bray, United Kingdom under Haston Blumenthal.
25:07
They had this tea which was 2 temperatures.
25:10
So in the same cup you would get a hot side and a cold side and
25:15
you would drink both sides at the same time.
25:17
Now it sounds ridiculous because liquids mix, but if you use gel
25:22
engagements, which are not flavored, well now you haven't
25:28
played with the coffee's taste, but you have played with its
25:32
viscosity. So we did a coffee version of
25:36
that tea drink this month. We have something called Crimson
25:42
Eye in that that came from Dalgona coffee.
25:47
First I hated Dalgona coffee as a drink because of how much
25:51
sugar was in it, but I loved how it looked.
25:55
So we were chatting, can we do this?
25:58
Like what would the texture be like?
26:01
Then we started thinking, can we make a foam?
26:04
And that kind of made us do an espresso foam.
26:10
We once we did it, we didn't know what we what to do with it
26:13
for a second. I had a back for I was sipping
26:17
or did Brendan had some back for anyone.
26:19
Anyway, someone had a back for they were sipping.
26:23
We just put the espresso on top of that.
26:25
We saw it didn't mix. So some things you find out by a
26:31
little bit of AI mean we knew it would have mixed coffer.
26:36
Do you think I'm listening to you talk?
26:38
I think it's a challenge to come up with a cocktail, coffee
26:42
cocktail that is not involving syrup type flavoring, even if
26:46
it's homemade or whatever it is. Yeah.
26:48
Do you think of yourself as being creative?
26:56
Not in an artistic way. Artistically I'm I'm I lack so
27:02
much depth. I'm just being honest.
27:07
Like I can't imagine myself doing any painting.
27:12
Sucked at my arts classes. Like consistently.
27:16
It was a bad class for me. Sorry someone is making some
27:19
noise outside. That was a bad subject for me.
27:22
But I think I'm creative at finding solutions that that's
27:29
what I feel more creative about. Well, that's a great trait to
27:33
have if you are an entrepreneur, if you are a business person,
27:38
what made you think you were the right person for this particular
27:41
opportunity? I mean, if it was a arranged
27:45
business partnership, at least in the beginning, you had to
27:49
want to do it too, as much as they had to want you to be the
27:52
right person. So what made you think this was
27:54
the right thing? This is what I want to do moving
27:57
forward. So the best way to answer that
28:02
question is I didn't because I realized this last year.
28:07
Last year I was on my when I was on my break, I went to visit
28:10
some high school friends and one of my friends asked me.
28:15
She asked what? How did you prepare yourself for
28:21
like this not being good or it might fail?
28:27
I didn't. I just never thought about that
28:29
part. I just thought about what could
28:32
work. And by the way, you should
28:34
definitely prepare for all scenarios.
28:37
This is not a good way to do. But I just didn't.
28:43
Why? Not that that was my mind, I
28:47
just never even imagined it, so I don't know.
28:51
That's really interesting, I think.
28:53
I mean, that's where no one listening should say that their
28:57
best advice is not to consider situation.
29:01
No, it's not a good advice. But if you don't, or at least in
29:04
your case it it may have helped you a little bit, just keep
29:08
pushing forward because you didn't see that as an option.
29:11
Yeah. I mean, what are you going to
29:12
do? You, you can't just be like,
29:15
well, I guess like this, because if, if you think you can, you
29:21
can't really like whatever happens, you can't go like,
29:26
well, that's it then this is enough.
29:30
No, you can. There's always some new stuff to
29:32
do and some new stuff to try, I think.
29:36
Well, you guys launched the Los Angeles version of the cafe in
29:40
2021, which was a interesting year for anyone in hospitality
29:45
and in coffee. The pandemic was rising and
29:51
still confusing. Nobody knew what to expect.
29:54
How did that change your business plan and your your
29:57
launch? And did that, did you ever think
30:01
about postponing? I mean, we couldn't postpone
30:05
more even if we tried. From start of construction to
30:09
opening it took us 21 months. So I don't know how, how long we
30:17
could have postponed this. We were supposed.
30:21
So there was a period either we could have been open almost
30:25
right before pandemic like we were having hiring interviews
30:31
based on the feedback we got from the city.
30:34
Then anyways, other inspections because inspectors changed in
30:40
that time. All the inspectors we had for
30:44
the project changed when city reopened and started started
30:50
their thing. So it changed everything.
30:55
But we opened in the middle of pandemic.
30:58
So I can't even remember what it changed apart from, you know,
31:01
obviously the masks, hygiene, sanitation, social distancing,
31:09
all that stuff. But we didn't open pre pandemic.
31:13
So we never knew what it was like pre.
31:15
I mean, I knew as a customer what was like pre pandemic Los
31:19
Angeles, but not as a not as an operator.
31:23
I didn't. I didn't know what it was like.
31:27
I've always wondered and I think we won't know for a while, but
31:30
people who did open like you did during the pandemic, if one, it
31:34
made it made you be more a more business smart because there was
31:40
so little room for error. And two, if it seems, does it
31:44
seem easier now that we're at least not in that era of the
31:49
pandemic? I mean, compared to that time,
31:52
yeah. But going back to the beginning
31:56
of the chat, the I don't think it gets easier in LA than here,
32:04
if I'm quite honest. Like every year there's a new
32:08
thing. This year, everything was going
32:11
well. And I, I don't know if we have
32:15
any room for political discussion on, on the podcast.
32:19
Sure of course, but but ICE agents start to show all of a
32:27
sudden things get weird. Then for literally for 0 because
32:33
I'm saying this, I want to clarify something.
32:36
I'm an artist, I'm in downtown, my home is also in downtown.
32:42
So I'm very familiar with all the protests that was going on.
32:46
Protests were happening literally under my balcony with
32:52
0 need national guards come in and that enrages everyone
32:58
because why? Because why would they ever come
33:02
and all of a sudden they start, they declare downtown.
33:09
What was it? There was a curfew in downtown.
33:14
Now I am sure it's well-intentioned, but it's
33:19
incompetent at best. Here's the reason.
33:23
If you are not familiar with an area, because if you don't go
33:27
there any day, every day, if you hear there's curfew, your first
33:33
perception is, well, there's trouble, there's something wrong
33:37
there. I shouldn't go there.
33:40
There's nothing was happening. The only thing that happened, I
33:45
think on Broadway. This happens at every protest.
33:50
For some reason, as an expat, I don't get the reasoning, but I'm
33:53
not. Again, I'm not.
33:56
I'm never going to say I'm culturally absorbed and I know
33:59
everything. There is a couple stores broken
34:02
on Broadway and an excessive amount of tagging.
34:07
Again, I don't understand tagging, but that's just me as a
34:10
person. Those things happened, but there
34:13
there was nothing that really required a curfew.
34:16
People were protesting, it was fine.
34:18
Yeah, that seems pretty light for downtown LA actually.
34:23
Little extra tagging here or there is is what happens here
34:27
now and again. I think what I'm hearing from
34:29
you is that this manufactured this manufactured chaos.
34:36
Yeah, that, that's a, that's a great way of coming with you.
34:38
Yeah, it it was affecting your business.
34:41
Yeah. Because now people don't want to
34:43
come down there or they're afraid or the news is telling
34:45
them this is a a scary place right now.
34:48
Stay away. You know, what do you do to did
34:52
you have to go to your customers or on social media and say hey,
34:55
no, no, like we're open, come on down.
34:57
Like things are are OK. No, because what you don't have
35:02
to reach office city government like.
35:05
Yeah. How many people can I reach
35:07
realistically? Maybe 5000, maybe once the city
35:12
government declare something you, unless you are an
35:17
establishment like an established historical business
35:20
that literally every single person knows in the city, you
35:24
don't have that big of a region, that big of an influence.
35:27
So it's a pointless argument to make and it feels it might be
35:33
countering counterproductive as well.
35:36
You might be people might think, and rightly so.
35:39
I'm not blaming them if they were to think this way.
35:43
Well, you're only after your sales revenue, whatever.
35:48
Well, it's partially by the way, but also not like there was.
35:54
There's not much going on. It was a very peaceful protest.
35:59
Do you think that you have to go into 2026 or into the future of
36:05
your business, accounting for how politics are impacting you
36:12
more than you would have before? It's not something I used to
36:15
think about when I was running a restaurant.
36:18
But this year you've had protests in LA, in major cities
36:21
in particular. Certainly up here in the Pacific
36:24
Northwest, in Portland, there's been a lot of talk about, you
36:28
know, the situation which most Portland has been quite lovely
36:32
and all of my visits this year. It's an amazing city.
36:36
And you know, you've had tariffs coming in where there was.
36:39
Unexplained things. Hacked in your business, is that
36:42
something that you and your partners are talking about?
36:44
Like what is what's going to be the thing this year?
36:46
Or do you say, no, we just got to run our business the best we
36:50
can the way we always have? Or is that something that you're
36:55
actually going to have to start accounting for in your business
36:57
plan? I think, I think you can only
37:00
account for it, but things are predictable.
37:02
But things are not predictable. You can't really account for and
37:06
I think it's been very unpredictable in the last.
37:09
Couple years? Does that make you more cautious
37:11
then? Yeah.
37:14
Because if if you are, if you can see more clearly, you can
37:20
take more risks. If you can't see more clearly,
37:22
you're going to be more risk averse in your decision making.
37:25
And essentially the only thing you do is price for danger
37:33
rather than price for prospect. That's a really interesting way
37:39
to say that I like that price for danger, not prosperity.
37:44
I do this thing with Rostar Coffee Packaging.
37:46
They're the sponsor of the show, and they're always encouraging
37:51
us to find ways to help other people who want to join the
37:54
industry or join business become entrepreneurs.
37:58
You joined a business that existed.
38:01
Now you joined it in a way that's unique because you are in
38:04
an entirely different location as the original business.
38:08
I'm wondering if you have any advice for somebody who is
38:12
considering buying into a business or joining a business
38:15
partnership as far as fitting your vision into that or
38:21
adopting, you know, some of theirs into yours.
38:25
Much like any relationship, I think it's it helps a lot to
38:34
understand what you're getting into.
38:35
First. I really like my business
38:38
partners. I won't say we have a good
38:41
relationship, but at the end of the day, how should I put this
38:47
there is there is friendly fields.
38:50
You spend time, you are friends, but you are business partners
38:56
and business partnership is in in ways I think really akin to
39:04
probably the most I can think to I I'm not married, but I I've
39:07
been hearing it. It's a lot akin to marriage.
39:11
And I've heard a great quote the other day.
39:15
Someone's grandma told them you had good decades.
39:20
You have bad decades. So just just being calm helps.
39:27
Like is there a problem? Maybe, but just be calm about
39:32
your problems and don't make them bigger than they need to
39:35
be. And just don't lose respect for
39:40
the person across you just because you have a disagreement
39:45
about a certain issue. Once you understand that you
39:50
have a disagreement about issue and not the person, it becomes a
39:56
lot easier to navigate because you can again, calm yourself
39:59
down, go to your separate rooms, come back and say, OK, it's not
40:04
a personality conflict. Or even if it's a personality
40:07
conflict, it's about this issue. It's not about the whole white
40:12
picture of your building. What is the disagreement?
40:15
It's about this. So let's solve this now.
40:19
You don't have to agree. Sometimes an issue is more
40:22
important to someone than it is more important.
40:25
Then this to the other person. I read Unreasonable Hospitality
40:29
pretty religiously and if you read it, you know about this.
40:36
There's a part they talk, Will Guitar talks about that too.
40:41
The phrase they use is, it's important to me.
40:44
You've got to be able to say this is important to me.
40:47
And I think if you have mutual respect then it's going to get
40:50
solved. That's a good way of approaching
40:54
it. I've never been very good at
40:56
giving up control myself, and so I wish I would have had that
41:00
advice a few times in the past. I, I mentioned the coffee you
41:05
sent me. There's a couple of Ethiopias in
41:07
Ecuadorian. This Ecuadorian coffee, Finca La
41:11
Carolina was my favorite of the three.
41:14
Some of the notes that I made were just how mellow the acidity
41:17
was and I noticed that kind of across the board, the grapefruit
41:21
flavor and very smooth. And I had intended on saving
41:25
some of it to have when we chatted and I couldn't do that.
41:28
I finished it. So thank you very much for
41:30
sending it. You're you're welcome.
41:32
It's great to hear. Thank you.
41:34
I'm wondering when you think about coffee or when you're out
41:38
just enjoying coffee in a different city, you're on
41:40
vacation. What do you think of what makes
41:43
a coffee good for you? You know, what is your what
41:47
makes you go? Oh yeah, this was this is a good
41:50
cup of coffee. Complexity and clarity more so
41:57
than anything. And I think the SCA definition
42:04
right now, if I'm not mistaken, specifically from the
42:06
competitions, you're looking at clarity as how clear one or two
42:14
notes come true because that's like how sharp certain notes
42:19
are. For me, clarity is a it works in
42:25
tandem with complexity. I want more flavor range out of
42:31
the coffees and they should be clear enough that I can access
42:36
to coupled, if not one thing very clearly, couple different
42:40
things very clearly, maybe not as strong as one, but comes in
42:45
waves. But when it's hot, I should be
42:48
getting something when it's warm.
42:50
When it's cold, it should be changing for the better.
42:56
It should be getting sweeter as it cools down.
43:00
It's fine if it starts a little higher acidity and if it
43:03
finishes much, much sweeter, then it's hard for.
43:07
I actually noticed that with all three of these coffees and I'm
43:10
just going to grab the other two so I know what I'm talking about
43:14
the Ecuador and then you also send to Ethiopia and the
43:19
Guatemala. And of of the three, the Ecuador
43:23
was my favorite, followed by the Guatemala.
43:26
That's my favorite coffee of the year is old Ecuador.
43:29
Yeah, it, it just really was. And it brought me back because
43:33
my very first coffee kind of special coffee experience was at
43:39
a coffee farm in Ecuador. And I was there because they
43:43
also, they were the chocolate as well.
43:45
I didn't know anything about the coffee, but it was and it, it
43:48
brought me back to that moment. And, and I think that that's one
43:52
of the great things about coffee is it's kind of a, it helps you
43:56
time travel a little bit or teleport.
43:59
Yeah, you can almost go, go to certain places, yeah.
44:03
Yeah. And I just thought that was so
44:05
enjoyable and so I appreciated it.
44:08
You mentioned you went on your first vacation.
44:09
Who are you? And you're, and you also
44:11
mentioned you're not married, but I, I'll tell you a business
44:14
partnership is very much like a marriage.
44:18
Thankfully I've been more successful in my marriage than
44:21
my business partnerships, but. Yeah.
44:24
If if you're going to take one, you're going to take that one,
44:26
yeah. Yeah, no complaints.
44:29
Who are you outside of work? Do you do anything besides focus
44:32
on this business or what's your life like?
44:36
I well I grew up in Ankara and studied law actually and worked
44:44
for a year then decided to leave Turkey and come over here.
44:50
So that's the bullet point stories.
44:55
I do enjoy gaming as a hobby Massive.
45:00
I want to say football about soccer fan.
45:03
My Turkish club is 1. My English club is Arsenal.
45:08
I'll probably be consuming like some sort of soccer content
45:14
every day. It's going to be a podcast,
45:16
tactical analysis, something I love team sports overall and
45:23
there is a lot of similarities between how you build AI think a
45:32
sports team and as far as our, I'm talking about specialty
45:37
coffee or a specialty food and beverage overall, like your high
45:42
end cocktail bars, good restaurants.
45:45
I think there's a lot of similarities in terms of how
45:47
those things are built. So that pattern recognition is
45:52
fun. Will you be getting to any of
45:55
the World Cup games? I tell you, I would love to that
46:00
it's ridiculously expensive. I've been seeing some of the
46:05
numbers, but you know, I've been asking myself how much is how.
46:09
Much is so much. To go my, my, I'm a baseball, my
46:14
baseball team had it is the Brewers and they had a chance to
46:18
go to the World Series. And so my wife and I were
46:21
looking at our bank account going, how much will we spend
46:24
just to go to one game? Like what's our our line?
46:28
And unfortunately we didn't get a chance to make that call.
46:31
But it's not often that the World Cup is in your town and.
46:36
It's, it's, it's not, but like one thing with, and this is,
46:42
again, I'm going to go into a bit of a compare and contrast
46:45
thing, but the sport ticket prices here overall across the
46:52
country is a little bit weird. Like you can pretty much go to
46:57
your hometown or like even if you you are a fan of a super
47:01
successful team, you'll be able to find a cheap ticket At least
47:06
in Turkey or in Europe you will be able to find tickets for
47:09
cheap because you have to have certain sections for certain you
47:16
can't you there will be uproar from whole fan base if you were
47:20
to increase those tickets. The here.
47:23
It's just I feel like being price covered at first you only
47:29
can get get some. I don't have much flow here, but
47:36
like 50-70 dollars is a reasonable amount to spend for a
47:39
sports game. Now if you're talking boxes,
47:43
super whole seats, yeah, sure, that's go go nuts.
47:47
But reasonable seats 57 to $80 is fine, $350.00 for some
47:53
category. Two seats is not like I'm I'm
47:56
not. Flying, do you think there's
47:59
taking that? Do you think there's a limit to
48:01
what people are willing to spend, or is there going to be a
48:05
limit to what they're going to spend on on coffee, on your
48:08
coffee? Oh.
48:10
Yeah, sure. You're serving specialty coffee.
48:12
You've got price points of, you know, in the high 20s on some of
48:16
these bags. Are you seeing a line where
48:19
people are going? I think I I'm tightening my belt
48:22
or I'm not going to spend over, you know how, how do you account
48:25
for that? Well, I think this year it's
48:29
going to be. I thought it wouldn't be, but it
48:32
might get better slightly I didn't think honestly.
48:38
And I wrote this into one of our wholesale newsletters.
48:41
I didn't think C price would go too low.
48:44
It didn't go too low, but there is a trend of going down.
48:49
I don't think we will ever find and we shouldn't find the 18190
48:56
C prices. I don't think we will see $2.00
49:00
C prices, but I thought, I genuinely thought it wouldn't go
49:05
lower than four by the end of 2026.
49:10
And I think I might be wrong about this because there's a pro
49:15
system training in the last couple of months.
49:18
So maybe it will decrease by itself a little bit, which would
49:23
be fine. However, I think in two years or
49:28
so, the only problem to see price increasing is it it
49:32
happened too too drastically too fast.
49:35
It should be here. It just stayed at the same spot
49:39
for years then just took off, right?
49:42
More gentle increase would have been appreciated.
49:46
Yeah. I mean it's I think most of the
49:49
specialty roasters I speak to generally are paying above the.
49:54
Oh yeah, I mean, I'm, I'm not paying that, but that's a.
49:58
Reference point as a reference point.
50:01
But your point there was a definite drastic uptick very
50:06
quickly that yeah, for people that weren't building their
50:09
businesses around that sort of higher price point, yeah, was
50:13
shocking. But but the medium medium to
50:16
long, long term benefit I think is so blends.
50:22
It doesn't affect really good coffees or good coffees all that
50:26
much. It only effects blends really.
50:29
Your wash chain of pricing hasn't changed drastically.
50:33
Your washed ET your price changed a little bit, but not
50:36
too much. Blend prices aren't changing so
50:40
medium to long term effect. And I've seen this with a couple
50:45
clients. They were like, well, I might as
50:48
well get the coffee I like because if there no, there's not
50:52
that much for the first. Sure.
50:54
That's interesting. I wouldn't have thought of that.
50:57
I'm not in your position though. So you know, Arta, I really
51:01
appreciate we've spent, you've spent an hour talking with me
51:03
and and we spent a little bit more time.
51:05
Getting getting difficulties. Difficulties.
51:09
Did I miss anything that you want people to know about boxed
51:12
coffee? Anything in particular, if
51:15
they're going to be in LA or anything you'd like to share
51:17
that I, I didn't ask about today?
51:21
While talking about pricing, we made a step I think everyone
51:27
will make, I don't know next one or two years, but I'm curious to
51:34
see how it will result. So we removed taxes and tips
51:38
from customer side. Everything is 1 price now.
51:43
I'm saying this because as an operator, I'm sure other
51:45
operators are aware, ever since COVID, I think tips are on the
51:51
decline. Tip fatigue is very much real.
51:56
So people have been complaining. Well, just pay your MPs then.
52:02
Yeah, sure, why not? Everyone wants to do that.
52:06
So we decided to say, OK, let's, let's, let's take you up on that
52:11
offer jobs aside, like I believe this is the place we are going
52:18
to and I think it provides a much better experience in terms
52:24
of your how you come into a coffee shop because people are
52:28
we, we are so often thinking $6, but it's really is it 6, is it
52:32
9? Is it whatever?
52:34
No, you know, so I I do like that Peace of Mind.
52:39
Did you, when you made that decision, did you adjust pricing
52:42
to accommodate? Oh yeah, yes.
52:44
Absolutely. I assume there has to be.
52:46
That's the trade off is people don't tip and they start.
52:49
So do you have a lot of a lot of education for new customers then
52:53
as to why your price points might be more than your
52:55
neighbor? Oh, dude.
52:57
I think it is still very compact like in this some pretty much a
53:00
range with our neighborhood. It's it's not excessively high.
53:05
Well, there's a couple places that slow.
53:07
There's there might be a couple places that might be $0.25 high,
53:11
but it's not ridiculously high. Sure.
53:14
Yeah, that's really interesting. I think that's a it's a good
53:17
challenge for anyone. I've done that math of of making
53:21
a place tip free. And you know the?
53:24
The roadblock was always how do we get enough of our customers
53:29
to understand that's why we're doing a price change?
53:32
And I think there's always a little bit of friction, even if
53:36
they think it's the right thing to do.
53:38
You know, when they were paying $3 and now they're paying 4-4
53:42
and then 5. So you always have to explain
53:44
that. I really just appreciate the
53:48
time that we've spent. And we'll share the links to Box
53:52
Coffee dot LA at the top of the show as well.
53:56
Thank you so much for being here, Art I I just can't thank
54:00
you enough. Ryan, thank you very much for
54:02
putting up with me while I try to sort out the technical
54:07
difficulties and sharing this conversation with you.
54:10
It was a lot of fun. None.