Latest / Coffee People Podcast / Kyle Layton From Prismatic Coffee Joins Coffee People For The Second One.

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Kyle Layton From Prismatic Coffee Joins Coffee People For The Second One. · Coffee People Podcast

• 0:01
  Hey there everyone. I'm Ryan Wolt, the host of the
• 0:03
  Coffee People podcast. I also write books like these,
• 0:07
  the Eli and Jane series. I'm very proud of them.
• 0:10
  You can find the link in the show notes.
• 0:11
  And if you're looking for a gift for your favorite book reading
• 0:15
  friend, please check them out. Cheers.
• 0:22
  Hey there, everyone. Good morning.
• 0:24
  I'm Ryan Wolt, the host of the Coffee People podcast, coming to
• 0:27
  you from a very rainy morning in Oregon.
• 0:30
  This show is presented by Rostar Coffee Packaging.
• 0:33
  You'll find recaps, context, and all of the links that we refer
• 0:37
  to in this episode in the show notes down below or of course on
• 0:41
  coffeepeoplepodcast.com. Today I'm at, or should I say
• 0:45
  back at Prismatic Coffee in Salem, OR I'm chatting with Head
• 0:50
  Roaster Cafe GM and co-owner Kyle Layton.
• 0:53
  He and I got together and recorded a great episode last
• 0:56
  week, but we ran into some technical difficulties with the
• 0:59
  audio, making for a challenging release.
• 1:02
  Kyle was really just generous with his time and pleasant
• 1:05
  enough to be willing to chat with us once again.
• 1:08
  So this is the second conversation we've had with Kyle
• 1:10
  Layton. You can still find that first
• 1:12
  one out there in the world, but this is the one that we're
• 1:15
  sending out in the newsletter. This morning.
• 1:17
  I'm drinking a Brooks Winery Prismatic collaboration.
• 1:21
  It's a Pinot noir barrel aged coffee, which I've been enjoying
• 1:24
  all week. And I hope that you have a nice
• 1:26
  cup at the ready too, because we're about to have a real life
• 1:29
  conversation while listening to the Rain with Kyle Layton of
• 1:34
  Prismatic Coffee. OK all.
• 1:43
  Right. We're recording.
• 1:46
  All right, cool. Jump across to you, Yeah.
• 1:51
  Hopefully it's in a good spot. I think it's going to be in a
• 1:54
  good spot. All right.
• 1:55
  Don't mind right there. Perfect.
• 1:58
  For now, and I'm going to you mind.
• 2:00
  Yeah, yeah, let's dive in. This is definitely going to be
• 2:06
  keeping me up way too late, but it's worth it.
• 2:10
  It's worth it. Well, on that note, cheers.
• 3:21
  Cheers, thanks for having me back.
• 3:26
  Thank you for coming back. You know what, last time I told
• 3:31
  you all about tapping on the table to get rid of all the
• 3:34
  evil, but then it didn't work. And.
• 3:37
  So maybe it was my bad. Maybe.
• 3:38
  I didn't think of. It if you wouldn't mind for the
• 3:44
  camera here, could you reintroduce yourself?
• 3:47
  Some people who have already. Seen you and know who you are
• 3:49
  from the last video. This might be the first time.
• 3:52
  That I've seen you. My name is Kyle Leighton.
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  I wear many hats at Prismatic Coffee co-owner, roaster manager
• 4:05
  and yeah, anything else that needs to be done, really.
• 4:10
  That's right. Thank you.
• 4:11
  For introducing yourself, Mr. Layton from Prismatic Coffee,
• 4:16
  we've already gone through a lot of your back story.
• 4:19
  I'm going to make sure that if people didn't see the other
• 4:21
  video, they learn all that stuff.
• 4:25
  But before we get too far, Prismatic is, is the 1st place
• 4:31
  that you are not just managing and working in, but also a
• 4:34
  co-owner in in the time that you've been here and involved in
• 4:39
  this project about a year and a half, two years.
• 4:42
  Yeah, about two years now. Two years.
• 4:44
  How do you think you've changed as a coffee person going from
• 4:48
  that role of working in coffee to being like owning?
• 4:53
  In charge. Skin in the game.
• 4:56
  Yeah, yeah. It's been a really stretching
• 5:03
  process and gosh, yeah. It's seeing all sides and like
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  feeling, you know, the the pressure and the impact.
• 5:17
  You know, if we're, you know, something that, you know, I
• 5:20
  would do as a former barista is like practice latte art a lot.
• 5:27
  And, you know, not necessarily think about the the waste
• 5:30
  involved because, you know, doing like cool designs and it's
• 5:35
  like fun pouring pennies down. Yeah, exactly.
• 5:38
  And now I'm just behind all of those processes, you know, and
• 5:48
  I, I see from, you know, buying the green coffee to how much
• 5:55
  every, all the overhead costs, you know, how much of like the
• 5:59
  cost of my own labor goes into it.
• 6:02
  And like now I still encourage, you know, like growth and and
• 6:08
  learning, but like, I would just have a heart attack if somebody
• 6:13
  made 10 drinks in a row and just tossed all of them.
• 6:20
  So yeah, I would say like my eyes have changed so much in, in
• 6:26
  that in that respect. So like when you when you say
• 6:32
  your eyes have changed, I think I know what you mean, but I want
• 6:34
  to clarify. When you walk in and you see
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  people doing their job or not doing their job, doing other
• 6:40
  things, are you just looking around and seeing, oh, that's
• 6:43
  costing us this, That's costing. Does that take away from the
• 6:46
  coffee bar for you? Not, not too much like I, I
• 6:52
  think, you know, all of this stuff should happen.
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  You know, like baristas are creative and social people.
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  And so I want to leave room for that, but it's more looking at
• 7:05
  it in the way of like, OK, for this to like continue, We, we
• 7:09
  have to tighten it, you know, a little bit.
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  So I'm not frantically like, ah, money's just going down the
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  drain. But like, why are we talking so
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  much at the same time, You know, like, what could we be doing
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  right now? And I, I see myself, you know,
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  some days more than others, like actually feeling like a boss.
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  And it just like, but I get it. I get it from all sides.
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  Like I've been, I've been on all sides of it.
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  And now I'm just like. I feel like you didn't say that
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  like you're a boss, like Cardi B is a boss.
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  Yeah, you're like a boss. Like you're like you're you know
• 7:46
  your parents age boss when. You're a kid, Yeah.
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  So there's a bit more of that. But, you know, I like to joke
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  around and say that like, I'm in the phase now.
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  Like, I don't know if you've ever experienced, you know,
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  you're working a busy bar and, like, boss walks in and hops on
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  bar to help and then everything goes to shit.
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  Yeah, I do that now. Yeah.
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  Yeah. I am the guy who comes in to try
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  to help and everything gets ruined.
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  And it's not necessarily because you don't know everything, but
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  it's because you're not part of the rhythm.
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  No, exactly. I'm throwing off the rhythm and
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  I get that. Like I'm quite still qualified
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  to operate the machine to a high level of excellence.
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  I haven't quite lost that yet. But yeah, it's, it's the rhythm
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  piece. I feel like when I started being
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  in charge of bars and restaurants, it took a while for
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  me to acknowledge it, but it was better for me to be more of the
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  clean up crew. Yeah, I wouldn't come in and
• 9:00
  like, if we were shorthanded, I wouldn't jump behind the bar.
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  I'd become the food runner. Yeah, yeah, somewhat.
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  The person who's like in the, you know, helping do the things
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  that take away from the service part.
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  Yes, yeah. I could only screw up otherwise.
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  Yeah, I, I see myself doing that a lot and actually like wanting
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  to do that a lot. And especially when, you know,
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  we we first opened, I was behind bar a lot, you know, me and my
• 9:30
  lead Caleb, creating our systems, you know, getting
• 9:35
  getting it all ironed out. But then once the hype, you
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  know, kept building and building and we were getting really busy,
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  I would actually intentionally walk away and let the team,
• 9:49
  like, mesh and figure it out and let frustrations arise and let's
• 9:55
  let them just navigate the rush. Yeah.
• 10:00
  And that was, that was hard. No, it's hard for me.
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  Especially if you've been doing it a long time, There's like
• 10:05
  this. It's not just it's not a pride
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  thing and it's definitely stepping out of your ego, right?
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  Like I know I can do this but. The smarter move?
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  Here is to let someone. Else exactly.
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  And then it got to a point where, and maybe it hasn't for
• 10:20
  you yet, but where you've stepped out of it long enough
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  that you really can't do it as good as the people.
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  Teaching how to do it. I'm scared.
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  I'm scared of that moment. Because you really, you've been
• 10:31
  in the office too long or you've been dealing with other things.
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  And it's the guys at Cat and Claude talk about this on their
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  show a lot about how their role is different now.
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  You know, they, they started and they were all hands on deck
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  doing all the things. But that's only a that only
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  causes problems. Now they're at this bigger
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  picture. Viewpoint.
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  Which is, I think, the goal. Even if the thing that you're
• 10:59
  good at is what got you the start and then you like, give it
• 11:02
  up, Yeah, to do something you're not.
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  Yeah, Experienced, yes. And oh boy, I am not experienced
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  in a lot of it, but that's the the thing that I appreciate
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  about how I've like grown in the learning process has been just
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  being OK at sucking and like also having the drive of like
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  not stopping until I figure it out.
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  How do your business partners feel about you sucking?
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  Are they OK? I think they would say that
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  like, I don't suck. Maybe it's, you know, I
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  definitely have like my lanes. What I do suck at is starting a
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  thing and finishing it, like in a organized matter.
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  That makes sense. I've got absolute ADHD and yeah,
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  starting a task and finishing it, that doesn't happen.
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  So, but I try, I put an effort to like you know you.
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  Must have figured out strategies for working around it because
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  obviously you're here and you know owner managing go owner
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  managing this place I want to talk to you about this coffee
• 12:30
  we're. Drinking, but we're.
• 12:31
  Going to take just a quick break.
• 12:36
  Hey everyone, it's your host, Ryan Walt of Coffee People.
• 12:40
  Which if you're watching the show, you probably know that
• 12:43
  we're right in the middle of an episode.
• 12:45
  This is less of an ad break and more of an opportunity for me to
• 12:49
  make a formal apology directly to Michael Barthmess, the CEO at
• 12:54
  Civets Roasting Machines. Civets is spelled SIVETZ, and
• 13:00
  they have a website, SIVET z.com, civets.com.
• 13:07
  And for the better part of three years, I mean 1/2 a dozen
• 13:11
  seasons probably, I've been sporadically, mostly
• 13:15
  misspelling. It's actually misspelled in the
• 13:17
  closing notes of this show and has been all seasoned because
• 13:20
  something in my brain is broken. So to you, Michael at Sivets
• 13:25
  SIVETZI, vow that from this day forth, I will never misspell the
• 13:30
  name of your iconic coffee roasting machine company again.
• 13:34
  And to everyone else, check out sivets.com.
• 13:37
  Tell them coffee people sent you.
• 13:44
  I like that we're sitting next to this like full fireplace.
• 13:47
  It's not in the shop, but. It's nice.
• 13:50
  Yeah, yeah. What is this that we're
• 13:52
  drinking? I know you.
• 13:53
  Recently sold out. Yeah.
• 13:55
  So this is the OU tapped. I got a tap too.
• 13:59
  I can't not do it. Yeah.
• 14:01
  You know, my whole life has been predicated on.
• 14:03
  Yeah, yeah, karma coming from tapping my glass.
• 14:05
  Yeah, yeah, OK. Hopefully the audio still works
• 14:09
  I. Feel like that's a burn?
• 14:12
  Yeah. No, no, no, no burns.
• 14:15
  I just, you know, little superstitious.
• 14:20
  Yeah. Anyway, before I derail my
• 14:23
  entire self, this is Rodrigo Sanchez's Sangria Co Ferment.
• 14:32
  Right, which I've had on espresso before, although not
• 14:36
  has a. Wild one on espresso.
• 14:40
  Yeah, we, I believe there were 530K bags of this produced last
• 14:50
  year. And in fact actually about a
• 14:54
  year ago we placed the OR order for it.
• 14:58
  It was our first forward buy that we did and it showed up
• 15:06
  many, many months later because there was a there was like an
• 15:14
  export situation happening in Columbia that pushed it back.
• 15:21
  When you say forward order, just so we all know because I
• 15:25
  definitely know and I'm. Yeah, yeah, totally, just like
• 15:27
  you do. Explain it maybe for those of us
• 15:29
  that are, yeah, questioning. What do you mean by that?
• 15:31
  Yeah. So forward buying is the process
• 15:35
  of buying a coffee that is not finish being produced yet.
• 15:45
  So in the case for this one, I believe the fruit was about
• 15:50
  ready for harvest. And then, yeah, we purchased it
• 15:57
  for like, yeah, ahead of time. And so it came almost directly
• 16:04
  to us after it was done with harvest and processing.
• 16:10
  We got it through LA Coffee. Love it.
• 16:14
  So that's that kind of leads me to this question of obviously
• 16:17
  when you're buying coffee to serve in your coffee shop, to
• 16:21
  roast and serve, you're buying what you consider to be good
• 16:26
  coffee. You're not just, you know,
• 16:29
  you're a specialty coffee shop, specialty roaster.
• 16:32
  So you're not just buying, going, OK, this is our price
• 16:35
  point, this is our money making. This is how much we've got to
• 16:37
  make necessarily. You also are serving a product
• 16:39
  you want to be proud of. Yeah, absolutely.
• 16:41
  How do you determine for you what a good coffee is?
• 16:45
  Yeah, a lot of it. Well, one, I, I've had a lot of
• 16:54
  coffees in the past that don't come in grain pro bags.
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  So the waterproof sealed, nice plastic bags.
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  So that's always a it's a very minimal mark, but I always look
• 17:12
  for something in like an eco tech or a grain pro bag.
• 17:16
  So it's just like a little bit extra comfort of being like, OK,
• 17:20
  this coffee is worth enough to, you know, protect it from dirt
• 17:25
  and moisture. Outside of that, looking at
• 17:32
  cupping notes and scoring is a lot of, you know, how, you know,
• 17:38
  determining the quality of these coffees.
• 17:41
  And we have landed on buying only 85 and above.
• 17:48
  So for viewers out there, and maybe you don't know, 70 out of
• 17:54
  100 is considered specialty grade, anything below that
• 18:00
  commodity grade. So we have agreed that 85 is
• 18:04
  this really great starting point of like pretty Dang good.
• 18:12
  I would say too, like just, I mean just to acknowledge it like
• 18:16
  an 85 coffee is great. It's a pretty solid everyday
• 18:20
  coffee for most, most shops, but also the availability of a 85
• 18:26
  quality coffee has gone way up, even though we're like facing an
• 18:32
  an era with coffee shortages. I think they just put out a
• 18:35
  thing this week saying Brazil's expected to be down about 20% of
• 18:38
  production next year, which is going to massively affect a lot
• 18:43
  of kind of, I would say commodity lowering coffee, but
• 18:47
  the availability of an 85 point coffee just to have everyday has
• 18:51
  gone up. Quite a yeah.
• 18:52
  I mean all over the place. Even on our last order we got a
• 19:00
  AA grade from Zambia that was an 88 and I've never had a coffee
• 19:07
  from Zambia. This one was I believe processed
• 19:12
  at Katashi Estate. And now I'm looking at I just
• 19:17
  saw an upcoming shipment today. They have a pea Berry, a natural
• 19:23
  and anaerobic natural, all from the same producers that like I'm
• 19:30
  really looking forward to I might I might try to grab that
• 19:33
  anaerobic natural because so. That that brings us back around
• 19:36
  then because I kind of. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 19:39
  But what is it that makes you go?
• 19:40
  This is a good coffee that we want, that I want to work with.
• 19:44
  I want to. Play with this.
• 19:46
  For me processing comes into to play a lot.
• 19:51
  I personally love bringing coffees that, you know, after
• 19:58
  they've been profiled out, something that I can sit down
• 20:02
  with a customer and be like, try this.
• 20:05
  And it can spark a curious conversation of like, why?
• 20:11
  Why does it taste like this? Why have I never experienced
• 20:15
  this in coffee before? And yeah, what we're sipping on
• 20:20
  now, this Coferman I. Usually do not care for KO
• 20:28
  ferments. In my brain I kind of classify
• 20:32
  thank you kind of classify them similarly to what I would with
• 20:37
  like a dark roast being more 1 dimensional in flavor.
• 20:42
  Now the KO ferment, 1 dimensional, is, in my opinion
• 20:47
  at least, way more interesting than just tasting roast.
• 20:52
  But why I selected this one was for its many different notes
• 20:59
  that come through on it. It's the least one-dimensional
• 21:02
  Co ferment that I've had. I think every time I've walked
• 21:07
  into this coffee shop and you were here, the first thing you
• 21:11
  said was, oh, you have to try this.
• 21:13
  Yeah. Even before like hello, it's
• 21:16
  usually a wave. And we, we don't need
• 21:18
  pleasantries like let's get to business.
• 21:21
  Which I appreciate there's none of this particular coffee left.
• 21:25
  So this thing I'm grabbing right now is not not that, not that
• 21:29
  it's kind of goes into my next question packaging.
• 21:34
  You guys do the tubes for some of your special.
• 21:37
  Stuff. I have a collab with a winery
• 21:40
  that came in a tube recently and then you have the bags like this
• 21:46
  from Rostar, the show sponsor. Coincidence.
• 21:51
  What is it about the packaging that also stands out like?
• 21:55
  We've talked about the graveyard.
• 21:56
  Blend in the mix of different things.
• 21:58
  We've talked about how you represent with a lot of color
• 22:00
  and stuff. Yeah.
• 22:03
  I mean, one from like just a practical business standpoint,
• 22:09
  people are drawn to something that catches their eye.
• 22:14
  Think like a lot of people buy wine based off of the label.
• 22:21
  Honestly, I've been pretty successful with that.
• 22:24
  Like a good artwork on a label has led me to a lot of really
• 22:28
  good ones. But yeah, I think just
• 22:31
  practically we wanted to stand out, you know, be different in,
• 22:38
  you know, an industry that in some areas has become very clean
• 22:44
  and minimal. We felt like big splash of color
• 22:49
  was a way to to stand out. I would say warm too.
• 22:53
  And warm, yeah. Even though there's some muted
• 22:55
  color on there because of the the varnish on that bag, it has
• 23:00
  a warm suit that I feel when I come in the shop.
• 23:02
  Yeah, yeah, I. Mean that might be this giant
• 23:04
  Christmas tree. It could be that, could be that.
• 23:07
  Multi colored lights that are shining down on us right now.
• 23:11
  But I think that's a do you think that that reflects the
• 23:15
  coffee in it? And I think that I'm asking that
• 23:17
  because you were talking about Co ferments or unique
• 23:21
  processing. What Ruby Coffee out of
• 23:24
  Wisconsin would call it colorful coffee.
• 23:26
  Yeah, yeah. When you're thinking about
• 23:29
  coffee and what makes it good, do you think in color in that
• 23:33
  way or does that do you, do you associate it in any way?
• 23:36
  And maybe I'm just like way off base here.
• 23:39
  Yeah, I I don't like and. The music and.
• 23:45
  Yeah, yeah. Stuff.
• 23:46
  So I thought maybe there'd be a connection.
• 23:49
  Something similar, not necessarily color so to speak,
• 23:55
  but I do often compare coffees in a musical way.
• 24:01
  I also this is gonna sound so dorky and weird, but like I
• 24:07
  usually can taste like come up with a a shape for what I'm
• 24:15
  tasting like Yeah, and I don't really apple.
• 24:22
  Like a like this is a trapezoid or is it?
• 24:25
  Yeah. So like usually I'll get
• 24:29
  something with like how the acidity interacts with me, you
• 24:34
  know, so that can look kind of like a roller coaster, you know,
• 24:39
  or sometimes it can be like sharper and like kind of like a
• 24:43
  zigzag. This is this is crazy, but it's.
• 24:50
  It's interesting because you're you're coming at it from
• 24:52
  multiple perspectives. Somebody who likes to drink
• 24:55
  coffee, somebody who is trying to sell coffee, so they need
• 24:59
  other people to like the coffees that they're selling and someone
• 25:03
  who's actively roasting and playing with, you know, if I do
• 25:08
  this to the coffee, it's going to change the flavor this way.
• 25:11
  Does that mean I like it more but it's less appealing to
• 25:14
  someone else? Those are all thing.
• 25:16
  It's a calculus that owners or roasters have to make in, you
• 25:22
  know, almost on the fly. I know there's a lot of
• 25:25
  planning, but like at some point, like you have to say,
• 25:31
  this isn't for me. Yeah.
• 25:33
  Oh yeah, totally. 99% of the coffee we buy, I'm not drinking.
• 25:38
  If you want to, yeah. So what is it that the people
• 25:41
  are going to relate to? Yeah, right.
• 25:46
  Yeah, I, I have found just a really solid, so, you know, us
• 25:53
  being, you know, tucked under Portland, a specialty coffee
• 26:01
  hasn't been a massive thing around here.
• 26:03
  We've had some, you know, a couple of like hit shops and and
• 26:10
  roasteries and shout out to archive 'cause they're former
• 26:16
  roaster, I mean taught me how to roast done.
• 26:19
  So I've got mad respect for them.
• 26:22
  Rabbit trailing. Yeah, I would say I totally lost
• 26:30
  my train of thought and you're seeing the ADHD come out right
• 26:33
  now. No, it's AI.
• 26:37
  Think of ADHD, which I have very close people in my life with
• 26:42
  ADHD or ADD or some variant, and it's a it's a thing that like it
• 26:50
  what just happened to you where you lose your train of thought
• 26:52
  can happen, but it can also give you this great advantage in
• 26:55
  other areas of your. Life.
• 26:56
  Oh, totally. Yeah, yeah.
• 26:57
  There's got to be ways that you use that or you, you realize,
• 27:00
  like, oh, this actually helps me here.
• 27:02
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. It can be a stumbling block, but
• 27:04
  it's not only a. Stumbling block.
• 27:06
  No no no, not only. I think I only got here by being
• 27:13
  this way. I don't yeah, without my like
• 27:21
  passionate hyper fixations that I get it wouldn't, you know,
• 27:28
  wouldn't be here without them. And there's also so many things
• 27:33
  I could have been really good at if it didn't get difficult, then
• 27:35
  I quit because that's also part of it too, getting super stoked
• 27:40
  on it and then being like, yeah, well, it's hard now, so.
• 27:44
  Yeah, but that's, this is the thing that you didn't, which
• 27:47
  makes it matter more. It's like, oh, this, this was
• 27:50
  the thing. Coffee was the thing that made
• 27:51
  me want to push through. Right.
• 27:54
  And that was something you kind of expressed to me the last time
• 27:57
  we chatted. I'm going to ask you in just a
• 28:01
  second about the role of the coffee shop, but let's take
• 28:05
  another break. Just OK, yeah.
• 28:07
  Audio and technical doesn't work.
• 28:09
  We got to check it. OK, and we're back.
• 28:14
  I'm going to try to sit down in this deep chair that I'm not
• 28:16
  tall enough for, trying to make sure I keep my boots out of the
• 28:19
  shop. This is the second time we've
• 28:23
  been sitting here. This time it's not.
• 28:27
  We're not open. The store is not open.
• 28:28
  Yeah. Correct.
• 28:29
  I'm not part of the store is not open, but every other time I've
• 28:35
  been here it's been pretty much full and a lot of the people
• 28:38
  here live in this neighborhood walkable.
• 28:41
  So you're part of an agrahood, which is like this kind of
• 28:46
  community with a shared garden and greenhouse and shared open
• 28:50
  space, and there's a little root cellar store next door, but
• 28:55
  you're also kind of tucked away from the rest of the community
• 28:59
  that maybe doesn't live here. People have to make it a
• 29:01
  destination. I'm wondering what you've
• 29:05
  learned in a year or so here, just under a year being open,
• 29:08
  right? Yeah, January 15th will be one
• 29:11
  year, OK. So coming up on a.
• 29:12
  Year coming up, yeah. I'm wondering if you've learned
• 29:16
  anything or what you've observed maybe about the value of a
• 29:21
  coffee shop in a community. I say that knowing you're also
• 29:24
  opening a second location in kind of similar neighborhood.
• 29:28
  Yeah. Out in Monmouth.
• 29:30
  Yeah, yeah, it, it just becomes like a core place for the lives
• 29:42
  of the people directly around here.
• 29:46
  And I mean, many of the people in the community are like, have
• 29:51
  become seriously like, like family.
• 29:54
  And yeah, it's just, it's been so cool to see like the this
• 30:00
  hub, you know, things like when I, you know, pop my attire last
• 30:07
  week, I had people from this community, you know, call me, be
• 30:12
  like, are you OK? Do you need me to pick you up?
• 30:15
  It's, it's seriously been just an absolute, absolute treat to
• 30:20
  to see that. Do you give your authentic self
• 30:24
  to the customers here? Very, very much so There's.
• 30:28
  Not like a a forward facing Kyle.
• 30:31
  There. I mean, there is, because if I
• 30:37
  know you really well, I mean, everyone gets greeted, but like
• 30:43
  the ones I really love, I'm swearing at you.
• 30:45
  And. Well, that a little bit, but
• 30:49
  yeah, Well, we'll get there. I mean, come be where.
• 30:53
  Yeah. I just.
• 30:56
  Yeah, yeah. And it takes time, but you know,
• 31:00
  everyone gets like AI think a very good part of myself.
• 31:04
  And it's, it's fun to work through that and to begin to
• 31:11
  like come out of my professional shell a little bit.
• 31:14
  And that's how I want to operate, you know, out of that,
• 31:18
  just like very realness, something that I despise is like
• 31:28
  corporate good customer service, you know, with like a, with like
• 31:32
  a script or like the Chick-fil-A my pleasure thing or going to
• 31:39
  like a drive through coffee spot.
• 31:43
  That's all just like hype and energy.
• 31:48
  I think it's fun. You know, I think like going to
• 31:50
  a Dutch Bros is probably a fun experience, but that vibe, hype
• 31:59
  service just feels so inauthentic.
• 32:02
  And that offends me because I like to do it really real.
• 32:08
  And yeah, it's not bad. It's not bad for people to be
• 32:13
  hyped. And you know, I've learned.
• 32:15
  Ask you 30 questions. Transcripts in my time, some
• 32:20
  more specific than others. I I find that like the older I
• 32:25
  got, the more there was a distance between my my persona
• 32:30
  behind the bar and and who I was in real life.
• 32:35
  And then the more in charge I got that started to fall away
• 32:38
  because I felt comfortable just being OK.
• 32:42
  This is who I am, and this is maybe you're not getting all of
• 32:44
  me. But you're getting.
• 32:46
  A real version. And those are always the roles
• 32:50
  that I felt more successful in. I don't know if my boss has
• 32:54
  thought that. But.
• 32:55
  I felt that way, like customer service is such a weird thing
• 32:59
  and and you know, we're talking around the holidays and
• 33:03
  everybody is a little bit stressed, but also seemingly a
• 33:08
  little bit more graceful. Everybody's kind of oh, it's
• 33:10
  been a long. Year it's been, yeah.
• 33:13
  How do you feel? I guess do you feel more
• 33:18
  pressure this time of year or because the world has been the
• 33:23
  way it's been to offer people an always positive experience?
• 33:29
  Because I think that's the hard part is I never want someone.
• 33:32
  I would never want someone to come in, spend their luxury
• 33:34
  money, and then I'm a bummer. Yeah, right.
• 33:37
  So. How do you find that balance
• 33:38
  between your personal emotions and this thing you're giving to?
• 33:43
  Yeah, yeah, I think it, it comes down to the skill of just like
• 33:53
  reading where the the customer may be at, you know, picking up
• 33:58
  on things. And like I usually hit people
• 34:04
  with kind of like the same, you know, energy each time that I
• 34:09
  chat. And then I am intentional about
• 34:15
  like listening to the response back and making a further
• 34:21
  decision to respond differently based off of like what that
• 34:26
  looks like and toning it down or stepping into a more caring vibe
• 34:37
  or a more comforting vibe or whatever, you know is necessary
• 34:41
  to like meet people where they're at in that in that
• 34:45
  regard. So I think kind of in the
• 34:48
  holiday season, you know, I think about like, I think about,
• 34:53
  you know, people who may be similar to myself that have, you
• 34:56
  know, a tough day or a tough time around holidays or, you
• 35:02
  know, maybe they get stressed out about travel plans.
• 35:05
  And and so taking all of that into consideration and being
• 35:09
  extra mindful to meet people the way they want to be met kind of
• 35:15
  if that makes sense, if that answers your question at all.
• 35:20
  The other day my wife came home and she had pulled some names
• 35:24
  off of a Christmas tree at their workplace to buy gifts for
• 35:28
  foster kids and things. That's something we've been kind
• 35:30
  of doing. It's just like a a fun tradition
• 35:33
  here. I'm wondering, and I didn't ask
• 35:37
  you to think about this before, so I thought, do you have any
• 35:42
  sort of charitable efforts or things that causes that matter
• 35:48
  to you that maybe don't get, you don't get to talk about in your
• 35:52
  day-to-day work? With causes, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 35:56
  So now. We can just.
• 35:59
  Go just clip it. No, no, no.
• 36:01
  The so the big part of like the, you know, core of Prismatic is
• 36:11
  giving back to the community. So in my like personal and most
• 36:18
  recent one was just making sure that we had a food drive here
• 36:25
  for when SNAP benefits were looking like they were going to
• 36:29
  be removed. So you know, that was a recent
• 36:34
  one as like a kid who often grew up getting food from the food
• 36:39
  bank. That one definitely like shrug a
• 36:43
  nerve. So I in the midst of, you know,
• 36:47
  kind of all the operations was actually like a little bit late
• 36:50
  to getting that started. And you know, I talked to John
• 36:58
  from Epilogue kitchen because he he did a a citywide Dr. at like
• 37:04
  40 different restaurants that he was all organizing.
• 37:09
  And so I talked to him and he already had stuff in motion.
• 37:13
  And then Justice, one of our baristas also just on his on
• 37:21
  their own did brought in boxes and just started putting it out
• 37:29
  on their social media. And yeah, so it was really cool
• 37:34
  moment, you know, seeing that. Yeah, that one, that one was.
• 37:42
  I know that food. Banks anywhere, whether it's
• 37:45
  here in Salem OR any town in America, it's going to have a
• 37:48
  food bank and a need for food at that thing.
• 37:52
  It's a little messed up that we have we're in that situation.
• 37:56
  We don't see have enough food to feed everyone.
• 37:59
  But sometimes I think you mentioned mindful in your in
• 38:03
  your comments about hospitality. But I think as we're going
• 38:07
  through this time, yes, enjoying and being grateful for all the
• 38:10
  things we have, but also being mindful that there are people
• 38:13
  who are just as excited about things from the food bank.
• 38:16
  Yeah, yeah. One of the things we noticed
• 38:18
  this year more than other years, most of the kids on the tree
• 38:22
  were just asking for necessities that you know they were giving
• 38:25
  to their family. You know.
• 38:27
  Very few were going I want toys, I want this, but most were like
• 38:31
  gift card to Safeway. That's what I really like this
• 38:34
  year and so I think as we are enjoying these fancy coffees,
• 38:39
  which I'm incredibly grateful for, that I get to drink also
• 38:43
  knowing that like hey, like there's a lot we can do.
• 38:46
  You. Know platform and and also.
• 38:49
  For you. With this, this business, yeah.
• 38:54
  So Congrats. Thank you.
• 38:55
  Thank you. It's yeah, it's a it's a work in
• 38:59
  progress too and an ever growing thing and always looking at
• 39:05
  ways, you know, to support the community when we can.
• 39:12
  We so the the wine coffee that you have currently is our second
• 39:17
  time doing it. And previously we did a collab
• 39:21
  with St. Innocent Winery and a dollar for
• 39:26
  each of those sales went to an organization who helps provide
• 39:35
  wine workers and harvesters with health insurance.
• 39:39
  So we were able to to do that and and give back.
• 39:43
  And it was super awesome. It was super awesome to be able
• 39:47
  to do that. And yeah, definitely want to do
• 39:52
  so much more. Whatever that I want, I want
• 39:54
  everyone to you. Have an idea?
• 39:57
  Yeah. Let's let's get it out.
• 39:59
  Yeah, send me a message. My last question for you in Part
• 40:03
  2 of our Our Conversation for Coffee People podcast with Kyle
• 40:08
  Layton of Prismatic, I'm introducing you at the end of
• 40:11
  the show is probably not great with the full information.
• 40:15
  But my last question for you is, any New Year's resolutions that
• 40:18
  I should know about? For.
• 40:20
  You or for prismatic. Yeah, I'm so bad at like setting
• 40:26
  them because when I don't, then I have nothing to fail.
• 40:30
  Fair question with ADHD. Yeah, I I would say for me just
• 40:38
  to and you know, as as it is just like my baseline function,
• 40:43
  but just to continue to learn, continue to grow, to continue to
• 40:51
  raise the bar of coffee here in Salem.
• 40:57
  Yeah. I mean, not that I want to, you
• 41:00
  know, just pump out the best product that I think we can, but
• 41:05
  but to do it in a way that brings in the community and
• 41:10
  engages and shows those who are interested like, you know, how
• 41:17
  far this specialty coffee thing goes.
• 41:22
  And I hope to it was originally in the plan to do education
• 41:28
  classes and we've done a few events like that.
• 41:32
  But in this next year, I would really love to set that as a
• 41:39
  focus and really dive deep into the community and teach, you
• 41:44
  know, intro to roasting, do more cuppings, do latte art stuff.
• 41:51
  That was all like my plan in in beginning all of this.
• 41:57
  But then in doing everything, I didn't realize how much of A
• 42:02
  vortex it was of like what you're actually able to do
• 42:07
  versus what you thought you were going to be doing.
• 42:11
  That feels like a really brilliant coffee.
• 42:14
  Smarter advice to the segment, right?
• 42:17
  Yeah. The vortex of what is possible
• 42:19
  versus what you intend. Yeah, right.
• 42:23
  Yeah. And just like the learning
• 42:24
  process of like, Oh yeah, all these things I wanted to do
• 42:28
  individually, they could take a year, 2 years, you know, to
• 42:32
  reach that point of where you'd like, wanted it to be.
• 42:37
  And, you know, for any of our education classes and courses,
• 42:42
  you know, I wanted like a specific coffee to give away and
• 42:48
  a brew kit that you could take home and a packet of information
• 42:52
  to help you brew perfect coffee at home.
• 42:55
  And gosh, just getting all of that together while operating.
• 43:02
  Yeah, absolute vortex anyway. Well, bandwidth is a bandwidth
• 43:07
  it, right? Not just for you though, but for
• 43:09
  the people you work with. You know, I've worked with some
• 43:12
  really incredible coffee people and, and hospitality people and
• 43:18
  sometimes we didn't get things done and it was because we were
• 43:21
  on different paces. Our bandwidth was different.
• 43:25
  One of us could go further on any given day, but the other one
• 43:28
  needed a little bit more processing time.
• 43:31
  And so finding that that rhythm where everybody's on the same
• 43:36
  path at the same time so you can get it done or they're taking
• 43:40
  care of this over here so you can focus on the class.
• 43:44
  Or whatever. Is always a challenge, but Kyle,
• 43:48
  I appreciate you spending more time with me.
• 43:51
  We both have empty glasses, so we.
• 43:52
  Should get. Another coffee or maybe
• 43:55
  something less caffeinated this late in the day.
• 43:59
  Thank you for being on. Coffee of course, of course.
• 44:01
  My pleasure. Thanks for dealing with my
• 44:05
  sometimes rabbit brain with hopefully some good Nuggets in
• 44:08
  between it. I hope I said good things.
• 44:11
  I think you did OK. We'll we'll edit as best as we.
• 44:14
  Can all right Beautiful. On that note, prismatic dot
• 44:18
  coffee. Prismatic dot coffee.
• 44:20
  Top as well. Yeah, Thank you for being here
• 44:23
  and thank you to everyone for surviving 2025 and another
• 44:29
  season of coffee. People.
• 44:30
  Yeah. Cheers.
• 44:32
  Cheers. Hello again everyone.
• 44:40
  Thank you for listening or watching the Coffee People
• 44:43
  podcast. Kyle Layton is still figuring
• 44:45
  out his place in this new version of a coffee life.
• 44:49
  Our original conversation that was held at Prismatic still
• 44:52
  exists and I hope you check it out.
• 44:55
  The content is really good, even if the audio is not listener,
• 44:58
  watch it wherever you're watching this podcast.
• 45:01
  But please, you know, we appreciate you being a little
• 45:03
  forgiving of that audio. It's something we're we're still
• 45:06
  figuring out as we explore the video side of this podcast.
• 45:10
  Coffee People is presented by Rostar coffee packaging found
• 45:14
  online at rostar.com. It's because of them that we can
• 45:17
  try new things, that we can learn how to do new things like
• 45:20
  video. I love that these match that you
• 46:57
  did the shirts with. Them.
• 46:58
  Yeah, we have a full. There's actually still oh, that
• 47:05
  is a strong magnet. You have any crap?
• 47:09
  There's still a yet to be released a piece of this bundle.
• 47:15
  What do you mean? Like a merch or something or?
• 47:19
  Screen printed posters. Nice they.
• 47:23
  I don't see one of those. Got I'll have to check in with
• 47:27
  my buddy Drew, the artist who did all of this.
• 47:30
  But originally we were planning the hoodie, the blend and a like
• 47:40
  we were going to do 100 screen printed posters and then he he
• 47:47
  had to move into a new house and then a bunch of other life stuff
• 47:50
  happened. But I believe that he's actually
• 47:53
  working on them now, so. It's like a good example.
• 47:55
  We were just talking about same same pace of bandwidth, right?
• 47:59
  And yeah, so I'm I'm. These might be some of my
• 48:03
  favorite packages of the year. Yeah, heck yeah.
• 48:06
  I and another bandwidth thing, when Rostar did their bag
• 48:11
  competition, I wanted to like get these submitted but also
• 48:18
  drop the ball on that one 'cause I think, I think Rostar would
• 48:24
  definitely also think that these are some of the best ones
• 48:28
  they've done. They haven't said that to me
• 48:32
  specifically. I don't think they can like play
• 48:34
  favorites. But yeah.
• 48:36
  Yeah, these are. It's also just kind of my vibe.
• 48:38
  I think I like skulls. I mean, and you know, if it's
• 48:41
  not, there's like, it's OK to be wrong, but like.
• 48:45
  But you guys did you guys have done some other cool ones too.
• 48:47
  But I think what is there's so many great packages now.
• 48:53
  I love packages. So yesterday I went to an adult
• 48:58
  beverage store just to look at labels and they kind of because
• 49:02
  they kind of especially whiskey labels now remind me a lot of
• 49:06
  like playing cards used to be like like coil or is it oil or
• 49:12
  Doyle? They used to do these intricate
• 49:13
  designs. I think they still do, but I
• 49:16
  just don't see it as often. But I always think that's just
• 49:19
  such a great thing and I'm not a good enough designer to do that
• 49:24
  stuff. And so I'm, I think it's cool,
• 49:29
  Yeah. Anything else?
• 49:30
  Anything you anything I can do for you man?
• 49:36
  No. Awesome.
• 49:37
  That's it. Yeah, that's.
• 49:38
  The best kind of deal for me. Yeah, yeah.