Striving

When Black & Brew opened in February of 2006, I created a statement of commitment by which our customers could hold us accountable. The purpose was to create a sense of responsibility among the staff and to open a line of communication and provide opportunities for our customers to help us improve our restaurant. Some of the best changes we've made along the way have been because of the constructive feedback our customers have sent us. Here's our promise:

Our Promise to You

At Black & Brew our ultimate goal is to create the ideal dining experience for our customers. We believe that genuine and personal customer service, a superior product offering that focuses on quality and consistency, and an inviting, comfortable atmosphere are all essential to achieving this goal. If we ever fall short of your expectations or disappoint you in any way, please let us know and we will go out of our way to make it right.

One thing that I've tried to build into the culture of our small business is the idea that the bar can always be raised. Service, product quality, ambiance and experience can and should always be improved. We are never on autopilot, we are never resting, we are ever striving for perfection. Sometimes we do make mistakes and we do fall short, but we respond quickly to resolve them because we understand that our customers deserve every bit of that effort.

Last week I sent out an e-survey to our e-mail list to get some feedback as we do from time to time. I was very encouraged by all the positive feedback we received. I was also challenged by some of the critiques you all provided. To all those that responded I say, Thank YOU for taking the time out of your day to provide us with the feedback. I will be sharing your comments with the staff and we will use them to take our operation to the next level.

In an effort to spur more conversation about how we can improve our business for our customers, I am posting the open ended responses to our survey below- positive and negative comments, unedited except to remove the names of the respondents who gave their names. If you didn't get a chance to take the survey, and you have a free moment, please let us know what you think.

Here are the responses to the question: "What would you do to improve the Black & Brew experience? Where are we falling short? What are we doing well? This is your restaurant... what would you change?"

Only thing missing is fresh bread daily, otherwise the service and food is great .

I would not change anything...the staff is very friendly, the ambience is the best  in downtown and the food is fantastic.  Keep it up.

Improve B&B?  Is that possible???  You know I love Black and Brew...do I miss Mike  and Jes?  Oh...only everyday BUT you are still doing a wonderful job keeping up  the service and the quality of your product.  Even if I have to squeeze into a  parking space (or create my own illegally), I lovingly do so because you guys are  by far the best coffee shop in town.  Hands down.  

My family and I enjoy your restaurant!  It's great for a quick bite or sitting and  catching up.  We particularly enjoy the chicken salad on croissant and the corn  and crab chowder.  High quality, fresh ingredients, and good service are hard to  find these days.  Keep up the good work!

Serve bread with soups.  Offer more than one package of crackers with soup.  

I am always very pleased when I dine at Black & Brew. The service is always exceptional  and the food as well. I have never had a bad experience there! I used to work right  around the corner at Wachovia and would go to Black & Brew very often. I have since  moved locations and don't get to go as often as I'd like, but when I do go for  lunch, it is always great!

Bring back Chicken & Dumplings.  The food is great, the atmosphere is great.

I usually order on line and pick up for the office crew , around five orders per  trip. Lunches are ready on time and always very good. We enjoy the soups, salads , and sandwiches. 

The staff behind the register are great when there is a lunch rush but if you show  up afterwords, when things have calmed down, they tend to be more interested in  talking to each other. I always feel like I'm interrupting something just to place  an order.

Bring back cheese danish please, for my co-worker. Otherwise, B&B is one of the  best coffee/bistros I've patronized. Coffee is excellent, food is great and service  is cheerful and pleasant. Nice music, too. Any long waits are due simply to the  popularity of B&B. Good community partner! We ALWAYS recommend B&B to our out of  town visitors!

Atmosphere is great.  Lunch time is a little hectic and seating gets tight around the noon hour, but service is good and the food is tasty!  A nice place to eat.

I'd love to see an extended dinner menu.  Your online ordering is great.  Keep up  the live entertainment.  Everything takes time to grow - don't give up or get discouraged.  

Feature artists to add visual interest.  Your food is great!

I make a carryout call at least 2 times a week with a very large order for our Executives and I have to say that I love ordering from here verses anywhere else. I am always assured that I have the correct order and nicely labeled for me, I don't have to worry if something was missed or generally incorrect. It makes lunch so much easier when we are having our Executive Meetings. Thank you ladies for taking my order over the phone and when I am there to pick up for all your hard work!!

Maybe offer some healty drink alternatives ala Golds Gym or Jamba Juice, natural  sugars etc.

Actually we have not yet had the privilege of enjoying your restaurant - but we  know many people who enjoy it which is why we signed up for your emails.  We look  forward to coming.

i would change nothing really. you have fresh, wholesome food and a reasonable cost . You have very friendly, presentable, knowledgable staff.atmosphere is great, laid  back and hip (and i'm 51!). Keep up the good work. 

I LOVE LOVE LOVE the specials. Especially the wedge salad and the chipotle chicken  panini. Wow! All the food is incredible but I wish there was a better availability  of muffins and bagels in the morning. I typically do not depend on being able to  get a muffin there because the kind I want usually isn't available and I have to  settle. BTW The apple one. Rock star. The staff has always been very friendly and  professional. Please don't ever let that slack! 

I would add a type of chef salad and more variety of soups.  I love the broccoli  and cheese soup and the chicken salad.  

you feel completely short on the item i picked which was i beleive it was called  a veggie sandwich.  there was one slice of tomato and maybe two thin leafs of lettuce, approx one lite teas. of cheese, unacceptable.

Since you asked...1. More variety of soups in the cooler months; and 2. How about  allowing local artists' tasteful (PG) rated paintings on the walls, and available  for sale; 3. Business card exchange

Coffee is great and the food is good and the comedy nights are fun.

Should offer a lighter lunch for people who don't eat so much.  Your salads are  large enough for 2 people. I can't afford to buy lunch that would be wasted.

I'd like it if you offered at least one hot entree.  One small complaint--it would  be nice to get a good strong cup of decaf coffee.  Oftentimes the brewed decaf  is too weak.  I like strong bold tasting coffee; I just can't have the caffeine.   Overall, I love your restaurant--the service, the servers, the decor, the vibe-- and I recommend you all to everyone.  Thanks for being a great coffee house and  bistro.   

Add a few gluten free items on your menu!!!

Bring back the frequent buyer cards, otherwise everything is good.  I enjoy the  food and atmosphere and employees are always friendly.

WE JUST MOVED HERE A MONTH AGO FROM NW SEATTLE AREA.  YOU ARE THE ONLY COFFEE HOUSE  WE HAVE FOUND THAT IS LIKE WE ARE USED TOO.  KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK.

you have it all, great food and service. wonderful location

Chicken Caesar Wrap was great...however, it should be on the menu. It was starting  to catch on. If prep time was the prob, perhaps there is a way to solve that...   The Roasted Tomato Bisque is great...would like to have it more often.

Wine is a bit pricey compared to other restaurants. I've heard others comment the same.  Service is fantastic as always. Very friendly environment. Hours are good. Meltaway still one of the best. Keep up the good work! :)  

I like it the way it is. You are doing well. 

I like micro brew beers and listening to live music on weekends

Your staff are wonderful: friendly, caring, helpful. I like the catchy names for  the seasonal coffee drinks. I also like that when I ask, "can you do this....,"  staff says, "yes!" Keep up the chocolate cake. You are usually fairly fast in filling  walk-up orders. Don't change? Your location! Ever!!!   Thank you!

That Tom Young ROCKS on Sundays. He's the bees knees.

I would put the food menu and pricing on the wall, or I'm completly out of tune  and simply never saw the menu.  I've been to your place, and I did'nt know you had  a food menu.  I always come in after 5/6 or so.  I will try your food, based what  the critic said in the Ledger.  Your business sounds like another Panera Bread  Co., especally with the "U pik 2" offer which is exactly what I order. I would not be so happy if I was charged more for a cream based soup, and is it really true that I can't get your #1 sandwich on the pick 2 deal. This makes no sense to me at this point, but I've never even tried it.  Your staff seems well trained, kind, and helpful.  Put some large pictures of your food on the walls. I really enjoy your place, and will always continue to be your customer.

The service is EXCELLENT, and the employees are always very polite and accomodating . The only problem I have had would be the quality of some of the dishes, like the  salads in particular. I enjoy salads, and am not terribly picky (as I enjoy them  in a number of places, even fast food restaurants), but the salads here are simply  not very good. The salads tend not to have enough toppings and seem more like just  eating mostly naked lettuce. The other thing I would suggest, might be offering  a bread bowl for sale with your soup items. Most of us soup eaters truly enjoy  those and I know I would order it more often if you offered this. Despite these  2 suggestions, please know I am a regular customer (in at least 1X/week) and I enjoy  your restaurant (and sandwiches) a great deal.

We usually come in on Fridays for lunch. The girls at the register have gotten to  know us what we normally order and are very friendly.

can't think of a thing to change.

DON'T CARE FOR THE FOOD SO MUCH SO I JUST GET BEVERAGES.

Hey guys! Just want to say how much I love Black n Brew! Ever since it opened I've been coming for your coffee and soups, and now you offer soo much more! it's  awesome! The only thing I can say is - I was there this past sunday and I understand  how sunday can be a very busy day. But I ordered a cold sandwich (Chicken club)  and it took 30 min and it was a too go order! Just something I thought u should  know... and why no breakfast sandwiches on the weekends... thats a bummer! But really  great service otherwise! Keep up the great work! 

Some lower fat/calorie options would be wonderful. Service is friendly, but it would  be great if it could be a bit faster - especially at lunchtime.

You guys are great. The ladies that work there are lways on the ball. No complaints  here. Keep up the great work. Food is so freash and very clean. Coffee isthe best , so many to choose from.

you send coupons but their geared towards the blackberry folks.  I don't twitter  or face book.  the usual coupon last less than 12 hours it seems.

You all do a great job - staff is friendly and efficient. The restaurant is always  clean. The food is great! My experience has always been very good. Keep up the  good work!

Evolving

If you follow the restaurant scene at all, you know that over the past two years restaurants have been closing all over Polk County, and all over the country for that matter. Quiznos, Fazoli's, Shells, Lone Star Steakhouse, Bennigan's, Steak n' Ale, Sam Seltzer's, and Road House Grill are just a few of the restaurants that we've seen extinguished by this unforgiving economic climate. The truth is that this is a tough time for restaurants and we'll see more close their doors before we pull through this recession.

The restaurant business is competitive and start-ups are prone to failure. Let me put this in perspective. I recently met with a banker to discuss my options with regard to financing a second location. Our first location was started with no debt so this was a new arena for me. The loan officer explained to me that there were two industries that bank tended to avoid when lending to small businesses: restaurants and porn. It's just plain risky business.

Over the next few years you should expect to see some major changes in your favorite eateries. We all have to change to adapt, but we will all use different strategies. Some restaurants will drop prices significantly to re-position themselves as value brands. People are strapped for cash and are looking for value. With that drop in price you should expect to see a significant drop in the quality of the ingredients or the size of the portion in your favorite menu items. Other restaurants will cut staff to run leaner. If you think it's tough to find good service now, just wait. Still some restaurants will pass on the rising cost of doing business directly to the customer. I visit Crisper's frequently to check up on the competition. A sign posted in the entry to the restaurant advertised their new menu, "Now with 20 items under $5" ... or something along those lines. I thought, "Wow. How can they manage that?" Here's how- they dropped their "Pick a Pair" option and made everything al a carte in half size portions. I bought a small salad, a half flatbread, and a small drink and spent just under $14!

Realistically, most restaurants will use a combination of these strategies and others to ensure they can stay in the game.

So what, you might ask, is Black & Brew doing to evolve with the industry? It is my belief that there is one element in building a successful restaurant that is more important than any other. That element is consistency- consistency in the quality of our products and consistency in service. I've found that if your customers can count on you to provide the same great experience every time, they will reward you with their loyalty. Our approach is simple: We work diligently to be as efficient as possible, but never at the cost of our customer's experience. We negotiate continually with our suppliers to bring down our food costs, but we refuse to cut the quality of our offering or reduce labor in order to boost the bottom line. Black & Brew is thriving, but if we have to take a hit during this tough time we will because we are stubbornly unwilling to sacrifice those guiding principles. We believe we have the best customers in the world, and we believe that's how they should be treated.

At some point we will pull out of this recession. I think you'll find that the restaurants that are left standing will be the ones that remembered that the customer is the only reason they exist.

Serving

In my last post I wrote about the importance of taking the time to evaluate what your purpose is, and continually checking yourself to make sure you're on track. Navigating through this crazy journey we call life can be a little like running home from work, with your eyes closed. Now I now there's a time and a place for burying your head in the sand and working your tail off. Sometimes that's what it takes to ensure you stay afloat. You just have to remember to open your eyes every once and while, and reorient yourself- remember why it is you do what you do.

Recently I expressed to my assistant manager, Ben Arnold, that I felt like even though we were supporting various organizations in the community through sponsorships and small donations of food or money, we weren't creating the sort of impact I had hoped for. It was a crucial part of our initial planning that our business model included efforts to enrich our community in tangible and practical ways. Three years in, and I was less than satisfied with our efforts.

We decided to take action. There are plenty of charitable organizations in our community that do a lot of good. We new that it wouldn't make sense for us to start something from scratch. We also new that it takes a lot of volunteer power to keep these organizations running. We decided to form the Black & Brew "Community Dream Team," a group of our employees that would volunteer to serve in monthly community service projects. The goal was to enrich our community and the lives our employees in the process. Ben took the ball and ran with it.

I was a little worried about the response we would get from the employees. I mean we were asking them to take time out of their busy schedules to go work somewhere else.... for free! Shame on me for underestimating their spirit. We had so many volunteers, I had to turn a few down for our first project: a Habitat for Humanity house.

Here's a video I put together from our first project:



I'm so proud of our group. We've got a couple of projects coming up in March. We'll keep you posted!

Why?

"What made you want to open a restaurant?" It's a question that I get a lot and one I never grow tired of. It forces me to answer the question "why"? In answering the question I'm reminded of what's important. I'm reminded that my business has a purpose and I'm forced to evaluate how well we've stuck to the guiding principles we laid out in those first weeks.

The truth is, I wanted to start my own business for a lot of reasons- many of them selfish. I couldn't sit in an office. I hated being told what to do. I wanted to make lots of money. I wanted to be respected and admired. Before long though, I realized that these reasons would not fuel a passion. I knew that true passion comes from purpose, and when your purpose is as shallow as money or prestige, you're bound to get burned out. I had to do some real soul searching to find out what would give me that unquenchable flame.

If you asked me at age 16 if I could see myself ever owning and managing my own restaurant, my answer would have been a resounding "no way." My very first job was at KFC, and as far as I could tell, running a restaurant was miserable work. But as I grew up some, and worked other jobs in the hospitality business, I came to realize that serving others could be very fulfilling. I began to see that there was something truly special about our sacred dining rituals that brought family, friends, and lovers together in a way that nothing else did.

A hundred people must have spouted off the statistics to me. "Eighty percent of restaurants fail within their first three years," they would say. I was too reckless to care. I liked my odds, and the challenge. In fact, the more naysayers, the better. I was 23 years old with a giant chip on my shoulder, and no one was going to tell me what I could or couldn't do. Ah, to be young and dumb. Though this approach gave me plenty of resolve, it also got me into plenty of trouble. More on that in another post.

Back to "why?" After recruiting my brother Mike as my partner in crime, and deciding that a restaurant would best suit our skill sets, we settled on a purpose that would drive us. In the end it came down to some very fundamental, but important concepts: community and relationships. We based our business model around the belief that the world we were living in was becoming increasingly impersonal and cold, and that people were created to be in fellowship with one another. It was our belief that our livelihood depended on those personal connections. Our goal was to create a place that would bring people together, a place that would allow people to slow down and re-connect to reality, and a place that could easily inject itself into the community and create a positive impact. We reasoned that our gathering place would need to be warm, un-intimidating, inviting, friendly, clean, organic and comfortable. Our goal was to create a place of enrichment for our employees and a home away from home for our customers. Ultimately, we hoped to see the community take ownership and make it their own.

Recently, I received a note from someone who had just moved to Polk County from Denver, Colorado. She described how out of place she felt in her new home, and how after a quick online search of the area, she decided to visit Black & Brew. She gave us plenty of flattering compliments, but one of them meant more to me than she'll ever know. She said "Black & Brew felt like a warm hug from an old friend." I knew at that moment that we had accomplished what we had set out to do.

This week we hit the ever important three year mark, and as I take a look back at all that we've endured, I can not begin to describe how blessed I feel to be a part of this journey. As tempting as it might be to take the credit for Black & Brew's success, the truth is that the credit belongs to the community that has embraced us and the employees (my extended family) that have worked so hard day in and day out to keep us moving forward. You are the reason we exist, and I will never lose sight of that.

Green Beans- We've come a long way and hurdled many obstacles, but we have the opportunity to make a greater impact. This is only the beginning. We're still a sack of green coffee beans- ready for roasting, grinding, brewing and enjoying! I hope you'll find hope, encouragement or maybe even some inspiration in the reflections on our journey.