Gregorys Coffee: From Bean to Dream - [Business Breakdowns, EP.186]
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Welcome back to Business Breakdowns. This is Matt Russell. And today we are getting into the world of coffee with Gregory Zamfotis, the founder of Gregory's Coffee. I admire people building businesses in highly competitive markets. And Gregory's is a brand that started in New York City around the same time that I started my career. So it holds a special nostalgic place in my heart. And I referenced that in this episode.

But we get into the full story here. Greg shares the journey on being a son of an entrepreneur, building with family members, differentiating as a concept. We're focusing on quality, but not giving up speed. And we all know how important speed is in urban areas and New York especially.

We get into what it's like to innovate in an industry where innovation can last a week before a competitor releases the same thing on their menu, and all of the challenges around going from one store to a second store to scaling into what Gregory's is today.

It's hard, as you'll hear throughout this conversation, which made it all the much more enjoyable. And it requires a special DNA, which I can tell you from my experience with Greg before the episode, during the episode, and after the episode shines clear. If you got a special edition Gregory's Business Breakdowns coffee sleeve, make sure to hold on to that. That could be a collector's item one day. But most importantly, please enjoy this episode as we break down Gregory's coffee. ♪

All right, Greg, I am pumped to be doing this with you. We finally made it happen. We've been talking about this for a bit here at Spotify on video, not the normal format for business breakdowns. And I was kicking around where to start with you because you've founded this business. It's something that

I've lived with in New York City basically since I've been here since 2009. And one of the things that really stood out to me is with entrepreneurs, you often hear this claim that if I knew it was going to be this hard, I never would have started.

And it's this ignorance is bliss style. But you are actually very different, where you grew up with an entrepreneurial father. You grew up in this market. So maybe just bring us back to what it was like as a child growing up with your father in the food and beverage space. Describe a little bit of that and how that played into your personality and what ultimately led you to start Gregory's. Sure. Well, great to be here. Thank you. Um,

And, yeah, I guess the origin story is always a fun one to think about. You know, I sort of go back to that Malcolm Gladwell 10,000 hours idea where I was born into this almost. I've been doing this my whole life. So my father, right out of school, he started his own business. He's been working in the fast casual food space in New York City since before I was born. So, you know, when I was...

three, four years old, maybe I was swatting flies. Then I graduated to shaving carrots. Then I graduated to delivering food. Eventually he allowed me to work the line.

And, you know, early days, it was just kind of working with my dad, understanding what that business was like, very different in the 80s and 90s here in New York. But all the while, I was kind of understanding what this was subliminally, maybe by osmosis. But my father was always just, you know, so excited talking about the business, what was new, reinventing himself. He was a serial entrepreneur and

Changed many times he went from running, you know classic New York coffee shops like they call him but it was more like a mini diner They used to have those in the city to the delis to pizza places sandwich places So I kind of watched him as he was evolving his approach to the business and kind of leaning into what was working and where he saw the trends going so immersed myself in that always helped him during my times off of school

but never really thought it was going to be something I was going to do. It was always like that was my dad's thing. I wanted to help him. It wasn't glamorous like it is today. You know, there was no Sweet Greens or the cool guy clubs where you were in food.

And, or the fast food was not looked at as something great. I think, you know, eventually when I made the choice to do this, I think my mom cried. You know, she's like, what do you mean you're not going to be a lawyer? And I'm like, yeah, I'm going to do something a little bit different. I think my grandmother, God rest her soul, she called me her grandson, the lawyer, even until, you know. That's nice.

years, years into running Gregory. So, uh, it's definitely been a journey for me of getting to where we are today. You mentioned it. You went through law school. You were on what seemed like a different path. What was the deciding factor where it was? You know what? I'm going to commit to this. I'm going to open Gregory's, uh,

Again, in New York, in a different time in the mid-2000s, it looked a lot different than now. But can you remember what was going through your mind at that time that made you decide not to pursue big law or just the traditional lawyer career? I was doing a summer internship after my first summer at law school, and I

I was doing well. And I kept saying at some point I wanted to do something of my own. At the time, I thought maybe it was something around fitness. I was really into working out and these sorts of things. But I didn't quite know what it was. But I did have that entrepreneurial bug, I think, just because of the father that I had and the environment that I grew up in. So one of my father's sandwich shops was honestly across the street from my law school. So my first year, I was a customer.

And obviously when he would come to see me, we would go to the store, hang out, go get a coffee at the Starbucks around the corner. And it was about, you know, halfway through my second year when I sort of stopped and asked him, like, you know, I don't know if I want to do this law thing.

Before I really pursue a career in food and Bev, because that was something I thought I could be good at. I wanted to test it out. So I'm like, would you allow me to kind of work for you at this store while I'm still in school? And sort of really going through the steps to make sure it was something I was going to want to do with a career. So at first he thought it was a funny request, but obviously he was like, if that's what you want to do, let's go for it. So yeah.

Fell out of the top 10%, unfortunately, in my second year. But I definitely realized I was good at that job. I enjoyed it, interacting with people, putting systems into place, you know, creating things with my hands. The business picked up. All these good things started to happen. And I felt like, again, I've been doing this my whole life. And once I changed my mindset from helping my father to thinking about it, this is a career, it really sort of unlocked this thing internally for me. But the sandwich shop was definitively my father's thing.

So once I made that decision that like, yes, I do want to pursue a career in this field, the aha moment came as to like, well, what am I going to do? And that was after like the third or fourth visit into the Starbucks. Once I had made a decision with my father, um,

And being in the food business for so long, when you go to other places, you can't help but analyze like what's working, what's not. And it was after the third or fourth time where I said what I would do different if I had my own coffee shop. I was like, you know, the proverbial light bulb goes off. And I pulled up a map. I'm like, where do you get good coffee in the city? Because, I mean, at the time I was in I was in Brooklyn Heights. It was really just Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts. And I realized there was a few folks doing great things with coffee, but mainly on the outskirts of town, on the edges of the city, you know.

And where my father's businesses historically were, were financial district, midtown, sort of the heavy-hitting spots, daytime office pop. And in those areas, there was nowhere to get a great cup of coffee. So I thought that was a really awesome opportunity. So finished law school, passed the bar, and went right in. My father helped me get that first location.

helped me get set up with some of the basics, but then it was just, it was all me sort of pouring everything I had into getting that first one up and running. When you had that light bulb that went off, you mentioned it was mostly Starbucks, Dunkin' Donuts. And again, picturing New York at that time, it feels so different than it does today in terms of what's out there in the market. But

What was the main thing that you hung your hat on that you wanted to do differently? Was there, you know, something at the core of it all relative to that fast, maybe more chain-like? Oh, I mean, 100%. I mean, my father's business is, again, we're in the fast-paced hustle-bustle part of the city. And like any of these businesses, if you're relying on, you know, very short windows of time to make your money, the breakfast rush, the lunch rush, you know, he always impressed upon me. You know, you have to have really high quality products.

Your service needs to be great. The store needs to be clean. But most importantly, in New York, you had to be fast. A, to be able to turn the customers and get your throughput where it needs to be. But people just have that expectation. They want to move, right? So when I went around, I saw the mass players were good at volume, but I thought there was definitely an opportunity from a quality perspective. Whereas when I would go to more quality operators, I thought they were doing a great job with coffee, but

Definitely couldn't move a line. And that's why you would often find them on more off peak, you know, center blocks, edges of the city, because the rent was just different and they didn't have to think about turning so many customers in order to justify paying a rent where you're going to be on an avenue or corner or something like that.

Yeah, I know exactly what you're describing in terms of the slower pace. And in Manhattan, that only works in very specific sections of the city and usually on certain days of the week, Saturday and Sunday, Monday through Friday, it doesn't work quite as well. Pace is important for sure. Yeah. Is there...

Is there anything else that you would point to that your father instilled in you just in terms of whether it's the value system? I think you described some of the words there. But it is this unique experience where you basically had an apprenticeship since day one in terms of seeing what it's like to operate this type of business. So are there other core values that you would point to that you were able to take into Gregory's? I talk about it now like this, and I didn't really think about it at the time, but it seems like it's this –

Cross section of passion and grit. Like my father was always super passionate. Like you'd find him if he wasn't in his own store, he was out trying different things, love to travel just to see what was new or different in other places. You know, one of his, his sandwich chains that he started in the nineties was

I mean, I'd like to say I don't have this evidence, but I mean, I do believe he was the first person to offer panini sandwiches in America. Literally, he had to import the machines from Europe because you couldn't buy them here. But it was because he had tried it in Greece.

He thought it was amazing. And it got to the point where, you know, people knew what a grilled cheese was, but you wouldn't, people weren't familiar with a grilled chicken and cheese sandwich or ham and cheese. So, you know, we had to go out aggressively sampling to people to explain like what this was. It's a hot pressed sandwich. So, you know, I watched him approach his business that way and really help me out.

helped to drive the business forward and always sort of stay active and ahead of the curve as much as possible, which is always now our innovative focus and thinking about staying ahead is definitely something that drives me. And the other thing is just about people. He was always...

great to his team. He has people that even today, he still has a number of his businesses still in operation that have been with him for 20, 30, 40 years. I mean, you don't really find that in food businesses very often, but he knew how to treat people right. He was in the trenches when he needed to be, and he always treated them with respect. And I'd like to think I've tried to do the same

with how I approach my team and across the years and all the stores we've opened, it's important for me to kind of take those lessons and apply it to

to what I do every day. The sampling point, I can say we were together just a couple of weeks ago and you were sampling something that you're testing out as a new product. I won't give it away, but I can speak to you. You certainly walk the walk and talk the talk, which is... My team sees it all the time. They're like, what is this guy eating now? Why is he doing this? It's like, you know, I'm telling them, like, listen, it's

It's product research. Well, when you deal with so much caffeine, that's a whole other element of what you have to put your body through. But certainly speaks to constantly thinking about innovating and introducing the next thing.

On, you know, working with your father, just the idea of family. It's another thing that stands out that runs a little bit counter to consensus. You often hear, don't get into business with family. It can cause a lot of issues. Don't get into business with friends. I've seen how relationships get broken up. Yeah, you've leaned very much into this. So talk through that decision and just how much you've incorporated your own family into Gregory's.

Well, don't get me wrong. It's not all peaches and cream. I think there was definitely times where...

you know, you'd say something to a family member that you would never say to somebody that, you know, you weren't related to. So we've had some interesting conversations, but I think, again, it all kind of comes back where in the moment when you're with, with people in the trenches, it's like, when you look to your right, you look to your left, like, can I really trust these folks? And at the end of the day, I always felt like that was something that was hard to replace. I mean, I have amazing team members, don't get me wrong, but early days when the team was much smaller, relying on family and,

was something that I knew I could call at any time and they would drop whatever they were doing. If it was Saturday, Sunday, it didn't really matter. And, you know, not to say like I was trying to stress people out, but, you know, things happen. And it's important to have people around you you can trust that think the same or passionate and care. So there was a lot of benefit that we had from working together.

And really driving the business forward in a way that I don't think I could have done by myself. There's no way. Yeah, I think there must be something in the DNA of your family that lends to the entrepreneurial spirit and the willingness to help out. Because to your point, any business is stressful. But having people you can rely on certainly makes the world of a difference. So I'm sure that helped a lot in the early days.

I want to get back to that first store, first location. Can you talk me through that experience of opening anything that you wanted to do differently and how that went maybe over the first three to six months, just the experience and however you can paint the picture in your own head and bring it back to life? I'm sure it was very stressful at the time. Yeah, I mean –

It was my father, myself, and like basically two handymen that built that store. So we definitely bootstrapped it together. And I think just kind of going through it from like the whole construction phase through the build out, it was very exciting. I think it was like Christmas time of 2006 when we got that first door open and it's

You know, I think applying what we had seen or I had seen in the food business, running my father's businesses, were how can we maximize the guest experience? How can I make...

a great product without sacrificing time was something that I just wasn't seeing in the coffee space. So at a minimum, I was going to say, hey, our store was going to look great. It was going to be clean. Our customer service was going to be great. I was going to most likely it was me there. If you were early days at a Gregory's coffee, I was most likely serving you.

And we were going to do our best to make sure the quality was great. I mean, admittedly, now the quality was not great. I was very ambitious thinking I could just start a coffee business, went to clinics,

these coffee festivals, coffee shows, but there's no substitute for actually rolling up your sleeves and getting in there. So those first few weeks were definitely like a lot of learning. But I think the reaction we were getting where people were excited that there was something different, that there was all these elements they were hoping to have seen that they weren't getting maybe at like the more of the mass players. So we were in business right away just by being, having a different point of view.

And then over time, as I started to really learn and lean into the elements of specialty coffee that were really starting to take off at that time in the mid-2000s, people started to really see the difference, whether it was latte art on every cup or pour-overs at the time, all these things that were novel. Now they seem ubiquitous, but 2006, 2007, if you were doing latte art on somebody's drink, they were mind-blown because they just had never seen anything like that.

So that's when we started to separate ourselves further and further from what people were used to getting, especially in those parts of the city. And that's where we started to think about where I could take this and the business started to really pick up. How did you continue to learn or innovate with some of those things you mentioned? It wasn't maybe great from the start, even if you thought it might be. You're now operating a full-time shop. How?

How did you actually find the time to continue to get better? Obviously, there's reps which are going to get better, but you need to do research and do different things. I mean, I'm jealous now. You could just go on Instagram or TikTok and spend a few hours and you could learn a lot and see plenty of tutorials on how to do stuff. You know, for me to teach latte art, somebody, I saw somebody do it.

But they didn't really teach me. But then I must have burned through like 20 gallons of milk to try and figure out the motion, how to make it work. Because, you know, it was just kind of trial and error. But I was just, you know, I was young. I was energetic. No wife, no kids at the time. So I was like, damn, I'm just going to spend as much time as I can to try and incorporate as many quality aspects to this product lineup. Obviously going and visiting others.

The coffee industry is big, but it's also quite small in the specialty coffee industry. So there was a lot of interaction happening in the coffee community. So I could meet folks, learn, ask questions, observe, incorporate all the cool things I was seeing into what we were doing at the store. And again, at the start, it was just one store, total of maybe like six or seven team members. So

I could see something on a Monday and it would be on the menu by Tuesday, right? Like that was just how I would, you know, operate. I mean, maybe I still do things like that and the team, you know, puts the goodbye. Hey, but that's just not going to work. So my inclination is always I see something, it's an improvement or something I know we can do really well. Like I just want it right away because I just feel like I have very little patience when I know there's something there to grab that can be,

improve the guest experience or give them something that I know they're looking for. But now, obviously, as a bigger company, we're focused on making sure we can successfully do product launches or adjustments to what we're doing consistently across the whole portfolio of stores.

Yeah, I can imagine. Once you get bigger, it gets a little bit tougher. I mean, this is well-documented in many places. The ability to move as fast is not there, but there's all types of reasons with quality control and whatnot. Was there a moment with that first store where you thought to yourself, like, okay, this is going well? Whether it be a specific day or a specific experience where you thought to yourself, like,

okay, I think I've locked in on this and we're seeing some success? Yeah, I mean, I think it was during some of those interactions with guests where we were introducing pour-overs and single-origin coffees and all these things that I had been learning about and tasting and engaging with and taking those customers and turning them from, back in New York talk, like coffee light and sweet, like tons of milk, tons of sugar, to introduce them to a single-origin

making sure they try it before they add the milk and sugar to, they could experience it, you know, likening it to wine or all these other flavor notes. And, you know, I think there was this, um, you know, coffee, I think Ethiopia, Ethiopian coffee from Harar. And it was like the first natural Ethiopian coffee we had served at Gregory's. And there used to be this pour over called the clever, um, just a different, you know, way of brewing coffee one cup at a time. Um,

And the coffee just tasted like blueberries. Like it was just hard to not notice it, even for like an unrefined palate. And I remember I would so confident when I would talk to people that I guarantee you when you taste this coffee, it's going to be so different from anything you ever tasted. It might not be something you want to have every day, but it could just show you what coffee can be.

And some of those interactions when people were like mind blown, because even somebody that's drinking coffee with milk and sugar every day can try something like that and really appreciate for what coffee could be. And then we started to see things like really start to pick up where people were appreciating these things and then coming out of the way to come to us in the area because it wasn't anything else like that. Yeah.

So I think, you know, the business again started to pick up by year two. And that's when, you know, I really started to look for that second location. I'm like, you know, I think it justifies expanding and finding something else to do.

Yeah, you're painting this picture in my head in terms of what was a different environment. Again, I feel like we're harping on that a lot, but it is true where things like that type of experience where you taste something like that is naturally going to lead to word of mouth.

people are going to tell their friends, they're going to explain, no, you don't understand. You taste the blueberries in the coffee. And that has such power. And it's gotten a little bit, social media has made it more challenging to do those things. But I think at the end of the day, customer experiences and their ability to tell friends goes a long way. You brought up something very interesting to me and something that I think about a lot with a coffee shop, which is

You have the certain proximity to customers just based on location, who lives there, who works there. But I think where you can really see success is if you get people that will travel maybe an extra block or two to come through. Is there anything magical to that or anything that you would categorize as driving that loyalty or willingness for people to go out of their way?

You know, I think when I thought, or I, I think about the coffee industry, it is so different from many other food and beverage companies. It's more like the bar or something that has an extra element to it, where you're going for something more than just the product. Um, you know, I think there's stories that are told about, you know, your salad and the sustainability and those sorts of things. And I think that's, that's part of it, but

I still don't really see people going to, you know, the salad shop to have a meeting or to go to the bowl place to have an interview. You know, that the whole idea of the third place, it was something that sort of created this special environment and expectation in a coffee shop that is what people will go out of their way for the right balance, right? Where there is a balance of products have to be obviously good, interesting, quality, um,

Is the environment welcoming? Does it have what I need, whether it's for seating or Wi-Fi or whatever, or the welcoming team? All those elements have to be in balance to sort of draw in people, to have them walk past a shop or two to come to you. And obviously, it's subjective. Everybody has different things they over-index on. Some people, like, love certain types of coffee or maybe prefer something, and they'll go to that one no matter what.

Other people value up convenience or they value seating or they value just sort of the price point. There's all different things, but we try to strike a nice balance where we think we can create the best possible experience for the most amount of people. Again, you can't please everybody, but we've always sort of sat in between the more boutique, let's call it like...

specialty coffee shops that are just really focused on quality and that's like their trademark versus more of the mass players, which are definitely focusing on convenience, speed, throughput, breadth of menu offerings. So we sit sort of in the middle where we can deliver a lot of the value and the convenience, the apps, the order heads, all the things you're getting from the mass players and

and giving you the quality element that you're getting at the other types of locations. And it's really hard to do in volume settings.

But when you strike that balance, I think people do see it and they experience it. They're like, wow, this is different. And they will come and find you because it's just something unique. Yep. No, I think it's well said. And I think laying out the different things that people will seek out, whether it's the product quality, whether it's the speed and convenience, whether it's the ability to sit and work, kind of isolates the variables in an interesting way and just hearing your approach to it.

it is interesting in what is an increasingly competitive field. You mentioned starting that second store. In the second year, you were seeing the success. It was this idea in your head of expanding. Was that something that always was on your mind? I don't want this to just be one Gregory's location. I want there to be multiple. When did it become a reality? My father had multiples of his businesses, but I think...

The limit was he had gotten maybe up to eight or nine locations out of a single concept. So, you know, obviously I had it in my brain that,

scaling a business was something there, but to start, it was really like, let's just figure this out. Um, and you know, um, even thinking about the trajectory of Gregory's, I mean, it was, it was quite slow to start, like as far as our growth, like we were successful, but it wasn't like this explosive growth where, you know, things were going really well. And we started opening like three, four or five stores a year right away. You know,

you know, we sort of bootstrapped everything together. So everything, the next door was sort of fueled by previous doors profits. So like we were just still focusing on building it, you know, we didn't do a,

you didn't do a series a until 2019 it was like 13 years into our existence i mean not certainly uh the script most people would follow and i don't even know if i would do it the same but i wouldn't change anything um but it just is definitely like you know a unique and different approach to growing the business and um learned a lot along the way and it definitely kind of helped shape who we are as a company and definitely who i am as a as a leader

And when you went to open up that second, did you do two and three at the same time or just a second location? Second. So the second location came 2009. So it was, you know...

about two and a half years into existence of the company. And then the third came summer of 2010, so a full year later. And when you were opening those, was there a certain, okay, you know, we've learned these lessons from our first store, now we can implement them. Like, what was the experience? Because I think...

Starting one shop is its own battle. I think two and three are just as difficult because to take what you've successfully done in one location and to think that you can do it in other spots is something that I think could easily go wrong. So I'm curious that experience of just that first expansion of going from one to two and two to three.

That was probably the hardest, to be honest, because it's a it's it's sort of letting go a little bit where that first door. Again, I was there 60, 70, 80 hours a week. I mean, I was going to be determined to not let anything go wrong because I was just physically there all the time. So the minute you need to trust others to sort of execute on a vision the way I would have done it myself was sort of the first step and sort of ensuring that.

that the team had that, had that right mindset. They understood the vision, what was important. So we had, I had a few people that I really did trust and was able to get, get that going. And that's what built the confidence to start expanding from there. But yeah, I mean, there were definitely challenges and learnings and things that we wanted to apply. So, you know, our first door was huge. It was just, it was like 1800 feet with a full basement. And, you know, we were,

We were buying pastries, like fully finished every day from a third party. And I remember

Talking to my father, I mean, we started – we're in the food business. That's kind of where we grew up. So to think we couldn't do it ourselves was kind of a little frustrating. But obviously once I felt like we were making progress with the coffee, like, well, we need to think about our food program too. So by – as launching the second store, we started to think about preparing the food ourselves. So we turned the basement of our first store –

into like a mini commissary and we're preparing food and then we would literally bring it up every day to the second location. And we were doing a lot of food at that time. There weren't pretz or any of these other concepts around, so the quick grab stuff was just, again, different time.

Um, so, and then by the third store, we're doing so much. I had three reach in refrigerators with tons of food. Um, and then all of a sudden, you know, different operators start showing up and like, wow, I don't think I need three refrigerators anymore. So the fourth store didn't have as many. So it's like, it was always a lesson learned pivots, adjusting, leaning into certain things. And, you know, I think a lot of the things we learned over time have helped shape, you know, where we are today and it continues to shape where we're going to go. Just the confidence in our ability to,

to do what's needed to be done and just making it work and not making excuses, just like, hey, let's just get it done. I imagine the food, again, you have your father's experience there, but just managing inventory, doing that, is a totally different muscle than coffee. So what has the experience been there just in terms of you could make just something pure coffee. You're introducing this completely –

complimentary but different muscle into the org. And what's been the, what has the ride been like just with food? Food has been the biggest ride because we've taken so many different approaches to it.

You know, we didn't have a hot food program until like 2019. It was... That was a series. Yeah. I was like, yeah, you need hot food. But no, I mean, it was really the pastries and the grab and go offering. It went from buying everything from a third party to doing things, you know, scoop and bake to sending my father to culinary school because, you know, his businesses, when we started focusing more on Gregory's,

Um, you know, he was seeing me running the day-to-day operations where historically he had always run the day-to-day operations of his businesses. So, um, we took the opportunity, he did like a, an intense year long course on like bread making and patient making at the French culinary Institute. And that's when we started launching our own scratch bakery program. Um, so it went from buying batters and all these things to us preparing things ourselves. And again, these are sort of things that we've learned and started help us.

differentiate who we are and our pastry program was always something unique and had our own lens to how we approached it. But now even today, it's how we think about hot food and we're continuing to think about adjusting that and all the things that I think we do really well, like our approach to plant-based, our health-oriented focus, but then clean, fresh, delicious ingredients. These are things that we're now seeing real opportunity to push that even further.

And what's the right split for the amount of business that should be coming from food versus from coffee? Is there a right, like a target that would be ideal for you? It's changed so much, you know, because it used to be coffee and pastries, really. That was the whole business. And that was maybe like a, I don't know.

75, 25 split, 80, 20 split indexing towards the drinks. As we've done more, that has shifted around. But I mean, the economics of the business continue to change. So we see...

where we can push and develop product lines or categories that we think complement, you know, the anchor, our coffee program. Like it's everything that starts and stops with our coffee and building the trust that we do an amazing job with our coffee program.

And how can we complement that with products that we think people enjoy? And once they've built the trust, let's say like, hey, Gregory's does a great job with their coffee. So if Gregory's is going to launch X product, I trust that they're going to do a really good job at it. So I'm going to try it, right? So whether it's a, I don't know, a vegan breakfast sandwich or a scone, right? That's sort of...

Our outlook and our outlook and our mindset as a company is like we need to build that trust to so that way people feel like as we push into new categories, try new things. People are willing to engage with us because we do try to think outside the box and, you know.

I say this as if it's easy, but the graveyard of our products is deep, right? I've tried plenty of things. A lot of them I'm disappointed didn't work out and were delicious and I wish were still on the menu. But we're never going to stop trying at approaching the business and understanding what works and what people are really looking for as a part of their daily routine. Yeah, I will give you –

credit for a lot of the things that you've introduced, which felt early in

in the moment or innovative. And again, going back to 2009, when I came into the city, you know, Gregory's was kind of a new concept. It had a very fresh feel to it. And I can remember the HR person at the bank that I worked at wanted to bring me to Gregory's. It was like an actual thing. And then you had the vegan menu and you've introduced a lot of different things, which feel a lot more consensus now. But I think you can certainly point to being early there.

When you think about that, it's one of these things where people can constantly catch up. So how do you balance, all right, these are like staples that are part of Gregory's. They're staples to the menu. I think about these as kind of like timeless things versus this might be more either seasonal or it might be cyclical. Do you have a strategy around that? I mean, it's a really good question because I struggle with this every day. There's things that I believe –

Our sort of classic and anchor products on our menu. Um, but we probably shouldn't be thinking that way. Um, uh, you know, maybe the plank or saw it deserves to be there all the time. Um, the cappuccino, you know, there's, there are some core items, but you know, I want us to be thinking that there are no sort of rules as to what we can and should be doing. Cause you've got to hit the nail on the head. There's things that we've launched.

And maybe we get credit for, for being a first mover. I don't know how long that lasts, especially as people kind of there's constant turn, but you know, there's products that I've done that have been super excited. And then I'll see like the exact same version or very similar version elsewhere. And, you know, there is very little, uh,

holding people back from trying and testing things or seeing something that's working and applying it to what they do. That's why it has to be part of our DNA to be forward-thinking, innovative, and not really sort of resting on our, what's working. So my father, you know, at one point, you know, I remember we're having a heated conversation about the menu and he kept saying, you got to find the new cappuccino. What's the new cappuccino? And I remember thinking,

I was like, what do you mean the new cappuccino? I don't know. But it was an interesting way to phrase it. But, I mean, he was right is that it led me at the time, this is probably 2017 or 2018, to think about making like pre-mixed cold brew concoctions and sort of a finished drink. So cold brew, you know, I think had become a bit popular at the time, but it wasn't still like the standard that it is today anymore.

But, you know, you go to a coffee shop, usually it's like you get your cold brew or your drink and then you need to add whatever you need to it. So at the time, again, it was sort of novel to think somebody is going to pre-mix ingredients almost like a cocktail bar. And you don't need to add anything to it. You just put your straw in and it's ready to go. So we did like a honey badger. It was cold brew, vanilla, honey, syrup, and almond milk.

So pre-mixed, already balanced. You didn't need to add anything to it. It was delicious. People were like, what do you mean? I don't need to add anything to it. I'm like, no, just try it. Great. The new brew, Nutella, milk, and cold brew blended together. So that was a pivot point on our menu where, you know, it went from being like a small part of our menu, now like

a third of our menu boards are occupied by our cold brew bar, right? It's just how much stuff we sell. So again, today, cold coffee, you know, you read all the reports about how much it is, you know, dominating sales. You know, we had started that six, seven, eight years ago, really leaning further and further into that, which again, lended itself to what's happening today. People feel comfortable knowing that we're constantly thinking about the cold offering and revising and introducing new things.

I like the finding the new cappuccino. And at first it sounds like, hmm. Well, I didn't think – maybe I didn't find the new cappuccino, but I found a new category, a new way to approach things. But again, now that's not so novel. Other people are doing that as well. So we're thinking about what's the next route? Like how can we reimagine it? Sometimes it's taking something old and making it new again, a different approach.

Or even a new category that, you know, again, as we build trust in certain parts of our program, can we test something else out? Like you said, you know, you and I running around and watching me, you know, chug all these things and understanding, do I like this? What don't I like? What do I think a customer might enjoy? It's like, at the end of the day, I have to sell to myself. And I think that's where it comes back to is like, I want to be able to

have as many of my meals or beverages at a Gregory's as possible. And not just because I'm, you know, trying to be biased, but I think if I can't sell to myself, then who am I selling to? So like I have to first feel like,

I'm a customer and my team also. That's why I'm constantly checking with my team. Do you like this? What do you eat? What do you drink? When I see people coming to work at Gregory's bringing outsider products, it's the first flag to be like, what am I missing?

So we try to avoid that as best we can. I don't want to say perfect. Obviously, like there's things like not sure. I know Starbucks has Boba, but I'm not sure we'll get into that anytime soon. But we do see people show up with those to work sometimes. But there's always things that are kind of tripping people.

you know, tripwire say like, Hey, what should we be looking at? Is there something that makes sense or does it make, is it, is it complimentary to the menu or does this make zero sense at all? It's a great test, uh, putting yourself as, as the first customer, uh, and having to pass your criteria and, you know, have a precedent or a track record of saying, well, it's worked. Um, you said it like we're early on plant-based, right? Like I was interested in it for a long time. I, I was a vegan since 2017, right? So it's like people, uh,

that would come to Gregory's and eat or drink and would notice how much we over index on plant based on the menu. I know as somebody that practices that diet,

You can tell when a menu is built by somebody that actually thinks about this versus somebody that's just ticking the box. And you can't fake that stuff, right? So, you know, that's where I, you know, honestly, I change my diet. I'm adjusting things because if there's something that's interesting to me or I think it's worth investing from a company standpoint or adjusting a menu, again, I want to be selling to myself first. So if I'm just doing something and I'm like, this is for everybody else, but I don't care for it.

Then I'm already starting to drift. And, you know, I can't say we're perfect. There's certainly things we've done which maybe are not for me. And I think to some extent that's fine, but I think it can't drift too far. And it's not just about me, but just even our team and how we think about staying true to who we are, our mission, and not just trying to do something because I think a customer wants it. But does it make sense for us? Isn't it true to who we are as a company? Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, it's the authenticity for a brand and it's always what you want to see. And you could see when companies are checking the box and it plays out in a lot of different ways, but you could feel it and it doesn't usually feel good as a customer. One of the things that pairs with

introducing something that's new and you tapped into it before is the marketing of that thing. And I will say, you know, you mentioned the honey badger and some of these different concepts. Your marketing has always been strong and the marketing game has changed quite a bit.

quite a bit from the early days. But where does that DNA come from, just in terms of naming, showcasing? Part of it is very much integrated into the product, but is there some special sauce there in terms of where that comes from? I don't know if it's special sauce. I think it's just, again, trying to stay true. What do I want to do? Is it just because

Other people do things a certain way. Doesn't mean I need to do it that way. Again, I do fall into this trap for sure to see what's happening, what the trends are and falling into it. Like this is something I think we should be doing. But whether it's a category, a product type or how you name things, it's easy to sort of fall into that. And sometimes to a fault, like, you know, we've we've we finally launched our version of refreshers. It's not new. Other people have it. We wanted to do it, approach it our own way.

So it took us a while to get there. But I had done it before and I used alternate names and trying things. And at the end of the day, I couldn't get people to understand what it was. It was our version of trying to create a non-coffee, delicious, fruit-based drink, um,

And now we just want to, we call it refreshers, right? So I was like, I just want to sometimes, I want to not trying to be different for the sake of being different. But I do want to also have a unique approach to what we do. So whether it's how we name things, how we approach introducing products that are unique or different, we're constantly poking and testing and understanding what works. I mean, I've tried some amazing food products, but I tell people, I'm like, I don't know

how confident I am in convincing a guest to try this because it's so out there. Because I've tried things that have fallen on their face because customers just don't know what they are. And because we have so many different things and like a single unit in the pastry case is not, I'm not going to have enough time or energy to dedicate just pushing that one item because we have so much other things to focus on, primarily the coffee. So, you know, unless I'm going to, yeah, I have to,

Sometimes I have to sacrifice that even though I think it could be a really cool or interesting product or leaning on others, right? Like has this been introduced in another way where I could add my own topspin to it because it's something that I'm interested in but I want to approach it in a unique way? So product innovation is definitely like at the core to me it's something I'm super passionate.

interested and excited about and constantly evolving or cultivating a unique and special menu that's true to us is definitely something that helps get me up every morning and excited to get out there and see what's going on and how I can continue to drive this business. Not to lean into any of the negative things, but have you had any massive product flops that really stand out in your mind that...

I mean, the first push at the refresher, we called them the crush. Definitely did not work. I thought they were delicious. I mean, I'm telling you, I was into them. We had this like jalapeno, mango jalapeno one. I was like drinking it every day. I mean, I don't normally drink mango juice, but I was like, man, this was outrageously good. I like spicy stuff. Definitely wasn't selling. We tried before doing the hot food program, we tried doing this kind of like

egg thing. I don't even know what we called it, but it was in the pastry case. Um, and it was served like room temperature, but it was kind of our way of approaching an egg sandwich. Nobody, nobody wanted it. It just didn't, and it didn't look very good. So I was like, man, I've got to get this out of the case. Um, so literally went out and bought a George Foreman grill and just started testing hot sandwiches like the next day. And that, uh,

Took us to do a different direction, but, you know, willing to try, but definitely had some products that flopped pretty hard for sure. Yeah. Like you said, I think it's sometimes healthy to have the graveyard because otherwise it means you aren't testing and taking enough risk and innovating. I want to get into the expansion more, but just on this point of introducing new things and just the whole idea of expanding because –

I think it's so different running something that is boutique and small versus trying to do something at scale. When it comes to something like this, like the ability to innovate with new, whether it's food items on the menu, even new coffee items, is it any more or less risky when you have a wider range of locations versus just the single shop and introducing things there? 100% riskier. I still...

operate and think as if we have one or two shops. And that's how I approach menu building. Um, and if we're ever in the mode of, we can't launch this cause I don't trust that we're gonna be able to do this right. Then I'm like, what, what else do we need to do to make this work? Because, um, it's hard, you know, when, when you're, when you're focusing on five, 10, 15 people and can really bear down and make sure people understand, um,

what's at stake or how to prepare or the consistency. And now you're talking about five, six, seven, 800 people, you know, just, yeah. The confidence from one to 800 that they're all going to do the same program the same way time and time again, it's challenging, but that's what we do. And that's the whole, the aim is to what systems can we put in place and honestly, what sort of faith and trust we could put in our people

to stay true to the mission and to make that sort of a cultural element of who we are and what we stand for so that way they don't want to serve something that they don't think is the right expression of that drink and that's sort of the ultimate goal is can i get our team to buy into that level where it's like you could i could say hey if it's a mocha i'm adding chocolate to this are they really going to know is the guest going to really know if the espresso wasn't pulled properly

Maybe, maybe not. It'll be hard. Once we add milk and chocolate, a slight deviation to the quality of the espresso will be very hard to detect. But that's a slippery slope. But I tell the team, I'm like, hey, if you're willing to sacrifice that drink, what happens when the next drink is

is a double espresso black. Now you're not so confident in that, but if you're willing to serve that one the wrong way, then all of a sudden, then we have a real problem, right? Because, you know, the team knows I come in and I'm just drinking double espressos all day long. My blood type might as well be espresso at this point. So...

You talk about the caffeine. I don't want to say I'm immune, but I definitely over-index on the caffeine intake every day. But part of it is like, hey, like I love the taste of it. I just truly enjoy our espresso. Built up tolerance, that's all. Yeah. But then it's also quality control. Like I'm curious when I go around, how does our coffee taste? And when I talk to a lot of folks who are not part of Gregory's, they say the same thing. Like you could usually tell...

how serious a place is about their coffee program by just trying a black espresso um because it's hard to get it right um and it's easy to kind of overlook it because so many people just are adding milk and additives to it that um you can get away with a lot without putting a huge amount of care into that program but it's so important to me mainly because it's my number one drink of choice every single day uh but it's like a pride thing for me is that i think

Really hanging my hat on the quality of the program. And it's the first thing I say when we go to a new market.

If they're comparing us to whoever the chain is in that area, like, oh, you really think you're better than so-and-so? And I'm like, yeah. I'm like, let's talk about it. Let's taste it. But I'll tell them, like, hey, just do me a favor. If you want to just try the foundational element of our – just, like, try our black espresso and tell me what you think. I think you'll enjoy it even if that's not your normal drink as compared to that foundational element at one of the more mass chain players. It's a huge difference between the quality of, like, you know, one of the mass players' black espresso versus ours. And –

instilling that culture into the employee base, which, as you mentioned, is difficult, I think,

most people, it's probably not their long-term career. Um, it may be, maybe it is. Um, but, but you're going to see natural turnover. Um, you can try to inspire them to take the lessons and, and the care for, uh, what they're doing into, to whatever they're doing next or into their careers over time, especially into what they're doing at the moment. But have you found any best practices at work? Cause it's easy to, to, you know, send the message across, but.

It has to be cultural. It has to be trusted with the leaders in the store. I think we have a benefit of being in the coffee industry and at the end of the day, it is kind of fun to make coffee. And again, I've worked in food. I've worked on grills. I've worked behind pizza ovens.

Not as glamorous, also dirty, sweaty, hot. And I think the barista culture, coffee culture, I think as it stands today where you're creating an artisanal beverage, it lends itself to people like starting to care and drinking the Kool-Aid per se when it comes to like –

the type of products they're creating. I think the easiest way for people to sort of slip into that rabbit hole is latte art. Like once they see with a little bit of practice, I can create something really cool and visually impressive and impactful to the guests or to myself.

Then they start caring more and more about the different elements of the drinks that they're creating. I mean, now there's a whole other element, you know, with the Instagram and TikTok where aesthetics are almost as important as the taste. So how do the drinks look? How are we presenting them? So we're getting a lot of buy-in from the team just from a quality and a visual perspective.

but at the end of the day it has to be cultural and from day one we're trying to immerse team members in what we stand for um and we could be doing better for sure i mean it's something we talk about all the time our training our culture our community um

You know, we have our core, our mission is to challenge the status quo by seeing coffee different. I probably should have said that earlier in this, if, you know, talking about the business, but that's why customers come. That's why people work for us. I think that's why we're here. And how do we achieve that as our core values? One of them is start with coffee, stop at nothing. It means a lot, but a lot of it is like, hey, the team has to understand, even if that espresso is going into a mocha process,

pour it out and redo it if it isn't prepared properly. I'd like to say that's happening all the time. I'm sure there's cases where it isn't, but the goal is how do we make sure that the mindset is there and they understand, the team understands how important it is to have every drink go out as if you were giving it to somebody that's going to rate your store or you're giving it to your mother and say, I want you to enjoy this beverage, right? You would give it a little extra care if it was going to a family member. So that's the idea. How do we make

That level of care across all the products that we're selling, it's the goal, ambitious maybe, but that's what we're trying to get to. It's interesting the point you brought up about the difference between working in a traditional kitchen, less glamour, versus the traditional

or coffee-making experience where you are front and center, you are customer-facing, there is a bit of a show to it. And I think leaning into that, there's more pride that could be taken from that experience, which I think isn't something that I really considered before relative to the chef who is...

dotting the dessert in the back and some of that stuff. I mean, you know, I watch the bear like most people, I guess, and maybe it's a little stressful in the back of house too, but, um, you know, there, there's a part of this, our society and community where I think there's like a value towards creating something special. Um, and I think, um,

thankful that i'm in the coffee industry where that's gotten that recognition now and we talk a lot about wine um and and or even craft beer right you know i don't know i'm in my early 40s it feels crazy to think but um you know i remember going to the you know buying a six-pack in college and it was like if you're paying more than like six or seven bucks you're crazy now it's like you pay seven dollars for one dogfish head or like one of these it's it's crazy but they've really you

done a great job at showing what a quality beverage is and people are willing to pay for it because it's not just, this is beer and I'm drinking it just to, you know, imbibe and enjoy some alcohol. It's like, no, I'm drinking a quality beverage and I'm willing to pay for it. Um, and coffee went from my coffee tastes like coffee, uh, to my coffee tastes like blueberries that I'm drinking this Ethiopian coffee that is, is phenomenal or the mixing of flavors. And it's like, you know,

Thinking back to like mixology bars, you know, when you go to those, like those bartenders are held in super high regard because they can create something super special for you that looks good, tastes good, unique. Um, and you're trusting this person to sort of take you through a journey through the beverage. Um,

And baristas have sort of been given that same ability today. It's like, how can I build an amazing drink for you? But unfortunately, we have to do it in a volume setting with a line and people with all these sort of adjustments and tweaks to what they're looking for. But that's what we signed up for. The specialty cocktail mixologist, it brings, I think, a fair comparison in there. And you can certainly see it going on at certain coffee shops and you can feel it.

Getting back to the expansion, I kind of stopped at three, but just give us a sketch of where Gregory stands now in terms of number of locations. It's expanded quite a bit since then. Yeah, COVID was interesting for sure. But this last year has been probably the most exciting from a growth perspective. We've added 11 stores so far this year. So our store count is up to 47. The 48th is...

a week or so from opening. So by the time this releases that it may be open, we'll be at number 48. But we should be north of 50 stores by the end of this year with more to come next year. And I think part of that is just confidence in my team, confidence in the products and the menu that we're putting together and our ability to execute at a high level and like kind of all those sort of

kind of fears about ability to do this consistently across the portfolio by having great people around me with great systems and putting things into place that can

Not only put controls on, but also double down on that culture element. So that way I can trust that, you know, a coffee, a Gregory's coffee being prepared in South Florida is going to have the same level of care as it is here in New York. And part of it is, you know, great people like finding the right people staying in touch. And, you know, like we have a team member, you know, Mary, she's running our Jensen beach store, fantastic team member. And I, I can,

say full wholeheartedly i trust that she's doing a great job um because i've spent enough time with her to see the care she's put into all the little elements so had a person randomly called me like i can't believe you're in florida i'm like oh yeah it's new um like i was shocked at how close the experience was to what i used to get in new york and i was like i don't want to say i was shocked but i was also like i didn't know what the feedback was going to be like right because i

I'm so used to somebody gives me feedback about a store in New York. I'm just going to go walk and go see it because I want to just understand and compliment. I can't just do that now. So when I get this feedback about farther away stores and hopefully more good experiences than not so great, it gives me more and more confidence to keep going.

keep going. Um, but again, a lot of it is about culture. It's about people systems, um, and doubling down on why we're here and that, that mission. And the more people buy into that, I think the, the more success we're going to have. You mentioned, uh, Florida versus New York. It,

Can you replicate the experience for what customers are looking for in New York and apply that elsewhere? How has the growth gone when you've expanded outside of the – I feel super strongly about the different areas that we focus on and applying it to a specialty coffee setting.

I still believe is unique in just about any market that I've been in. And again, I'll stress it's hard to do what we try to do. And I've seen others attempt it. And then more often than not, either they change course or they don't or they do something different. Because to sit in that cross section and focusing on both speed and

and quality while also doing all the other things we're trying to accomplish, uh, unique menus. And it's not just plug and play stuff for the standards. It is kind of sometimes wacky products that people aren't used to and making sure the team understands not only how to prepare, but how to talk about it. Um, the bar is high, but, um, you know, I think setting the bar up here, uh,

means my team can try and meet me up here. If I'm only putting the bar here, they're only going to come up to here, right? So, or as close as they can. So I'm always shooting for the stars. And, you know, now doing this for what, 18, almost 18 years, it's crazy to think just how excited I still get about the smallest little details about this business. And I think my team would, would attest to the fact that, you know,

again maybe this is about all the caffeine i drink but it definitely high energy excitement um helping to drive this thing forward um and confidence that in all these markets what we're doing appeals to that that base because it's it's just quality great experience blending these things together a unique menu offering is just it's appealing to just about anybody

Part of the expansion has been with Simon most recently. And how is that experience any different, if different at all, from what you were doing before in the early days? Completely different. So Simon Property Group, you know, one of the biggest property owners in the country. Folks may recognize that name from, you know, some of the more

well-known mall properties around the country, you know, King of Prussia Mall, one of the bigger malls in the country, Roosevelt Field over here in Long Island in New York. But then they also have lifestyle centers, premium outlets, all different sorts of properties. So we worked out an agreement with them where we were going to open a number of stores in their properties over the course of the year. That's why this year was so much growth. These were all Simon property stores. So opening stores in

Mall properties definitely wasn't on my bingo card years ago, or at least multiples. It could have seen opening a handful of them. But it's been super interesting because you think about coffee and most people think about breakfast business. The malls don't open until 10 in the morning, right? So the breakfast rush is already over. So.

Thinking about our menu and our offering, and we think about this constantly since we've been doing this kind of listening, learning, and understanding what we need to do to better cater to that community. And it has driven us to areas for the whole company that I think are interesting now from a menu development standpoint. But it's been super different but super exciting to see opening in these properties across the country, again, internationally.

Different demographic, different malls, different service environments, but still seeing the core of what works, applying even into the afternoon business in an interior mall in Southern California. Again, these are things that I would have never really thought of years ago, but now seeing it...

and engaging with that team and hearing the feedback and all these things, it's super exciting to just see that if it works in all these different settings, then super confident about how many more opportunities we have across the country. Yeah, it's interesting. And I think with malls, it's often easy to think about, well, you know, the malls, they've gone through this, you know, period of time where they were everything in the 80s and 90s, and then they started to

to dwindle away. But what's happened is you just have a lot of these class A malls that continue and they're seeing as much traffic as ever, it feels like. And everybody seems to stop for coffee in a mall, which is an interesting data point. It's like, you know, the perfect walk and carry. It's an easy thing to enjoy. And then, you know, now...

or other beverages that lend itself to like different, you know, a younger, our refreshers are caffeine free. So you can add caffeine to it if you want, but the core product is not. So, you know, other, the, the mass players, all their refreshers are caffeinated. So we're seeing like a younger, you know, parents and their kids and, you know, we have to explain, oh, well, you know, if you want, basically you can get one of our refreshers for the kids because it's safe for them. They don't have to worry about that caffeine content. But yeah, I think,

The strong malls have only gotten better. And a lot of the headline news about malls that are closing down, I mean, those were malls that have been struggling for a long time. I'm certainly no mall apologist anymore, but I've definitely learned more than I ever thought I would about the mall business. And I could say after spending like the better part of a year now inside these malls,

Climate control is great. It's comfortable inside, and they definitely do a great job at running the AC. But I will say the mall business is definitely there, and the great malls are still as great as you would have remembered. Yeah. Yeah, it's impressive to actually see them. And anytime I go into one, I'm impressed at the traffic. Just on a new store opening, we can get into a little bit about

the business itself. What does it, a successful store look like in terms of whether it's number of coffee cups sold or anything else that you would point to to say like, I now have a successful store that can be self-sustainable? There was a point where we started opening stores in New York where early days it was the first few months were quiet. Like people didn't know the brand. It took time. So we used to see a prolonged ramp period.

The more stores we opened, it started to be buzz and excitement around an opening and we'd be busy right from the start. And then by the time we were opening our like 20th, 25th, 26th location in New York City, it was almost like you open a store and first week was as if you'd been there forever, which was, that was an interesting thing to see. Maybe the first one that was probably the coolest was, you know,

again, I'm, I'm Greek, I'm old school. I still like to collect the first dollar bill that's, that's paid it when somebody pays at the store. And it used to be, you know, our business should be at 80% cash when we started. Now it's like 10% cash. Nobody pays in cash anymore. Um, so sometimes it can take a long time for somebody to pay with cash. You know, the team will, will, you know, they'll see me on opening day. I'm like kind of lurking, waiting. I'm like, I can't really leave until I make, uh, you know, until I get that first bill. Um, interestingly enough, our, uh,

Our last store in Minnesota, we just opened the first customer paid with cash. I'm like, wow, that hasn't happened in years. It's a good sign. Good signal right there. But I think the coolest validation point for me was we opened a store in Summit, New Jersey. So a suburban store an hour outside of the city. Certainly has like commuters and people that are familiar with the brand from New York. But the first customer paid with our app.

And that was the first, maybe the first time that we had seen that where first customer opening day is already on the app scanning and already part of our loyalty program. And I felt like at that point, it's like, wow, this is cool. New market, new

out of our core and we already have people locked and loaded on our app and doing great things. So... Yeah, I think the app is such an interesting piece of this. Again, bringing loyalty into the conversation. We talked about traveling several blocks rather than just, you know, whatever the coffee shop is that's closest to you. And the app lends into this a bit as well. Do you see a large percentage of your business going through the app today? Is there like...

How do you think about that as being a piece of what makes it a sustainable brand that can expand nationally in terms of what you're doing now? Again, this also comes with a testament to who we are. We certainly weren't first when it came to apps. We were definitely early. I think we launched our mobile payment and loyalty app in 2014. So, you know, I think the mass players, Starbucks certainly had it before us, but we

In my peer set, especially coffee, we were definitely, if not the first, one of the first to do it. And this is sort of, again, the testament to our ability and our interest in leaning into

what we could do to continue to improve the customer experience. And if it means incorporating technology, new equipment, new systems, so be it. I think it's with that mindset of what can we do to continue to evolve and improve the guest experience. And the app I thought was

Super interesting because we had, you know, the swipe cards we had, you know, with our old POS provider, you had the stamp cards. And, you know, there's something very tactile about the stamp card thing. You know, I had way early days. This is like, you know,

Our espresso grinder, if you remember, used to have this clicker and you'd see you pre-grind into this huge doser and then you do these clicks and then you'd watch the this big stack of espresso on top and then they'd wipe all this off and you'd see like all this waste. And it was but it was I had to argue with my father because he's like, no, that sound is like the coffee shop sound, the clicking. But I was like, no, we need to move to an automatic grinder because it's pre-weighing every dose. So we're going to be.

Better quality, more consistent. And it was this huge argument about the clicking. So it was like all these little things about like what do people associate. And for sure there were people that were like, oh, what happened to the grinder? I'm used to like sitting and hearing that clicking all day. But very quickly people say, well, the coffee tastes better now. So I'm okay without it.

the clicker. But yeah, all these little elements, it's like, well, can we horse trade one for the other? I might take away something you associate with the experience, but I'm going to do something that I believe is going to upgrade the experience overall for folks. And we definitely had people that didn't like moving away from the tactile. They don't, I don't want to give you my information on the app. I don't want to do these things. It definitely was a push and pull back then. People didn't feel comfortable using

loading a credit card onto a, onto a mobile app. And I'm like, well, do you have the app store? Like, yeah. I'm like, you know, you have that, you have it on there, right? Like, oh, right. I'm like, well, it's, it's, it's a similar, similar thing. Uh, but there's, you know, 10 years ago, thinking about all those conversations, moving to the app was, uh,

It was a lot. Yeah. I mean, you see those commercials about when they first introduced credit cards and the person at Burger King saying, oh, this will never work. You know, people using a credit card. And I think technology sometimes it feels like it's never going to overcome that hurdle. But then you get the adoption. And now it just feels, to me at least, thinking about places in Manhattan, you talked about speed. Yeah.

getting somebody to download a new app can be so difficult. One thing you can get them to download it for is for food and beverage. I mean, it's like, it's expected now there's, there's loyalty programs, order ahead, all these things. It's like, now it's a, you don't have order ahead, you know, you're shot, right? Like, how are you like, you know, there's certain element of the population that just, that's what they want. They want a pre-order. They want, they don't want to wait. And that's fine. Like we can serve those folks. That's that leans into what we do. I mean, we're,

I think we were one of the first specialty coffee concepts to launch a drive-thru. And part of it was like,

a challenge for a specialty coffee operation to think about that. Cause again, a lot of what we do is focused on time and spending enough time to repair the beverages the right way. So, and drive-thrus are all about speed. Um, so how do you blend those two? But that was, again, what we stood for all along was how do we mix those worlds together? Um, so that's just, again, how we always try and think about the world is what can we do, um,

to continue elevating that quality component and consistency without sacrificing speed. In your idealistic view of a Gregory's, do you care if it was 80% was order ahead and people are just scooping them up relative to more people sitting there and having the experience? Does that mean much to you?

And I can paint it a different way. It feels like I go into a Starbucks now and everything is just order ahead. I could be wrong in terms of the percentages, but it feels like 80% of people are just scooping something off a table. So I don't know if it's necessarily what I care about as much as what overall experience we're trying to provide because, hey, if that's what 80% of our customers want, we'll try and do our best to satisfy that. But I think part of that is driven by...

what Starbucks has set themselves up for is they've sort of reorganized their stores and, and really focused on throughput. It makes sense. They want to move customers. And, um, but in their, the size of the stores they're taking, they had to take away from other elements, uh,

to be able to make sure they could maximize that throughput. But by doing that, you've taken other elements of what people are looking for out, right? So we've always tried to strike the balance of, hey, if somebody wants to do order ahead, I believe we're going to be able to get a few efficiently on time, but we don't want to sacrifice the in-store experience. So that way...

Somebody who does want to kind of sit, chat with or maybe interact with a barista or enjoy their experience, they should be able to do that too. But not having enough seating or no plugs or no Wi-Fi, a lot of these things which are kind of a testament to a lot of specialty, not all, but there's specialty coffee shops that they don't offer that. I mean, when we were...

it was during COVID. I was, at the time I was living outside of Greenwich, Connecticut, close to Greenwich, Connecticut. And I used to, I couldn't come into work in the city. The office was closed. So I was trying to find a local coffee shop. And the only, the local coffee shops there, there was no wifi, no plugs. I'm like, how can I get any work done? Even if I tried to pull a laptop, they're telling me no laptop. So, you know, you know, maybe the maniac, I am like, all right, I need to get a coffee shop and,

So I have somewhere to work and I found a place that had enough seating. And I told the contract, I'm like, make sure there's as many plugs as possible. Cause I know how frustrating that is. I'm like, Hey, I just want some place to be able to feel comfortable. And maybe that's because I've spent so much time, but in coffee shops, particularly Gregory's, but I want it to be a place that somebody feels comfortable. There's no time limits on the tables. Like come welcome, enjoy, enjoy the experience. If you want to choose to spend your day with us,

That's an honor, right? Whether you see somebody that they buy one cup of coffee, they buy the New York Times on Sunday and they sit there for six hours reading the paper, right?

At least they're choosing us and not going somewhere else, right? Like it means something that, you know, you're creating the right kind of environment that somebody's going to want to spend hours of their day with you. That doesn't happen by accident. Yeah, I think you show the typical entrepreneurial spirit of you run into a problem and you create a solution to that problem with the Greenwich store. I was going to ask if that's why you opened it. So you jumped me there. And I think we've been talking about this.

competition, how much the environment has changed. I thought it'd be fun. We were talking about this a bit a couple of weeks ago. Just if I wanted to open up a coffee shop, the barriers to entry feel so low, but can you actually like put some numbers around it? If Matt wanted to open up a coffee shop, what would that actually cost me? It's an interesting question. It depends on where in the city, outside of the city, side street. I think you could do it

super cheap, maybe spending, you know, 150 grand and just cobble something together. Um, or you could spend five, $600,000 and try and create something really special or, you know, other places take even larger space. You could spend as maybe no limit as to what you can spend, but I'd say like, you know, scrappy startup, you know, 150, maybe up to 500,000, let's call it like $300,000 is like kind of,

You can put something together that's pretty decent for that amount of money. That includes like new equipment, not used equipment and making a space that actually feels somewhat nice. And then how much business do I have to do in order to make that a sustainable operation? Well, in New York, it's about rent. So that's always been the challenge is, and again, why...

I mean, I have this vivid memory or very early on talking to a landlord back, you know, back then, you know, I had to convince people to give us a chance because, you know, who is this company? Why should I, why should I like, how are you going to pay my rent when you're selling coffee? And I'm like, well, first of all, I'm like, well, don't you see Starbucks everywhere? Like they must, they figure it, but he couldn't get over the fact that we were selling like $2 cup of coffees. And how is that going to pay all this rent? And I was trying to explain, you know,

volume business, the throughput, but you know, we wound up not doing something with him, but I had plenty of conversations like that. It's like, well, how many cups of coffee do you have to sell to break even? So, I mean, I think very simply, if you were to think about

Let's say on average, between, you know, blended between coffees, lattes, whatever, it's like $5 a cup of coffee today. Inflationary environment, excuse me, I can't avoid it, but it's true. Immediately out the door, 60% when you're thinking about labor, COGS, other expenses, insurance, credit card processing fees, whatever. So for every $5, $3 out the window, you got $2. And you apply that towards your rent. So-

I don't know, let's say 15 grand rent for like a decent space on like a, you know, somewhat prominent location. At 15 grand, you're needing, you're probably like 250 to 275 cups of coffee a day just to break even. That's obviously just selling coffee, but you know. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's like,

And then you think about when do people want their, it's, it's the morning. You got to really make sure you're maximizing potential there. And then, you know, do you get that second hit in the afternoon? Maybe, maybe some people are now looking for juice or they're looking for something or boba tea, who knows. But yeah,

you got to really make sure you're capitalizing on that just to pay the bills. Yeah, it can't be a... I mean, that's a lot of... You just measured it in customers. Even if you said people were coming in and getting two cups, that's a lot of faces and traffic coming into the stores. What is like the upper limit? Your most successful stores, how much can you do? I mean, I had, again, different environment with...

you know, what daytime office population used to be. Um, but we had a time square store. I still use a stat because it was, it was always impressive. Small store. It was not much bigger than this room. It was like 750 feet, 800 feet that we see like 330 customers in an hour, um, out of that store. Um, and yeah, the thing used to crank. Um, and you know, it's, we don't get that same sort of like density these days. There's just not as many people in the office, but, um,

You know, um, thousand customers a day in a store, busy store, um, something like that. Um, I mean, we used to do more, um, different environment, but you know, early days again, different, there was no competition around. It just, it's, it can't explain how different it was when, you know, we'd had a store in Midtown, uh,

And you'd look around and there's skyscrapers everywhere. Back then, everybody was in the office Monday through Friday, all day, every day. And it would be maybe a Gregory's and one Starbucks a couple blocks away. I think that was it. So, man, there was just no options. And once people got whiff of like what Gregory's was all about, I mean, we were just cranking. Now it's that same location might have four or five or six coffee shops within a block or two. It just, the saturation is, it definitely happened. But, you know.

Cream rises to the top. It's fine. We still got it. We still do our thing. But it used to be like the wild west out there where there was just nobody around, you know, and New York as early as we are in many areas for specialty coffee were definitely behind. There was people that were out there doing great things with coffee. But again, in the heart of the city, everybody was late. And I think it was a real function of that rent. Right. Because now if you're thinking about $15,000 rent, which is cheap, probably in parts of the city.

just to break even 250 cups, if you're $300,000 to pay yourself back in a year and a half, you're talking about five or 600 cups a day, every day for 30 days a month, right? So then the stakes become higher. It's like, well, not only do I want to break even, I want to make money here. Obviously, that's how this, the name of the game at the end of the day and how you grow a business. So, and then the minute a competitor opens up, it's like, well, damn, like, even if I'm

Even if I feel like I'm much better than them, there's going to be people that are going to go just subjective, right? So how do you continue to stay true to who you are, build that business, and protect yourself? Yeah, the specialty coffee goes back to the early part of the conversation, the speed challenge of...

New Yorkers want things and they want things fast, particularly in Midtown. There's not a lot of extra minutes. So there was somewhat of a contradiction there in terms of making it happen. But it is just crazy to see how much it's flipped offensively.

How do you just think about it? You mentioned cream of rice is to the top. We were talking a little bit about competition a couple weeks ago, but do you have a mentality about that? Because to your point, it's just one of these things where you're going to see these stores pop up. There's not much you can do about it, but what's your mentality around it? Maybe another thing I took from my father, but just –

He used to use the word like a beast, like you got to be a beast. My father's an old school New Yorker. I mean, he just like, he has that kind of language about him. But really just like, I can't let what other folks are doing derail me or like take away our confidence. Like I've had store leaders say, oh, like there's this place opening nearby. I'm like, well, let's think about it. If we focus on what we do really well,

At the end of the day, like all we could do is do the best job that we can. Don't give anybody an opportunity to take your share, right? But it's easy to do that. People relax. You're not as fast as maybe you could be. And it's happened to us for sure, where we were maybe at a store doing great, but if ops weren't as tight as they could be,

All it takes is one person to come by doing like something a little bit different. The store feels a little bit fresher. And then people start to drift because, you know, you're not maybe as on your A game as you can be. But I've seen other stores where, you know, we have a store in downtown Brooklyn. Great team, kicking butt. And we had a competitor open like a block away. And I didn't know what was going to happen, but our business not only stayed the same, but actually, I don't know how it happened. It did go up. It was like, well...

That's good. Right. It's like, but as I think, um, and the team was like nervous, like, well, what's going to happen? Like, we had all these expectations. I'm like, just you do your thing.

People are going to check them out, but you know, I think our value proposition is going to be the most exciting. Um, and if we're consistent and we execute on our vision, um, people will, people will come and I promise you that. So, um, you know, you gotta be, again, you gotta be a beast when you think about this stuff and don't let up, don't let anybody, um, scare you or deter you from what you're trying to do. And, um, keeping that mentality, um, always drives me. I competition is just,

It's inevitable, but I'm extremely competitive myself. I want to win. I hope my team does too. Is it the coffee space? Is it a tight-knit community? Because there is so much competition, but would you consider the other entrepreneurs in your space to be... It used to be way more. Again, I think COVID definitely screwed up a lot of community building stuff. It's sort of like...

there was this rhythm of like, you know, citywide latte art competitions or coffee festivals, coffee association events, meetings, meetups, you know, a lot of interactive community work and people kind of sharing and learning and building together. And a lot of that sort of stopped for obvious reasons during COVID and hasn't really come back the way that it used to be. And then people feel like they've sort of siloed again to like their own businesses. And it's like,

you know, I don't know how healthy it is. Uh, cause I think there was this sort of interesting time where people weren't like, Oh, I'm not going to show you anything. Cause I don't want you. It was like, people were excited about what was happening in coffee.

And wanted to share in that with other people that were super passionate about it. Right. And as much as I think about the business at the end of the day, I'm like still a barista at heart. Like, you know, maybe I wasn't on day one. I was more of a guy who then thought I could run a business, but I fell in love with coffee. Um, and I can nerd out with, with any of them. Uh, and yeah,

There was plenty of times where I was in, you know, just spending days or weekends with just a group of baristas at conferences just learning because I just wanted to learn too. Super interested and passionate about it. So I do think that's sort of inherent to this industry and who we are. And I think it will come back over time. But we're not quite there yet. Yeah. Yeah. It's one of those things where it feels –

Healthy in some ways just because you grow the pie of the overall industry and it's something that you saw with mixologists, with craft beer is – yes, there's competition within, but you want the industry as a whole. It's like, do I want you opening up across the street? Yeah. Probably not. Yeah. But in general, like you said, building that awareness and having more people –

care about quality coffee and understand like what it could be. It's just, it's continued to raise the bar and make it much more common for people to come into a place like ours and not feel like it's so from distant from what they've experienced in the past. Maybe now where I'm going to new markets and you know,

suburban or sort of these mall locations, many of them, they haven't seen anything other than the mass players or maybe some local chains that are not doing things quite the same as we are here in the northeast I-95 corridor. So we've definitely had some interesting conversations about our approach compared to what people have seen. But overall, it's been really positive feedback that we've been getting. What's the vision in terms of how...

big the footprint can be. Do you have something in mind? Obviously, it's one store at a time, but... Honestly, I don't think there's a limit as to what we could do. And again, the ability to expand and do...

Our thing in these markets that, again, I didn't think I was going to be in for a very long time, just continues to build the confidence as to just how far we can take this. And if we can successfully run a store in an indoor mall in, you know, 40 minutes outside Minneapolis, I know we can go to downtown Minneapolis and open stores and do our drive-thrus and strip centers. And, you know, there's no reason why I couldn't do

10, 15, 20 stores in that market and then multiply that by all the new markets we're in. It's just, it's very easy to see how this thing can grow from 50 to 60 stores to two, three, four, 500 stores in the next few years if we do things right, which I think we will. And then, yeah, I don't think there's a real limit, honestly. Like I don't, again, I started this years ago focusing on one store and I'm still focused on the next store.

but I don't really like to put a limit as to where we can go. I'm only, my only restriction is by how many great people I have around me. And I tell the team that all the time, it's like the more strong people we have, the more confidence I have in our ability to, to open successfully with a great team, like the Mary's in Florida or the Andrews in DC, or, you know, the Isabella's in Southern California, you know, all these team members that have joined in remote locations that I think are really executing on the, the vision. Um,

make me want to do more. And then that's kind of like the, another slippery slope is like, well, how many can we do and how are we going to get there? And, you know,

We'll work hard and we'll get it done. Just with the risk associated with that, when you're thinking about the infrastructure building out, is everything being done on site? Like do you have to – I think at one point you were roasting your beans in Long Island City. Is that still the case? Yeah, still roast in Long Island City. So, again, we were for – up until just a year ago, we were just servicing –

New York Metro and DC Metro now we're shipping product to California and Washington State all over the place But yeah, we still have plenty of room to grow out of that facility. So I had built it years ago the ability to scale and left a lot of Excess capacity there, but we've obviously continued to augment what we do every so centrally bake everything in this in the commissary and ship all that product out and

Now we bake everything fresh on site. So, you know, there was no way we could have continued on that commissary model from a food perspective and grow the way we did. So the pivot we made from the food perspective allowed us to do this expansion and do it staying true to who we are, baking fresh in stores, quality elements there as well. So, yeah, we continue to learn and tweak to make sure that we're ready for that next step and the growth that's ahead of us is...

Something we're excited and feel confident in our ability to do. This is the cliche question that is often asked of founders or people running businesses. But what's the risk that keeps you up at night? What's the thing that makes you most stressed about the business? Well, back in the day, I was doing everything. I used to be like, are the openers going to have their keys and they're going to call me at 5 a.m. to open the store because that used to happen plenty of times. Honestly, it's just...

It's less about what's keeping me up and it's more of like, it's not what I, what's wrong or what could go wrong about what, what am I missing? Cause it's very easy to have blind spots. I mean, sometimes I get crazy tunnel vision, uh,

I'm, you know, product testing stuff and then I'm going a million miles per hour as to thinking about a product line or a specific item or a store or something. And, you know, obviously I have lots of responsibilities and things that can occupy my mind share, but sometimes I do get very focused and I need to make sure that there's not something I'm just completely missing, which has happened at times where like I can get too focused on something and you miss something over here. And I think, again, the more

strong team members I've brought around me have been able to compliment a lot of what I bring to the table and doing a lot of really great things, whether it's in the marketing side, operations, food and Bev, all these things, community development with our team. So the, the more help I've gotten, the less sleepless nights I've had. And now it's more focused on what more can I do or what else is out there for me or the company that I'm

can take us to a whole nother level. Um, because it's, if I ever woke up and said, there's, I'm not sure what to do next. That's when I start to worry. Maybe my other worries, I've, there's a bank of ideas that I sent to the team that they're like, it's just too much. Um, but I, if I ever start running out of things to do or improvements or adjustments or tweaks, um, then I'll be more concerned. Whereas right now we're,

There's so much to know, so much to think about. Yeah. A good supply of ideas and things to test and runway in terms of footprint. And it's not just me too. I mean, some of the best stuff does come from the team and they pivot to me. And that's what's most exciting because now a lot of really smart and amazing people around me that they bring things to the table that I wouldn't have thought of otherwise. And that's when I'm like, wow, you know what?

Years ago, when I didn't have this team around me, like this would have been a blind spot or something I never would have thought of. You bring really great people together. And now that that vision is really crystallizing, really sinking nicely with folks that have recently joined the team. We're starting to see some really outsized benefits of like having smart people understanding where we need to go to execute on that vision.

Yeah, it's one of those hidden benefits of scaling where I think everybody can focus on just kind of the ground level operations and the dynamics there. But there's also, you know, corporate level and the people that you get to bring in when you scale that unlocks a bunch of new things. It's interesting.

It's been an excellent conversation. It's been fun to watch something again, going through the experience of coming to the city just a couple of years after Gregory started, but almost feeling like I've seen the business grow up at a similar time to myself grow up in a professional world has been a lot of fun. When you reflect back on this, we close these conversations out talking about lessons. When you reflect back on building the business,

Some of the lessons that you could take away and maybe whether it's sharing them with your own family, your kids, if we're going to keep this entrepreneurial family thing going or a classroom of students. What were the things like that you would really harp on be for sharing lessons and building a business like Gregory's? It's because it's interesting the question you asked about the breakeven standpoint. Yeah.

And that was honestly something I didn't even think, I didn't even want to like think about it in that term when we got started because I was so passionate and hungry to make it work. And I believed in the niche and what we were doing that I was going to make it work, you know, as best I could. And I don't know how to distill this into short advice, but it really comes down to like, you have to have a point of view.

You have to be passionate and you have to be willing to say, like, I'm going to work as hard as possible and do whatever it takes to make this work. And you need to learn how to rely on other people earlier. I was late to that where I was.

having like controlling all the purse strings and all the different areas for so long. A lot of us, cause we just, again, we were bootstrapping. I didn't have the capital to do it. So I was just like, let's just make this work. Um, but the minute I started having strong people around me that can execute at a high level, it unlocked this whole other world for me. And I think for, um,

many people starting their own thing that's really hard to do um is to start giving up control uh trusting others to do certain things um because you feel like yeah i could do everything the best myself and you know maybe to a certain extent in some aspects early on that might be true because it's hard to kind of get people on that same wave but you know people ask me all the time like i'm thinking about starting something like what do you think and at first i ask is like well

What is your differentiating factor? What is your thought process on it? Why do you think...

someone is going to choose you as opposed to the place across the street. Um, cause even if there isn't a place across the street today, like there might be one in a year, like, um, there has to be something that you think is sort of special or at worst, like I'm selling to yourself, like what are you bringing? That's kind of special differentiated. How are you going to ensure your, your, your doing whatever it takes to build that. Um, and if you focus on every penny from day one, um,

You can lose sight of some of the decisions that you might need to make, which could be risky. And again, maybe my wife will challenge me on this about like being a risk taker because I've definitely taken plenty of risks. But you have to be willing to do that, right? And sometimes if you're always thinking about early days, like, well, if I do this, how am I going to make this work? Like you might make it, you might not make that move that could put you into a better place later. And, you know, again, because I was...

controlling costs. I was so hands-on. I wasn't, I was working so much myself. I had more flexibility to try and do certain things because I wasn't the type of operator that was going to like just sit there and just watch other people work. Like I was in it. So not only did I know,

Anything I was asking to do, I would be able to understand how it would work in the floor because I was doing things myself, but also giving myself more chips in my pocket to say like, you know, I'm not just sitting and watching. I'm here doing this stuff. So I am then able to have a little more ability to play. And a lot of people think, you know, starting a restaurant or these things, it's like you just show up and people are just going to show up and buy your stuff.

It doesn't always work like that. Um, it's hard. It's, it's, it's a lot of work now. There's so much competition. There's a lot of people doing really great things out there. So how are you going to stand out? Um, and how are you going to make sure it is at that level? You expect it to be consistently because, you know, the minute you leave, is it going to fall apart?

And that's the fear we all have. But again, once you start building that community, that trust, then things really start to unlock in a different way. Yeah, it's been excellent. I think that point, it's almost like don't let the spreadsheet run the business. If you have that strong core view. Early days. You have to have some healthy balance. You can't ignore it.

But if you're so micro focused on that and every dollar and penny, like you might miss something here for you. Cause whatever you thought on day one, I guarantee you is going to change. Like there's no script to like what you think looks good or feels good or tastes good. And then the minute you get that first customer interaction that you're like, you're so excited about this product.

they taste it and they're like, this is gross or like, I don't like it or I'm not buying it again. Then what do you do if that was like what you were planning, right? It's like, well, I need to be able to be resilient enough to understand like, I got to pivot. I got to learn. I'm going to interact with my team to make sure we're going to come up with the best possible pivot. And again, like I said, I used to think of something on a Monday. It was on a menu on Tuesday because I was just like, no, we're going to make this work. Excellent. Well, it's been a lot of fun. I've enjoyed the lessons, hearing more about the story. Again, feeling like I've had a

back row seat just as a customer over the years. It's been a pleasure and excited to see where it goes from here. It feels like as much time as you've spent on it, it still could be early days and those are the most fun stories to talk about. So thank you very much for sharing the knowledge. Thank you so much. To find more episodes of Breakdowns ranging from Costco to Visa to Moderna or to sign up for our weekly summary, check out joincolossus.com. That's J-O-I-N-C-O-L-O-S-S-U-S dot com.