Host (00:05)
are you from Kelowna?

Amy (00:06)
I am, I am. I was raised in Kelowna. I went to high school here. I, when I graduated from high school, I was probably like many people and my biggest goal was to get out of Kelowna. Because I was young, I wanted to see things. I moved to Vancouver and then had some friends who had moved to Victoria to go to university who

Invited me for a party one weekend. So I hopped on the ferry, went over immediately came back on the ferry, packed my bags and moved to Victoria.

Host (00:38)
Wow. Can I ask what like decade this is?

Amy (00:40)
This

was the early, very very early 90s. Okay. So probably like 1991. Gotcha. so I lived in Victoria for five years and worked.

in restaurants because it's easy to get a job in a restaurant and I was broke and when you work in a restaurant you get a free meal every day. it kind of just kept me going and I found out that I was actually pretty good at

Host (01:08)
Were

you waitressing or working in the kitchen? In the kitchen. OK.

Amy (01:10)
in a kid

my friends graduated and I was still working away a lot of the people that I knew moved on to get real people jobs yeah so I thought

Host (01:20)
Photon quote.

Amy (01:23)
You know, there's nothing holding me here anymore. have a few friends, most of them have now left. I heard of a place to work on Vancouver Island at a fishing resort. And I thought,

I have nothing to keep me here. I may as well spend a summer working on the water. It was another cooking job. I was cooking for the staff. So I took it and packed my bags and drove up island and yeah, worked for the summer, hanging out with people my age, doing the same sort of thing, trying to figure out who they were. And that's where I actually met my husband. ⁓

Host (01:52)
Okay,

yeah, was he cooking like was he one of the cooks or was he?

Amy (01:56)
He

was not a cook. was, he was like a dock boy. They have a position where they just help the guests, like, in and out of boats. They help them, process the fish that they catch at the fishing resort. He was a, dock boy in the daytime and a nighttime bartender. So he was basically a babysitter of drunk people.

Host (02:15)
Which people?

Amy (02:17)
misbehaving

at a resort. Yeah. So we met and, and I think, you know, there's probably in that sort of situation, it's like a certain amount of trauma bonding, working, a service industry.

Host (02:29)
Chef Jeffrey was on the podcast and he was talking about in the early 90s like how rough the kitchens were that you worked in. was, and especially, was there many, what was, so can you expand a little bit more about?

Amy (02:39)
Female? No.

I had a few kitchen jobs when I lived in Victoria that were in kitchens that were high volume, mostly men. Yeah, high stress. I didn't really enjoy it. So I found myself this little niche restaurant that was open during the day and it was

Host (02:54)
high stress.

Amy (03:09)
kind of deli style. So in the back end of the restaurant, we were just constantly replenishing the front coolers and then customers would come and buy out of the cooler. So it was like salads and lasagnas and pies and things like that. So there wasn't the same stress.

that you would have in a typical sit down service. So I found I enjoyed that a lot more. strangely, there was a lot more women in that kitchen. I don't know if it was just people like me that enjoyed the more casual atmosphere.

Host (03:44)
the ego.

Amy (03:45)
Yeah, I worked for really nice people. so yeah, I've experienced that amount of stress and did, did not thrive in that situation. So I placed myself otherwise.

Host (03:56)
Okay, that's

pretty cool. Okay, so you've met your husband. Or no, not husband. You started dating there. did, yes. And did you just stay for the summer?

Amy (04:05)
We both just stayed for the summer. when the season was up, we moved back to Victoria together and quickly realized that that sort of lifestyle probably would not be conducive to a permanent relationship. So we found ourselves, back in the restaurant business, doing very similar work, both of us this time together and

have kind of always known that being in that part of the serviced industry would be something that we would do. my husband's name is Al. When we then, after two years living in Victoria, moved back to Kelowna. So I had been away from Kelowna for 10 years.

And he found himself, by this time we had two little babies, and he found himself a job in Kelowna working in a catering department. So catering, I think, has sort of added to our communal bank of knowledge.

Host (04:58)
Okay.

Amy (05:06)
that has kind of helped us along the way with our current business. ⁓ He worked in the catering department at night and, or sorry, in the daytime. And then of course found himself needing to hire staff who were willing to work at night. That's when I came along and thought, we have two little kids. If we can flip back and forth working.

Host (05:11)
Okay.

Amy (05:29)
One of us in the daytime, one of us at night. You know, we've got our bills covered and childcare covered. We didn't have to ever find childcare for our little kids. Yeah, it was, it was, it was actually a good few years of, I mean, not, it's not easy work catering, but it fit our lifestyle at the time really, really well. Yeah. Our kids were always supported.

Host (05:40)
That's huge.

Yeah.

Amy (05:55)
and we both got time at work.

Host (05:57)
And then did you ever get to see each other or did you go a while with? That's the downfall. Yeah, yeah. High fiving. Yeah. As you come in and out. yeah. That's cute. And so then how, so you did that for a few years and then what progressed after that?

Amy (06:01)
We went for a long time with ships passing in the night.

Like notes left behind

after I was not working at the catering department anymore, I went directly to working for Bean So our now business partners, John Anderson and Deborah Sinant, they were the owners of Bean Scene. I don't know if you remember when Bean Scene

Host (06:25)
⁓ okay.

Amy (06:37)
was in its original spot in the close to the sales downtown on Bernard. Only very dingly. Like it was a while ago. Yeah.

Host (06:44)
A.

I didn't become a coffee drinker until I had my first child. Yeah. So I just wasn't, I wasn't observant of coffee stores. Yeah. Um, and I didn't, when I grew up, we moved out to, I grew up on Roe Cliff. And then when I was very young, we moved out by OKM. And downtown back in the day was not a place that you really...

Amy (07:04)
Yeah.

you didn't really

hang out.

Host (07:10)
We

didn't hang out down. it was a bit, it was rough back in the day. It was kind of scary. Absolutely. When I say kind of, it's like, yeah, it was. and then I moved away. So then when I, and then we came back, we came back to this house. So when, when did the original location move?

Amy (07:20)
Right.

So that moved in... I'm gonna get this wrong. It's thereabouts, I would say 2016, I wanna say. Somewhere around there. Yeah, from the downtown location. The downtown location had some landlord issues. There was a landlord that owned it then that didn't. It was a little bit funny about...

Host (07:32)
they are about.

Yeah.

Amy (07:54)
redoing the lease and the building that building was so delightful but such a disaster like it that wasn't it's a building and the wooden floorboards were probably about to snap and fall through just from baristas walking back and forth so much behind the counter

Host (08:02)
Yeah.

wow.

Amy (08:14)
There were places

where you could see giant gaps in the floor. So, and I think, you know, it was busy then and we, I think we just felt like we needed a little bit of space. So that's when we moved. So now I'm kind of jumping ahead now.

Host (08:24)
we are.

Yeah,

we gotta jump back there.

Amy (08:31)
So I went to work for John and Deb. And so this was back before the headquarters location was built. Yeah. So they started off with the downtown store, the original old narrow building. And they built a roastery and

Host (08:39)
The one at Landmark? Yes.

Amy (08:51)
a bakery in the garage of their house. Yeah, so humble beginnings. So I used to and I got hired as a baker. So I.

Host (08:55)
it was in the garage!

Amy (09:04)
used to drive up to their house every day, take the orders from the downtown shop, bake like crazy, drop off the baking for the day, and then swing around and pick my kids up from school. Wow. So it was a perfect kind of job for us, you know, someone who had kid responsibilities, because I could usually get all my stuff done and then

get to them in time for school or for pickup after school. Yeah, so that worked great for a couple of years. And then John and Deb had thoughts to expand. So they asked me if I would be interested in helping them move the bakery.

to a different location. So they had already chosen the landmark building.

And I think at that time, it's funny to think this now because it's such a big, huge area of town. But at that time, I think it was a little bit of a risk because nobody knew for sure that the landmark buildings were going to be as wildly populated and successful as they are now.

So they were kind of one of the first businesses to really plop themselves down in that spot and take a risk. And it was.

Host (10:13)
Because it was kind of empty there for a while. There wasn't much going on. You wouldn't know that now. Now it's hustling and bustling and it's alive.

Amy (10:16)
was.

Yeah,

and for the longest time I think if you had, if you didn't have business there, you might not have ever known it was there. Because, you know, there's not that many houses around there and...

Host (10:30)
absolutely. Yeah.

Yeah, like what purpose do you have to drive through there? The farmers market wasn't there. know, absolutely. Yeah.

Amy (10:41)
So

yeah, I think they took a huge risk in picking that spot and thankfully it paid off.

Host (10:47)
yeah yeah well that's pretty cool so when you when you they asked you to to what am i trying to ask here did you take over the bakery at that point or

Amy (10:57)
I was in in charge of running the bakery, but I had I was an employee. Okay so John Moved the roastery to the landmark building from his garage and We would kind of work across from each other all day long so we got to know each other really well and

He, John is incredibly observant. He's, he's like a, he's a watcher and a thinker. Okay. so he watched me work all day long. He knew my work habits. He knew my work ethic. we

Host (11:33)
Attention to detail. Yeah. Baker too.

Amy (11:35)
mean, we

really got to know each other, what kind of people we are at our core. And he had been approached by a person who wanted to sell a coffee shop. And John and Deb at this time had two little kids as well. And they wanted to take on more and wanted to expand, but knew

that it would be difficult to do just on their own as two people, you know, taking on more than they already had. So John approached me to see if I would be interested in moving away from the bakery and owning my own coffee shop. So that's kind of how that's how we ended up.

Host (12:15)
Okay.

Amy (12:19)
partnering and becoming the group we are today.

Host (12:22)
Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's fascinating. And so then what is your role right now with it? Are you still involved on a day to day basis?

Amy (12:30)
my role in our four-person partnership is mostly Dealing with the bakery still because that's just what I know My husband al has become the roaster taught by John, okay and John takes care of all of our finances and then Deb his

wife is kind of our special projects person so you know and we have little extra things we need to do she's the person that takes care of all of that so everyone we have all of our own little niche corners and ⁓ yeah it all seems to like come together

Host (13:05)
well together

yeah well that's really cool can you speak for Al on his journey of learning to like did he know he wanted to become a roaster like that's such a absolutely particular skill set yeah what was that like

Amy (13:19)
I

can tell you the exact moment when Al fell in love with coffee. He he's always been a coffee drinker always mostly out of probably like for most people out of Necessity just to keep it going in the day One day he came when I was working in the bakery early on in the early days of our headquarters journey

He came to pick me up at work and decided to get himself a coffee. one of the long time baristas who had been working for John and Deb made him our traditional macchiato drink. So it's like a double shot of espresso and about an equal amount of texturized cream. It's a little tiny drink, but it packs a punch and it's...

It's so delicious. I think he didn't really know what to expect when he ordered it, but he that's what they recommended for him to try. He took one sip and it was like you could see the lights go on in his face.

and it was around that same time when we were offered the ownership of the the coffee shop and so you things just kind of came together for him you could see his brain just changing directions to think so much about coffee now

Host (14:36)
He was still catering at this. He's like,

how did it, how do you get it to taste this good? Yeah.

Amy (14:42)
And so he started doing research, not so much about coffee roasting, but about coffee preparation.

Host (14:49)
Like do you mean the actual making of the coffees? Yeah.

Amy (14:51)
yeah. So he did research on coffee preparation. He did research on espresso machines. He did maintenance research. He's the kind of guy that if he's going to do something, he likes to dig deep into it and find out kind of everything that he can find out while learning a new skill. he

Deb took Al under his under her wing and taught him everything that he needed to know to make coffee. Me too as well but really I mean Al is the one that dove in the deep end about coffee for sure. ⁓

Host (15:28)
Yeah.

Amy (15:30)
So you like, can, I can make you a decent drink if you come into my store, but Al can make you a killer drink while telling you everything you ever wanted to know about espresso. yeah. So when, when we, when we took over owning the first shop, which was in the, located at the Capri mall,

Host (15:42)
I love that.

Amy (15:52)
We both just went in hard learning everything that we needed to know. And we really went in with the mindset that, you know, we're obviously going to try and make you the best cup of coffee that we can. We're going to try and give you good customer service. But what we are really going to do as a business is

work so hard that we will never fail. There, I think, you know, you can do all the work, you can learn everything you need to know, but really at the end of the day, in my opinion, owning your own business is just the willingness to put in all the work.

Host (16:18)
You

Yeah.

Amy (16:36)
Because really it's just you at the end of the day who's sort of like left holding the pile, right?

Host (16:42)
Someone doesn't show up. Yeah, it's you at the end of the day. Yeah

Amy (16:46)
Yeah, so I think you know if I could give young people one piece of advice if you want to be a business owner or an entrepreneur that Shifting your mind To Being to thinking that you will just never give up and I I know it probably

know if i could go back maybe i would say balancing out my life a little bit better might have been a good idea because we really did go in hard you know we're still in business through a lot of stuff a lot of things that have gone gone wrong for the for the restaurant world in particular

Host (17:17)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Amy (17:29)
in the last few years, so

Host (17:31)
I was just watching this video this morning too and it had, it was like two little twins came around a corner and the mom or the dad had put up like cling wrap or cellophane or something across and they just walked right into it. And then the one instantly looks at it and starts crying like having this fit. I can't get through. And then the other twin

just stood there and looked at it and observed it and realized there's a gap at the bottom. I'll just go in my belly and climb through. Right. It was the difference in personality. Yeah. the one personality is a problem has arised, observe it, study it, do what you got to do, figure it out. Yeah. Get through it and plow on. Right. Yeah. Well, that other personality was an instant meltdown. Instant give up. Right. I mean, I'm stuck.

Amy (18:13)
Okay.

Host (18:16)
Yeah.

Amy (18:16)
I've had

some moments where I'm the instant meltdown twin, then you just have to like rally.

Host (18:21)
Yeah, that's very true. So that was it. You have a very unique experience in that. think you were able to be a part of having your own business but still having mentorship along the way, which is really special. Because they didn't just sell and then retire and move on. Yeah.

Amy (18:37)
No, we've always worked together.

Yeah. And you know, I do think there has been an absolute comfort in that all along the way because we weren't alone. We weren't just like thrown to the wolves. We've had people behind us that had years of experience, a base of knowledge that they were willing to pass on to us.

and you know like they did not hold back anything. They taught us absolutely everything that they knew so that it could relieve some of the pressure from them. You know and I think we were a good group in that way that they had all of that to give and then

We kind of had fresh energy at that time that we could take that and continue to move forward.

Host (19:26)
Yeah. that's so special. What was it like? Al took over the roasting? So then were you able to work in that same location together with you baking and him roasting in the same building? that's cool. Yeah. So you went from high-fiving, tag teaming, never seen each other to getting to be together. that's awesome.

Amy (19:47)
I know I think we are a little bit of a couple in that we do. We work together all day long. We go home, we spend time together. I don't know. I don't know how we don't hate each other. ⁓

Host (19:58)
to

with that because my husband and I work together and I could spend all day every day with him. it's just easy. It's just easy. I don't think anything of it. Me neither. He's amazing. Why wouldn't you want to be around him? Yeah. now given that we're not...

Amy (20:13)
But do people ask you how you do it all the time?

Host (20:20)
with the position I have in the business, I can choose my own hours and I'm not there like the full day anymore. But when we had originally owned our business before, was like we were together together. But that was always our dream was to be able to work together. I do think it's unique. It's a unique personality, whatever that is. so you're me. So chill.

Amy (20:39)
meet.

always tell people it's just because I'm.

Host (20:46)
he's the chill one for me. He's amazingly stable. But the other thing is same, very same scenario in that the business that he's partnered in with like the older generation, the older gentleman will be retiring in the future. So he's passing on all the knowledge of this business that's been around for multi-generations.

Amy (20:49)
You

Host (21:08)
And just to have that comfort and support is incredible. then, and there's so many things that...

like well why is why don't you do it this way or like why is this like this and then there's the knowledge of all the background well actually there's a it doesn't seem like it makes sense but there's a reason that's like that and this is the history of it and you go ⁓ that totally makes sense right right but without that without that passing down of that knowledge you'd be like what yeah so yeah it's pretty cool and i think there's something to be said

people who have started their businesses and Are the original owners older than you? Five years. Okay, so similar age because there is something when you have that generational gap in that the business is being preserved like it's right those small independent businesses are you know, don't have to close shop somebody's going to take it and yeah, give it love and right, which is pretty special. Yeah, because we're definitely

Amy (21:45)
Not by much, by like.

great.

Host (22:06)
Well, you know, I say this and then as I'm thinking to say this, I'm like, is this true? I don't know. Like, I feel like we're losing our independent businesses. we are, but then there's so many startups. I feel like there's a lot in Kelowna that are coming and they're getting established.

Amy (22:26)
Maybe, I don't know, maybe Kelowna, Kelowna's interesting in that way is that we get so many tourists that the summer supports small businesses.

Host (22:35)
yeah i'm not sure and you know and maybe it's maybe it's more the medium businesses like the big conglomerates are taking over everything but the mom and pop and the little quirky stores there'll always be a place for those right and maybe it's more the more established i don't know

Amy (22:52)
I know, sometimes I see small businesses opening and I think, how are you guys going to do this? And they do. ⁓

Host (22:59)
Yeah. Well, sometimes

they don't, but yeah, sometimes they do. Yeah. It's like how, yeah, because really everything's expensive. Yes. Everything's expensive.

Amy (23:09)
Maybe it's just sheer grit, you know.

Host (23:12)
yeah

i don't know or online there's probably you there's a big side of the whole online world you don't see

Amy (23:17)
That's true, yeah.

Host (23:19)
But anyways, back to bean seeing. can you elaborate more on the philosophy of the store? Because there seems to be a really, and I've already forgot the words, what was it called? Third wave coffee roasting? Yeah. Can you elaborate on that?

Amy (23:34)
Sure. So, at this point, I feel like coffee has really evolved into something even more than third wave. Like third wave at this point in the coffee world is kind of old school. But that being said, I think there's kind of a pocket of where third wave coffee is kind of at its best.

You know, it's accessible to the public. It's not so niche and sort of niggly wiggly, you know, fancy pinky out coffee that you feel like you would be intimidated by it. So I think that's why third wave coffee will always be around.

Host (24:13)
What is the definition or the philosophy behind the name third wave coffee originally?

Amy (24:19)
So the

first wave of coffee, I probably will get this wrong.

Nabob, you know when back in the... So when coffee started to become popular, got brand names, got really became like brand names into households. And then the second wave, this is where I think I'm gonna get this wrong, is kind of like where coffee shops started to open.

Host (24:29)
Like, vultures and stuff. Yes. Okay.

Amy (24:51)
but they weren't necessarily fancy. Maybe you got the first hint of like Italian style coffee coming to North America. The third wave coffee is the kind of most general coffee shop coffee that you would know now is where you know, get lattes, you probably get latte art. have not.

You don't have big fluffy foamy drinks. People have learned how to texturize milk very nicely, which led to latte art and a real interest in sourcing beans from particular countries for...

flavor for different flavor profiles, things like that. So that's kind of like the third wave area of coffee.

Host (25:37)
Becoming more like mastering the craft a little bit more or establishing a craft. Roasting.

Amy (25:42)
And so beyond

that now people have, you know, created very interesting techniques of coffee extraction, like beyond, you know, your typical espresso bean or your espresso machine. You know, it's gone way beyond now.

Host (25:59)
It's like an art. Yeah. Well, no, it's a science. Well, actually, it's a science.

Amy (26:03)
Beautiful

thing about coffee is it really does mix like art and science together. yeah. We get a lot of baristas we find, we get a lot of sort of half and half minded people. We get a lot of artsy people that like to become baristas because they love the latte art aspect of it. And then we get a lot of

Host (26:08)
Yeah. That's a...

Amy (26:25)
what I think is sort of more left brain people who like the technical side. The technical side of the machinery. So yeah, we seem to get a lot of both kinds of people that like to be burst.

Host (26:29)
the chemistry of it.

Yeah, and then in it upon expanding the store to that new location. How do you keep the consistency with? with your coffees

Amy (26:48)
Sometimes it's just, I think just being there, just being there. A lot of it is just doing the same things over and over and over again. Sometimes it feels a little bit like you're banging your head against a wall. But it's just doing the same thing every day.

being there, being on top of people doing things the right way, having systems in place.

Host (27:09)
Yeah, because

I we had an old ⁓ what's what's that like the breville the breville the Little espresso and then it had the little foam wands so you could foam your milk. Yeah, the thing drove me absolutely mental because I'm really big on consistency like wanting a flavor right, you know, yeah, and then it ended up well, obviously the bean makes a difference, but then

Amy (27:16)
just be as little as the rest.

Host (27:38)
the course of the bean. But then it wasn't just that, it was like how much came out and then how much you packed it down into the thing, changed it, and then how much, like there was too many variables. So many. ⁓

Amy (27:51)
There are so many like that's why I

think when you have a home machine, you cannot blame yourself really For the quality of your coffee because it could be you know, your coffee could be getting older And so the water's gonna run through it differently It could be a rainy day and then the water is gonna run through your beans differently than it did the day before like there are so many variables and So I think when you take that to like a coffee shop level

You have a skilled barista who is in charge of the grind of coffee all day long. we, we change our grind. can't even tell you how many times a day, like they're just constantly monitoring how shots are running and adjusting as needed.

Host (28:28)
Really? To keep the consistency?

yeah, that

was the other thing, is how long the water ran through the shot.

Amy (28:40)
makes a huge difference on the flavor of your

extraction. And then, I mean, the sad thing that you always tell people when they want to know how to make better coffee at home is that sadly you do not have a $30,000 espresso machine. So it makes a huge, huge difference.

Host (28:55)
No.

Yeah, really you just need to develop a personality where you don't care, but it's hard when you just have that more anal, you know, I'm a bookkeeper now so I have that like attention to details and I'm like I could never get it the same. Yeah. I'm like all right.

Amy (29:12)
video.

And you, you know, if you wanted to spend that much time on coffee, you would probably have to waste, you'd have to waste so many shots.

Host (29:24)
okay

this was the other beef i had to to calibrate it yeah okay every time you got a new bean you're supposed to calibrate this thing well the number of shots you're doing you're running through so and the beans are expensive yeah you're running through so much coffee i'm like we are not saving money doing this so yeah

Amy (29:35)
years of running through.

⁓ Absolutely. You

either have to be willing to drink those shots and just kind of.

Host (29:49)
Some of them are horrendous.

Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, the thought of it's nice. The idea of it is great. Yes. And I'm sure there's lots of people out there that know their machine, like the back of their hand. just never got there.

Amy (30:02)
Yeah. So and you know those those machines, we have one of those machines at home too. And some days I think is this thing even working? You know?

Host (30:10)
Wait,

you work in a coffee shop with the most incredible coffee? And we have a lot of

Amy (30:16)
revel

at home.

Host (30:19)
because you can't wait till you get to work or what? weekend?

Amy (30:22)
Yeah,

the weekend. need something to drink. I'm mostly a drink, a drip coffee drinker. So we have a mocha master at home. Okay. but Al is a diehard espresso drinker. Like he will drink drip coffee in a pinch. he's also discovered that he absolutely loves espresso martinis. makes espresso martinis, but he

like absolutely has to have a fresh shot of espresso.

Host (30:47)
What is it just for

it? Espresso and vodka? Like cool vodka?

Amy (30:51)
Yeah, espresso vodka and then he learned from down from Shane down at born to shake I think it's Liquor 45 It's it's like liquor and a number. Okay, that's this very chocolatey tasting liqueur and it's a little bit sweet And it makes an amazing espresso martini

Host (31:14)
that's

awesome. Yeah, that's just down in the new area right there. Yeah. Beside Mother Ferments. Yeah. Man, I love that place, Mother Ferments. They're kombucha. I say, how did you say it? Yeah, I always say it wrong. My husband makes fun of me. I always say kombucha. Yeah. It's not. kombucha.

Amy (31:22)
Yeah, we carry their kombucha.

I'm

Pongucha.

Host (31:34)
yeah, no, yeah, it's a good place.

Any other aspects to the business that you'd want to touch on or life or?

Amy (31:41)
What else can we talk about? Do you want to talk about the bakery?

Host (31:46)
Yes, yeah.

Amy (31:47)
The bakery, the bakery we've always just tried to kind of keep it very homey. Sort of stuff like you would have that your grandma bakes you, you know. Cones, cookies, loves, just simple things. Nothing very fancy that would just go nicely with a cup of coffee. Yeah, so.

Host (31:58)
Biscuits. ⁓

How did you get Because your first job was, well not first job, sorry, but you became the baker, but you didn't have baking experience before that.

Amy (32:18)
I didn't

really. I mean, I had baked a little bit in the cafe that I worked in when I lived in. Yeah. So we had done kind of similar stuff, just, you know, really simple baking, but I don't really have huge skills as a baker. ⁓

Host (32:24)
or like those pies you're talking about.

had had. Yeah,

I mean, because you probably do now.

Amy (32:40)
I do okay now. I don't have to spend that much time in the bakery anymore. We have good bakers that work for us now. They have been very instrumental in moving things forward for us, like bringing in new ideas. I'm always happy to have somebody who is like excited about trying something new.

Host (33:00)
That new

energy that you're talking about. Yeah.

Amy (33:02)
Absolutely.

I think you would be silly to not harness that in somebody and allow them to do their thing. Yes. Someone who's crazy excited to try something new, you know, that's a valuable energy to have.

Host (33:23)
So how do you balance the time between the coffee and the bakery?

Amy (33:27)
like me personally?

Host (33:28)
yeah or the business aspect of it like do you do you watch the numbers for the do you want to keep the numbers above a certain amount for the bakery like how do you know how much to what to make what to produce i'm assuming it's a not a loss leader for the store that you're making money off of it

Amy (33:44)
Not

necessarily. We have pars that we try and fill every single day now that we've, you know, we're kind of in the groove with it now that we know how much we're going to sell every day and we try and make just enough so that, you know, by the end of the day the shelves are pretty empty, that we don't have that much waste and I think...

We've been in it long enough that you can make some educated guesses. Time of year weather. Weather is a weird thing that affects coffee sales.

Host (34:10)
season, of year event. ⁓

Wait, does it go... okay, if it's a rainy day, would coffee sales increase? Because it's cooler and it's cozy.

Amy (34:26)
Yes, definitely.

But

then also if it's been rainy for a while and it's a sunny day, it will also get busier because people will come in for an ice drink. right. Weather changes seem to have a weird effect on how busy we're going to be. If it snows, we're dead. Really? Yeah. If it's like, if it's a big snow, people just don't go out.

Host (34:51)
yeah, people don't leave their house, that's snow very often in Kalama, it doesn't. You're

like, I can wait till tomorrow and then will be good. that's interesting. They have a favorite thing to bake, and with that, second part to the question, is there something that you've just baked so much you're like, ⁓ my goodness.

Amy (34:56)
Yeah.

I would say ginger cookies. Ginger cookies probably one of my favorite things. I can do the recipe off by heart, like off, I don't have to look at the recipe anymore. just, I know it. I can make it. What else?

Host (35:20)
The smell of those are so good too.

Amy (35:22)
Yeah, it's I always think that the headquarters location when you walk in it No matter what we're making it always kind of smells a little bit like ginger cookies like we bake them so often. They just get baked every day. It's probably the number one thing that we make

Yeah, it just always has a hint of ginger cookie. That being said, when I spend time there, when I leave work in the day, I can hop in my car and smell myself.

Host (35:48)
just smell.

was the morning baker for Timmy's for just over a year. They call it the morning baker, but you're not baking. You're reheating stuff because it's all frozen. But that there's this smell. Yeah. you when you left.

Amy (36:06)
I it's gonna smell like a donut, but it's not really that good.

Host (36:09)
don't know

what it was. And you'd have to have a shower every day because it just permeated your skin. There wasn't deep fryers or anything there either. don't know.

Amy (36:13)
Yeah.

Yeah,

it's oil in the air. Yeah, or roasting days at our shop. just, when you go home and have a shower, it's like you get your hair wet and it smells like somebody's brewing a fresh cup of coffee. So good.

Host (36:21)
That must be it.

It's just on smell the roasted coffee. So good

So good. Can you tell what coffee they're roasting based on the smell? are you in tune with that now?

Amy (36:42)
Well, I can tell

dark roast versus medium roast. But apart from that, I can't say roasting, can tell. But I can look at a bin of coffee and tell you what it is most of the time. ⁓

Host (36:54)
How many varieties

of beans do you carry?

Amy (36:56)
We have our espresso bean blend, so our espresso graph. Then we have a decaf blend. We call it same bark, no bite. That looks vastly different than the espresso blend, just color-wise and bean shape and size-wise. can tell the difference. And then we do a couple of dark roasts for those kind of old school dark roast lovers. And then the rest of it, we do single origin medium.

roasts. And so medium roasts, it's a little bit harder for me to tell. Al could probably tell you better than I could. But yeah, bean size, bean shape, bean density, usually I can tell what area of the world beans come from. It's just like...

Host (37:34)
That's impressive,

Amy (37:36)
It's cool. it for

so long. Yeah. Over and over and over again. Yeah. Yeah. It's one of those weird skills that you don't really think of as a skill, but I guess it kind of is.

Host (37:46)
It's

all what crew you're, you know, around. For the bean world, that's a skill. Have you sourced your beans from the same place or are you always kind of scouting out new locations?

Amy (37:58)
So we have ⁓ green bean brokers that we deal with and they are the, they're the people that travel the world sourcing out all the beans. Yeah. And then we just, they're like the middleman for us. We buy from them. They tell us where is good this year. You know, what's, what is the right price for us? ⁓

Host (38:09)
investigators.

Oh, there must be coffee bean conventions or something. I take it you haven't been to one. Or has Al been to one?

Amy (38:26)
I'm sure there are.

I haven't

been to a coffee bean convention, but we on several occasions have been to like latte art competitions. Ooh. So we went for a few years in a row. We've gone to Seattle and to Portland and participated with our staff. That's fine. latte art competitions.

Host (38:51)
That's cool. Do get to bring your own supplies or do they supply everything?

Amy (38:56)
You can bring

your own because people are very, very particular. Yes. So like we brought our own jugs. We brought our own cups that we wanted to pour into. Yeah. And then everything else is supplied by the competition.

Host (38:58)
I was gonna say because it's so specific.

And then how does that, so how does the competition work? there a time where you get, you must be able to like, there must be like a practice time to practice on the machines.

Amy (39:18)
You can go the day before.

Host (39:20)
Yeah

Amy (39:21)
and everybody gets a little bit of a one run on the machine. So you kind of have an idea because it, most of time it was different machines than we have in our shops. So we have white Eagles. Um, and these were, I can't remember which ones these were, but these were different. So you, you get to run a shot and use the steamer. Um, and then you just have to go in kind of cold the next day. It's a nerve. Yeah.

Host (39:47)
all like feel hey

are there different classifications how do they market

Amy (39:52)
Nope, just, you, like for the, judge the latte art. Yeah. Yeah. There's, there's a bunch of different things. There's like color contrast it's marked on design, design difficulty. what else is there? There's one more.

Yeah, there's something else. There's like five things that they're judged on. yeah, we didn't get crazy far. think we've had two people make it to the third round. ⁓

Host (40:22)
how many

people.

Amy (40:23)
It was I think it was about a hundred and twenty people Wow, and this is people from all over the world So I mean to be even Accepted into the diff

Host (40:33)
You pictures for your... ⁓ so you're selected to go.

Amy (40:37)
And you have to write an essay about why you want to be in the competition. ⁓ how? But yeah, it was really cool to just be a part of that in the whole coffee world. And then we also judged while we were there, we judged an espresso competition. So people had submitted their beans and

Host (40:47)
community of

Amy (40:57)
We got to sit as judges and taste and endless espresso. ⁓

Host (41:02)
What do you

use between, do you use something to cleanse your palate? Just water it.

Amy (41:05)
Just little sip of water.

And really you're meant to, like there were, I think there was about 50 shots of espresso. you're meant to just take a sip. One of the funny things that happened when we were at the competition is one of, there was a, just this little tiny Japanese girl, like the tiniest human and she was on the judging panel.

She was drinking full shots of espresso every time we were tasting. by like halfway through, she just was starting to look quite pale and quite sweaty. And at one point she just got up and walked away from the table. Tapped out. Yeah. was it for her. This is too much. No, slow it down.

Host (41:39)
my goodness.

He said, hey.

It's vodka, vodka judging or wine tasting, right? Like if you don't know.

Amy (41:58)
too much.

And really, like, I don't know if you've ever had the coffee sweats.

Host (42:05)
No, we've never had coffee sweats.

Amy (42:06)
It's not a good feeling. It's terrible. I just too much caffeine where you can like feel your heartbeat in your fingertips. It's so bad. It's such a bad feeling. ⁓

Host (42:16)
man your

heart rate must just be through the roof.

Amy (42:19)
and you just feel like it's never gonna go away.

Host (42:22)
my goodness. Is there anything you can take to counteract the cat?

Amy (42:25)
I think the only thing is just drink flush it with water like as much as possible. Just gotta wait it out.

Host (42:32)
It's getting ivy in there.

that sounds so what during the competition did they have a camera overhead so you could see other people's art while they were doing it yeah that's cool i bet you there's people who have a brand new design that no one's seen before and then they bust it out and like the final round of man i gotta do some google searching after this and look at the pictures

Amy (42:43)
Yeah.

You can

go down a rabbit hole of YouTube latte art. Absolutely.

Host (42:58)
just going to change my algorithm.

Is there a design that one of your baristas does at your place that is kind of like the standout one?

Amy (43:08)
roses became very popular for a while. cause they're a little bit tricky to do. can we have one other one that we, we only do for special customers? That's a little bit rude.

that we call the cockachino because you can make something that kind of looks like a penis pretty easily. Like it actually ends up getting made by accident quite often. Cause when you're trying to make a Rosetta, you know, the one that sort of looks like a leaf. when you're first learning how to do that, it's very easy to accidentally make a penis. sometimes we'll, baristas will like give it to people they know or

Host (43:39)
you

Yeah,

you're like my trial run. Yeah. that's nice

Amy (43:48)
We actually had one competition that we had a really close group of staff that went to a competition together. And, this was probably the third time we had been to competition and we were in Portland and everyone was very excited to be there. And the staff went, they were all in a hotel room together the night before and had decided to try some great Portland beer.

and a lot of it, and they were going to pay one of our staff that was in the competition, $200 to pour a cappuccino in the competition. But he wouldn't do it. You would definitely not be. So I said, oh,

Host (44:16)
you

He wouldn't know, man. Yeah, you wouldn't be invited back, right?

Is

this an annual event? it always in Portland?

Amy (44:37)
⁓ It is, yeah.

It's quite often in Portland. It goes back and forth. Portland, Chicago, Seattle, Anaheim are kind of... And New York. The hubs. Yeah. Is where they are generally held. Yeah. And Portland, think just being like... Portland and Seattle being a real coffee city. Yeah. They're quite often there.

Host (44:59)
Well, that is so cool.

Amy (45:01)
Yeah, and it's fun because then when you're there, we just made it a thing to go to all the best coffee shops in town. cool. So it's, you you and everybody else in the competition is just bombarding these coffee shops. Yeah. Tasting their espresso.

Host (45:17)
Even when Craft 42 is on, we were talking about the craft culture, coffee culture in Kelowna and how it's growing. I had the thought that we've had the wine industry for so long. People come here to try wine. And then this, north end with the microbreweries, or the craft breweries, it's a destination. People come here to try all this beer. ⁓

Amy (45:28)
Yeah.

Yeah.

you

Absolutely. ⁓

Host (45:41)
and

I don't know anywhere where you would go and hop craft coffee but like why not? absolutely and there's so many popping up like wouldn't that be so cool if Kelowna became this little like craft coffee hub as well

Amy (45:55)
Yes, and you know it there's good coffee here. Yeah, like when I think about craft 42 I think about bright Jenny

Host (46:03)
Slow, Slow Snail or the one besides Sprout? ⁓ So good. Anarchy? Yeah and it's like, it would be, I feel like you all could really make it something. Yeah. And you could have a little thing you could pick up where you could, with a map or something, or a passport book, we could go like, hey while you're vacationing in Kelowna for the weekend or the week, try it, here are all the craft cultures.

Amy (46:05)
Yes, exactly. Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely.

Host (46:28)
half

coffee spot, sorry, and like fill out the little passport and you know, learn about each, learn about each small business and all that. Like that would be so cool. And then you could listen to the podcast as you're going to between the stores. ⁓

Amy (46:44)
We've actually had a big latte art competition held at our headquarters location before where we invited everybody from like every coffee person in town. There were people from Armstrong came. Yeah, it was great. was super fun.

Host (46:57)
It's so fun.

that's so cool. The vibe

in it.

Amy (47:05)
Ask the

music and everybody. Yeah. Yeah.

Host (47:09)
Getting the jitters. Yeah,

that would be really neat. Yeah, that's cool.

Amy (47:14)
feel like that's something we could definitely do again. ⁓

Host (47:16)
⁓

yeah, Invite the public to see. Or you could have like a live stream or something so that you could post the latte art as it comes on some of these social media feeds and stuff.

Amy (47:28)
We had some

judges that were, we had some chefs from different restaurants be judges for us. ⁓ We had some food vendors there. Yeah, it was super.

Host (47:39)
be really neat that would be cool and then you could have like non-professionals enter as like a wild card yeah you have a little competition for your at-home latte art people and then they could you know the winner could compete against the

Amy (47:54)
Somebody, yeah, somebody who's really good. Cool. We always try and hype up whenever we have new people, because we have in-house latte art competitions all the time.

Host (47:56)
Yeah, that'd be really good.

of

Amy (48:04)
And there's inevitably every single time some fresh employee that has like never really poured latte art. It's like their third day or something like that. we always try and really hype them up, get someone else to steam the milk for them. it's like nice and easy to pour. then that's because absolutely, like if you don't have well steamed milk, you're just going to pour a big blob in your cup. It's never going to go anywhere.

Yeah.

Host (48:30)
And

then you see people, they're like steaming too at once, you know? doing that! That's talented. It seems like you got a really good thing going,

Amy (48:34)
I know, I know. I love when people do stuff like that.

Yeah, we try. Yeah.

Host (48:47)
And

it's only in Kelowna,

Amy (48:50)
Yeah, yeah.

We thought about expanding at one point, but you know, it's almost like having children, right? Like, you only have enough arms to hold so many little kids.

Host (49:01)
That's it. And part of the thing is, especially small, small businesses, is that people, it's you. You are the face of the business. And people come and see you and they're connected to you.

Amy (49:11)
Like, yeah, that's the thing.

Yeah.

Host (49:17)
the culture you've created, a lot of that is your personality and all that. But then when you open a second store, you can't be in two places at once. How do you maintain that vibe and that culture and that feel when you're not there?

Amy (49:26)
Absolutely.

Right. Yeah, it's not easy. I mean, you have to kind of stretch yourself fairly thin. You have to put yourself, you have to just show up every day, make sure things are the way that you want them to be. You have to put...

some trusted people in places where you know that they know what your intentions and what your desires are. Yeah. ⁓ and just trust that they will carry that out for you. Yeah. So, mean, I would, it's almost easier if you just stay small because trusting other people to recreate, to create your, your vision.

Host (49:57)
Yeah.

And they're never going to have the same love as you because you are the one at the end of the day. It's you. And the bills end up on you and you're in the one pain for everything. There's a different responsibility and stress and all that. Right.

Amy (50:15)
It's our little baby. It's baby.

Yeah, a thousand percent.

Host (50:27)
Anyways, should we wrap her up? Yeah, it was so nice to meet you. Yeah, okay. Yeah, I really appreciate it. Now I'm totally gonna go look at latte art

Amy (50:30)
Nice to meet you. Thank you for having me.