Brewing Change: How Stone Creek Coffee Balances Business Success with Social Responsibility | Restaurants & Franchises Series

 Anthony Codispoti : Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired by how they’ve overcome adversity. My name is Anthony Codispoti and today’s guests are partners in business and in life. First of all, Melissa Perez, User Experience Director and co-owner of Stone Creek Coffee. They are a Milwaukee based specialty coffee roaster that operates as a benefit corporation focusing on environmental stewardship, local community impact and socially responsible practices.

They strive to create opportunities for positive roles in communities and are known for their commitment to local hiring, suppliers and continuous improvement in quality. Throughout Melissa’s time at Stone Creek Coffee, she has led efforts to elevate the customer experience and champion numerous social initiatives. Under her guidance, Stone Creek Coffee has been recognized for its dedication to sustainability, earning praise for ethically sourced beans and community involvement. In addition to working at Stone Creek Coffee, Melissa is also a user experience designer at Gomal Research and Design.

She previously served as a marketing information analyst at Miller Brewing Company. And also with us is Eric Resch, co-owner and founder of Stone Creek Coffee. In 1993, at the age of 24, Eric established Stone Creek Coffee under the corporate name Geary Corporation, a name derived from the Samurai Code of Honor Bushido, meaning social obligation.

Guided by this principle, Stone Creek has evolved from a small roaster from the Midwest into a nationally recognized leader in the coffee industry. Eric holds a bachelor’s degree in business and sociology from the University of Wisconsin, Mesa, Madison, and earned his MBA from Northwestern University. Now, before we get into all that good stuff, today’s episode is brought to you by my company, AdBak Benefits Agency, where we offer very specific and unique employee benefits that are both great for your team and fiscally optimized for your bottom line. One recent client was able to add over $900 per employee per year in extra cash flow by implementing one of our innovative programs. Results vary for each company and some organizations may not be eligible.

To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at adbackbenefitsagency.com. Now back to our guests today, co-owners Melissa and Eric. I appreciate you making the time to share your stories today. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, so before we talk about Stone Creek, Melissa, let’s talk about your other job. What is user experience design?

Melissa Perez  : Okay, so user experience design, I’ll describe what it isn’t. So there’s user experience design and then there’s usability and then there’s user interface. So user interface is what it looks like when you look at a computer screen and how things are laid out. Usability is how easy something is to use. User experience incorporates those things plus just how a user or a customer or a person or employee or anyone actually experiences the entire entity, like not just what’s in front of you but what’s around you, you know, all your five senses and so that’s what user experience design is. So it can be applied towards user interfaces but it could also be applied towards a customer waiting in line and looking at your menu board.

 Anthony Codispoti : So yeah, that’s actually a great segue. Give us a practical example of how this experience comes into play with the coffee business.

Melissa Perez  : Okay, with the coffee business, multiple ways. So just putting my consulting hat on for Eric, I’ve created projects where you look at the workflow of the menu or you look at the workflow of how customers go throughout the line and then also just customer behaviors and customers in this point is the employee. So our employees are like, I treat them like our customers as well. So I’ll do behavioral interviews and just see like, okay, you’re trying to create this new experience for a customer. What are the pain points and just to see what the day in the life is for our employees. And so based off of those, I’ll provide the leadership team with strategies of things that we can tweak or change. And so I do that regularly. So with user experience consulting, there’s a lot of interviews, a lot of observations.

 Anthony Codispoti : I want to come back to that and hear maybe a couple of specific stories but before we get there, let me shift over to Eric. And Eric, because I know that you can’t be with us for the full time today. So I want to make sure we get, you know, a good chunk of your story out here. So tell us kind of how the idea to Start Stone Creek came about.

Eric Resch: Yeah, happy to if I can remember it. I’m just kidding. So 30-ish plus years ago, I was an undergrad at Madison University of Wisconsin. And like many of us, either after college, after high school, trying to find our bearings with how do I deed myself, how do I grow into a functioning adult? And I just kept trying to reflect on what is it that I love doing?

I was using that as my, you know, North Star. What do I love? And could I make a living out of that? And what I realized is I love just sitting around in coffee shops. Like it was where I did my homework. It’s where I met my friends.

It was just a wonderful social environment. And so I decided I would pursue coffee. And this was after I had bought a blue suit, a really uncomfortable tie.

I had done some interviewing on campus and just, yeah, felt really uncomfortable. So I essentially decided coffees by my direction. And I loaded up my, I don’t know, 1984 Toyota Camry and drove across the country to Seattle and post graduation, spend some time couch surfing and grunge music, dancing, and tried to figure out the coffee scene.

This was 1991, when Starbucks was only in two markets, had, you know, 30-ish stores. I spent December there. And then I ended up going to Chicago, working for Starbucks for about 14 months, something like that.

Melissa Perez  : As a barista. I need to interject. At that time, Chicago, just Chicago had a few cafes. Now they have like 660-some cafes in the Chicago area. Right.

 Anthony Codispoti : Well, and in 1991, Eric, actually, I mean, this is really early days. How did you even know that Seattle was sort of the mecca for this? You know, the internet wasn’t really a thing. Like you decide you want to get into coffee. How did you even know that that’s where to go?

Eric Resch: I knew of Starbucks. I don’t really know how. I had heard of it. Dark roasted coffee. There were a couple other Italian origin-based coffee companies in Seattle at the time.

Torfazione being one. And I guess I just, I don’t know, read the newspaper, as kids did back then, and drove out there and just checked it out. And I had some friends out there.

I was on the rowing team at Madison, and some friends lived out there after graduation. So they put me up. And yeah, then I ended up in Chicago, worked at 35 East Wacker, across from what was the SunTimes building, and just worked five to noon, learned how to pull shots and mount the floors. And then I eventually bought a coffee roaster, moved back to Wisconsin, taught myself how to roast. And yeah, we were off and running.

 Anthony Codispoti : I mean, that is actually a bit of a big jump there. You’re working for somebody else. And then you make the big step of, I’m going to leave sort of the safety security of this job that’s paying me to show up every day.

And I’m going to invest some of my own money into a coffee roaster and like, like help fill in some of the gaps there. Like how did this actually get launched? Yeah.

Eric Resch: Yeah, it’s a good question. I don’t mean to make it sound easy or not scary because it was hard and scary. I had received a small inheritance, I don’t know, $18,000, which at the time was like, what the heck?

My grandmother had passed away. And I decided I would invest that money in a coffee roaster. And so I did some research and bought this coffee roaster, shipped it to Milwaukee, and then started roasting and eventually built some connections in this market with regard to retail locations and decided that I would start the business going down the retail path. And eventually some years later, we did wholesale and obviously eventually e-commerce and other channels.

But that was it. I did everything in the beginning from the roasting to the hiring to the accounting and worked, you know, 12, 14 hours a day for year after year, just grinding. We will try to make some coffee jokes, that being one, and just kind of kept building. Here we are. Here we are today.

 Anthony Codispoti : And so at what point in those early days did you realize I’ve got something that can actually last? Like you were starting to generate some profit, like the proof of concept that was there, like the customers are consistent? Or are you not quite at that point yet?

Eric Resch: Yeah, no, that’s why I paused. No, I would say realistically in all seriousness, it took 15 to 18 years for me to get the business from a sort of cash flow neutral. And part of the reasons I built retail stores using term debt, we are 100% employee owned, we have no external, you know, funding sources. We borrowed all the money along the way, paid every nickel back as we went along. And so I was highly leveraged for a good 15 to 18 years before the cash flow. And some of this debt started coming off the books. And we really felt like we had some clear sailing.

 Anthony Codispoti : Melissa, at what point in this trajectory did you get involved?

Melissa Perez  : That would be 16, 17 years ago. And how did that all come about?

Eric Resch: Maybe that’s why we started doing better.

 Anthony Codispoti : That’s when things finally started to click.

Eric Resch: Yeah, exactly. It coincides. So how did the two of you meet? Let’s start there.

Melissa Perez  : Oh, yes, we met at a dinner party, but I was already applying to graduate schools. I wanted to study human computer interaction or that’s what it was called before user experience design. And Eric and I were dating and he’s just like, why don’t you look at Midwest schools?

Because I was looking at the West Coast and the East Coast. And then it was a two year program. We got engaged. I went to my first year of grad school.

And all my friends were like, they were doing internships at Google and Facebook. And I’m like, okay, okay, we’re definitely getting married. Yes, we’re definitely getting married. Okay, we’re definitely living in Milwaukee. Yes, we’re definitely living in Milwaukee. And then I’m like, okay, okay.

 Anthony Codispoti : Both great things. Both great realizations. Yeah, great things. And it actually worked out really well because then I started working. I found like a boutique user experience design firm. And they were ahead of their time where they actually were on the West Coast and they moved to the Midwest to raise their family.

Melissa Perez  : And the first year or so, like I was, you could travel like travel internationally. And I was traveling a lot and consulting. And then we had our first child. And I’m like, okay, I think I’m done. I’m not, I’m gonna try the stay at home mom thing. And like, you know, month three, I’m like, okay, I can’t do this stay at home.

I was like, it’s amazing how tough that is. And I really missed working. I really missed consulting. And so, you know, after Felix, our eldest was a year, I went back.

And then our second, I was, we were pregnant with our second one. And then I’m like, okay, I have to quit. And they’re like, no, no, don’t don’t quit. Just come back when you’re ready.

And so it worked out. And then the third, I’m like, okay, I’m done. They’re like, no, you’re not done.

Just don’t quit. Just you’ll just pick and choose projects. And so I do about two projects a year doing user experience design costs. And that’s really perfect because it keeps me like, in the industry, it keeps me learning, meeting new people using my brain.

And then I can apply those learnings to stupid coffee. So I should add, so in between those, those times when I was Eric kept on pulling me in and showing me like the financial reports and pulling me in, it’s like, Hey, what do you think of this? And I think one of the reasons why we work really well together is because I we both love working, we both love problem solving.

And so it was fun for me to just, you know, just like brainstorm with Eric about his work. And so he kept on pulling me in until eventually he pulled me in full time.

 Anthony Codispoti : Just like a magnet. He drew you to him, he drew you to Milwaukee, he drew you into the business.

Melissa Perez  : Yes. So, okay, so let’s hear a specific example, Melissa, of how your work and user experience design has helped Stone Creek Coffee. Like, give me one where like, Oh, this was a cool one. I think really, it’s the philosophy. So we have a saying at Stone Creek, well, we have a couple, but one of them is never stop learning. And that comes from the idea of user experience design where it’s, so my motto is everything is iterative, or ephemeral, and or ephemeral. But so with this idea that it’s iterative, and the idea that, you know, never stop learning, you can always try something. And you learn from failure, which I’m sure a lot of your other guests have talked about, but we really embrace it. We embrace it as like, it’s, let’s talk about this. Do we still want to move proceed, even though it’s risky?

Yes, no. And then we try and execute as much as possible. And if it doesn’t work, then we iterate. And then if it still doesn’t work, we iterate. And then eventually we’re like, okay, yeah, we don’t like doing this anymore. And so then it’s ephemeral. So we’ll try something new. And that really has just, so just the philosophy itself, I feel like a user experience design has helped our company really embrace risks.

 Anthony Codispoti : Do you have a rule of thumb if you iterate X number of times, and it’s still not working, that it gets chucked? Or is it just sort of more see how it goes and kind of what your gut tells you in the moment?

Melissa Perez  : Sorry, I was like, yes, no, it’s if the team is not having fun doing it. And it’s not, it’s like, we hold it, is it bringing us joy? No, no longer. Then, then we talk about it, like, and we don’t put ourselves in painful situations, even if it’s if it could make lots of money. If it’s not enjoyable to us, then we won’t do it.

 Anthony Codispoti : I want to take a step back and kind of talk about the company more philosophically and a little bit structurally too. So you’re a benefit corporation, all employee owned. There’s this idea of the samurai code of honor Bushido, meaning social obligation. Tell me kind of how all of this plays together. I think Eric, you should go first.

Eric Resch: Okay, yeah. So it’s, it fits together as more of a story, meaning when I started the company, I started it, I named it Geary Corporation, which as you said, Anthony is mean social obligation, sort of loosely in the samurai code of honor. And I did that philosophically as a 24 year old before the company named Stone Creek Coffee, our DBA was even set up.

That was just a belief I held that if I was going to be in business, I was going to try to build a company that had a responsibility to things beyond making a profit. So that’s sort of day zero. And then day one, Stone Creek shows up, and we start building and we have tried to bake into all our decision making our culture, and how we run the company of this general idea of social responsibility. And then, I don’t know, 10, 12 years ago, B labs, and might be even more started this, this organizational structure, this corporate structure, called the B corporation, but corporations are set up at the state level. So it takes an act of state Congress to, to initiate a B Corp in a given state, Wisconsin got theirs, I don’t know, five years ago.

So we were certified a few years ago. And what that did is it brought essentially structure to this, this philosophy of social responsibility. And there’s five work areas that the B Corp sort of estests you on, you get a score and every two years you have to be recertified to remain a B Corp. The areas are workers, governance, community, environment and customers. And so we report out every year in our impact report on how we’re impacting those five work areas, if you will. And then the last part of your question was about being employee owned. And it’s always been Melissa in my philosophy that our team, they are number one, we build for them with them.

They are the middle of the concentric circle. And we treat them, you know, like, not so much like customers, but we, we, we think of them first and foremost as we make decisions. So we have nine, eight, I guess, soon to be 10 employee owners. And we have what’s called a phantom stock plan, or essentially it’s a contractual relationship, whereby we value the company every year. And these employee owners essentially have a basis or a zero, and that’s set at a value when they come into the program.

And then if and when they leave the company, they’re paid out based on the accrued value that happens during their tenure. That’s the current plan. And I put that plan in place a number of years ago, with the long term plan that we would eventually sell the whole company when Melissa and I are tired, I will be tired seven years sooner than Melissa, because I’m seven years older.

But when we’re tired and we’re ready to move on, the plan is to do an ESOP and take this, this current phantom stock contractual type ownership and turn it into actual ownership via an ESOP that will probably happen in two different recapitulations down the road as we continue our values of being 100% employee owned.

 Anthony Codispoti : Melissa, what’s your take on all this? Why is this kind of a structure so important to you?

Melissa Perez  : The structure is important to me because we, I just didn’t like pause because I was listening to Eric and I was like, yes.

 Anthony Codispoti : He nailed it, huh? He was just saying like our employees are not our customers, but I kind of view it differently.

Melissa Perez  : Like, I feel like the, there are type of customers. It’s really easy to work on really hard problems and work hard if you enjoy the environment you’re in and you enjoy like serving people. And so both Eric and I actually, we love, we, our brains love like working out things and we always like we serve others. And I see that with our employees, I’m a lot behind the scenes. Eric’s more like very coffee operations and I’m more like in terms of strategy and, and behind the scenes. And I, I definitely see it as long term, you know, there’s mostly 20 year olds like average 20, 30 year olds working for us.

And as I said, everything is iterative. So what are they going to take if they move on to another career after this? So I see like a responsibility in hiring people, like especially if they’re teenagers or they’re early 20s and they’re, and it’s between like semesters at college, what are they going to take away from Stokey Coffee and that they’ll use for the rest of their life? So we have like these core commitments. We really teach these, these values that are extremely important to us that they can use later on in life. So I feel like that’s what that also means to me. Any else? Yep.

 Anthony Codispoti : We just lost you there for a second. That’s okay. It records locally on your side. So we’ll, we’ll get it when we download it. So I’m just, it’s okay. I’m, I’m curious to hear like for each of you, like where do these values, these strong values come from? You just come out of the womb this way, where you guys raised in a certain way, where there’s certain like, you know, experiences that you had growing up where, you know, these kinds of things became really important to you. Well, so Eric and I are both lifelong learners. And so we’ve had lots of mentors, both of us, same mentors, different mentors. And a lot of these core commitments came from our discussions with the mentors and what really, you know, resonated with us. Eric, do you want to add to that?

Eric Resch: Yeah, I’d say it’s that. And, and then Anthony, as you said, it has a lot to do with how you’re raised, you know, both the type of parents, the type of house, the type of culture that you have. And I was raised in a home with a father who was an engineer, pretty hard driving, built his own company. And so I learned a lot from him about hard work and building and creating and fixing when things are, you know, broken. And then I, my mom was, yeah, just gentle. And if I was sick, I had a little bell I could ring. And I remember that distinctly, you know, she was, she was just filled with love and kindness. And so when I look back on the values that I carry, both in the business and in my life, they’re, they’re a combination of those two deep influences. Yeah, that I had.

Melissa Perez  : Yeah. And then, and then my parents were immigrants from the Philippines and very hardworking. So hard work is as a court and then also clean the corners, make sure all the details are set. It’s, I would agree. And then also learning, like, and in the immigrant culture, it’s like learning will get you out of anything.

 Anthony Codispoti : Get you out of anything.

Melissa Perez  : Well, just get you.

 Anthony Codispoti : Oh, gotcha. It’s, it’s a way through. Right. Gotcha. It’s a way up. So, okay, so let’s talk about the current state of the business. How many locations we got retail, we got wholesale kind of paint a picture for us.

Eric Resch: Yeah, I’ll do that quickly. And then listen, you can add any color. So currently the company, and I just want to be clear, like the assumption that Stone Creek is not that we should be bigger, like we don’t wake up every day trying to be bigger. Like I think there is this notion in all business that you should grow, grow, grow.

And I do think that that’s true. You should be changing, changing, changing. But we have tried to build the business so that it remains intimate and that we stay connected to our teams, our people.

So that could be tricky. We have nine retail cafes. We have a B2B or wholesale business somewhere in 250 to 300, you know, regional, local accounts that we serve restaurants, corporations, other coffee houses, and then we have a B2B business, I’m sorry, an e-commerce business from Stone Creek Coffee.com and some of the other social tools, where we’re shipping coffee, you know, around the country every day. So we have plus or minus 200, 220 people. Melissa and I have worked hard, as I said, to try to keep the number of people limited so that we can maintain connections and walk into any of our cafes, any part of the business, and know at least, you know, a handful of people by name, have a relationship, and so that we stay connected to the culture. Melissa, anything to add to that?

Melissa Perez  : Just add to that, like we, you know, when we were trying to figure out growth, like we tried Chicago and we just realized, no, we don’t really want to go that far.

We tried Madison, no, we don’t want to go that far. So it was like through, it was through these like trials that we realized what we wanted and what we wanted to focus on. And so instead of opening a new cafe, we can just remodel a current one that is tired or old. And we kind of have like almost like hit interval, like where it’s, we work really, really hard. And then we have the cash. And then instead of opening another cafe, we’ll use that cash on our employees and also remodeling one of our cafes. And so we try to keep the spaces really beautiful and interesting.

 Anthony Codispoti : What does it look like to use that cash on your employees?

Melissa Perez  : Yeah, everything. Yeah, that’s a good question. Yeah, like everything from, you know, buying them Christmas dinner to like getting them bucks tickets to bonuses to, I mean, there’s a lot of different ways in which we should do that. Or even simply like, you know, one of our cafes, we remodeled the employee bathroom so that it looked really nice. You know, it’s just, just depending on that, I mean, there’s lots of different ways, you know, everyone gets a t-shirt a year. So there’s all these little small things that I’m sure other companies do. Yeah. Yeah.

Eric Resch: There’s, there’s also, this morning, actually, I think eight people jumped on a jet plane and they’re all flying down to Guatemala. If you work for us for five years, we take you to Guatemala. So every year we’re running one or two employee trips to Guatemala, they’ll be down there visiting one of our long time partners outside of Antigua. And then in the evenings, they’ll be drinking and running around Antigua and having a blast.

And for many of our baristas and other employees who are on that trip, you know, half of them are more two thirds have to get their passport, don’t have one, never left the country. So yeah, again, fits in the philosophy of never stop learning. The other thing we do not only buy you Christmas dinner if you want to go pick it up, you know, when we buy bucks tickets, we have to buy, you know, 50 sets or whatever. But what we also do is we focus on a living wage. So one of the core areas of the B Corp is our workers, it’s called workers, not my favorite word, but that’s the category. And we use the MIT living wage study calibration to target living wages for different roles. And we have 100% of people at Stone Creek have a living wage for an individual.

And if you have a family, we are now working towards getting 100% for a family. And that’s a high bar. I think in our 2023 impact report, the average barista made 44,000, I don’t have the number in front of me. But that’s for in this market for a single person is a living wage, which is substantially above our peers. And to do that, there’s all kinds of things we have to prioritize and ways we have to perform in the business. But not only do we get the box tickets and the dinner, but we actually focus on the heavy lift of improving wages for everybody across the business every year.

 Anthony Codispoti : I mean, that’s substantial. Yeah, $44,000 a year. And that was a year and a half ago. Yeah, I mean, that has to mean thinner margins for the two of you as the owners, right?

Eric Resch: It does, actually. In terms of let me be careful what I say, so we get paid fine. I think if I was benchmarked against other companies, CEOs or managing directors, I would be lower. But that’s a choice that we made based on our values and based on how we choose to live and what’s important to us. So yeah, at Stone Creek, it’s never about the money, except when it’s about the money to pay the bills, make the cash flow we need, take care of our debt. We’re fiscally strong managers, not because we want to have a huge house and have all the accoutrements. But what we want is a business that’s managed well so we can deliver on behalf of all of our employees.

 Anthony Codispoti : So you have nine locations. Sounds like you’ve tried some in different locations, and that wasn’t your thing. You wanted to keep it more contained, more locally, a little bit more intimate. So is there the opportunity for the Milwaukee and surrounding areas to support more than nine Stone Creek locations? Is there a thought there?

Eric Resch: Yes. Yeah, I mean, to answer your question, absolutely. We could build, particularly our next, our most recent generation of our cafes has a full Black Iron kitchen where we have a just a really scratch made, beautiful brunch and all day menu that has really augmented the coffee program and the bakery. We run a bakery commissary downtown that serves all of our cafes.

So everything we make at Stone Creek food-wise is scratch made. But to answer your question, sound like a commercial. Yes, we could open more locations. I think the difficulty with retail and retail coffee and other coffee owners would express this is it’s kind of a unique business venture in the sense like retail or a restaurant you invest, I don’t know, whatever, 200,000, a million, two million dollars in your build out, you sign a 20-year lease, and you have yet to serve a single customer, you open the doors and you just sort of see what happens. And there’s just so much into that binary decision of the location you choose and sort of how you build it out.

It can be a very risky proposition. So we’ve learned to do that well and we’ve closed a bunch of locations, as Melissa said, like never stop iterating. So our strategic plan in the next two and a half years, we’re part way into it, is to build our direct-to-consumer business and our B2B, our wholesale business. Given our current financial model, we cannot continue to raise the living wage and the wages for our team across the board without a shift in essentially gross profit per payroll dollar and the retail business is a tough one to move.

And so that’s what we’re doing in the next two and a half years to take another step forward with our pay. Anything to add to that, Melissa? No, not really.

Melissa Perez  : Kind of sort of like the growth part now.

 Anthony Codispoti : What is it that you guys… It’s sort of been the key component to your growth. Why do people keep supporting so many Stone Creek locations? What are you guys doing that’s different? Aside from what we’ve already talked about in terms of the benefit corporation and the value system, which I’m sure appeals to a lot of your customer base, but what is it that you’re doing inside the store for the customer experience?

Melissa Perez  : So we have the other motto is we are coffee geeks, providing remarkable care and never stop learning. Those three separate things are… We are coffee geeks first and then providing remarkable care. And the remarkable care, I think, is what has our employee retention so high and that like, while others were having a hard time hiring retail, we haven’t had any issues even through COVID or post-COVID. And our employees, so we’ve had luck with not luck, hard work, retaining our employees. And then also our customers, we provide remarkable care. Like we go and remarkable care as Eric defined to like our team.

Someone actually has to comment, has to remark on it. That’s the kind of care we want. So Eric and I, we’ve traveled all over the world and we’ve just… And one of the things that I don’t think that he has highlighted yet, but our learnings from all these other places we take back and we never really try and… We never copy from other coffee companies. We learn from other industries and learn from other… Like just like a hotel. What’s happening in this hotel industry?

Like what’s happening in like, what is Patagonia doing right now for their employees? So we actually take these learnings and take that back. And that’s how we provide remarkable care to our employees and then in terms of customers, because our employees know how important that is, they also… Like they have such amazing relationships with our customers. Like I just heard that some people… Eric, you were telling me that someone went to a person’s funeral. Like some baristas attended a funeral because they knew the customer so well. And we just have all these stories across the board of just like how intimately these people get to know their baristas. It’s amazing. Yeah.

 Anthony Codispoti : Say more about the product. Yeah, it’s safe. Yeah. As well.

Eric Resch: Yeah, I guess I can comment there. I mentioned that, you know, everything… All the food made locally, but you know, in terms of coffee sourcing, we work what we call farm-dick-up. So we source coffee direct from family farmers primarily in Central and South America. The product is brought to Milwaukee, roasted meticulously is the word we use. And we try to create coffee that’s sweet.

clean and juicy. And so those are the standards that the green coffee team and the roasting team that I set for them. And then that coffee is brewed using, you know, the most relevant and new technical equipment in the cafes so that, you know, the cup, the, how do I say it, the competitive advantage is not in the cup, but it kind of is, meaning the cup has to be amazing and it is the best coffee in our market. And secondly, it has to be delivered by, you know, someone who cares, as Melissa said, who cares remarkably. So that three seconds across the counter, that interaction and all of the elements that go into building that interaction is our competitive advantage.

And I have no problem telling that because you got to do 200 things really well to deliver on that three seconds. But that is how we compete in this market. And then we have beautiful physical infrastructures, right? So any successful business doesn’t just do one thing well.

They typically have three to five kind of concentric circles that overlap for the, for the win. And then around that, there’s another 200, 300 small things that have to be executed, you know, every week to make it run.

 Anthony Codispoti : So you mentioned the goal over the next two and a half years is to grow the B2B, your wholesale business, as well as the direct to consumer business. What’s the strategy there? How do you think you’ll be able to grow each of those sectors?

Eric Resch: You know, I think like all businesses, the strategy is innovation and product development. So we are not trying to scream louder. We’re not putting out more Facebook ads. We’re not hiring PR consultants. Although for the first time, we might hire one because of some new products we have coming up. But it really is being that growth will be driven by product innovation, of which we’re going to be launching a new product in May. We’re launching a new website in March that’ll be an updated packaging for the Stone Creek brand. But we have new product lines coming on board to grow both of those channels. And we’re going to, as Melissa said, try and fail and try to grow the business beyond just, you know, we’re Stone Creek, want to buy some of our coffee because there’s about 6000 other roasters around the country that have that same message, want to buy some of our coffee.

 Anthony Codispoti : So can you say more about the product innovation or is it too soon since we’re recording this end of February of 2025? And it sounds like it’s still a couple months off from being released.

Eric Resch: Yeah, I guess what I that’s fair. I don’t like because that sounds annoying, but I’m not going to say specifically what they are because we want to launch them obviously. So forgive me for that.

Melissa Perez  : But what I can say is they’re,

Eric Resch: what I can say is they are, they’re built for tighter customer segments than the Stone Creek brand is, meaning tributes of coffee buyers, you know, run up and down the board from the roast you like to the type of decaf you like to the type darkness of the espresso that you like to, you know, what kind of single origin, what varietal do you like, what process do you like, you know, there are 15 to 25 attributes that customer customers have when they’re buying their coffee. And so our plan is to build product lines that are built around these tighter customer preferences.

 Anthony Codispoti : And for folks listening who are saying, hey, I want to know more about this when it comes when it’s ready. How can they, is there a mailing list that they can sign up for? How can they sort of raise their hand and say, please, Eric, listen, tell me when this is ready?

Melissa Perez  : Yeah, they can sign up for our newsletter website, at Stoke Creek Coffee dot com, or they can also check out our Instagram, and that’s jumpy coffee. Both of those will have up the timeline and a lot of information.

 Anthony Codispoti : Yeah, I’m going to jump to this question, maybe a little bit earlier than I normally would, because I know that Eric’s time is limited. And I always like to ask my guests about a serious challenge that they’ve overcome, whether it’s personal or professional, or maybe something that kind of, you know, interweaves the two of those things, how you got through that and some lessons that you learn coming out the other side. Maybe Eric, you can go first.

Eric Resch: Yeah, I’m happy to. As we talked about a little bit before we jumped on. For me, I’d say the toughest, well, I’ll just say COVID, I know that that’s a little bit for every business. It was very difficult. I think what was unique about Stoke Creek and the COVID situation is we shut down like many others. Obviously, it was prior to the PPP and other programs that eventually came out.

But we were just terrified. And listen, I agreed, you know, within a few days of shutting down that we would pay our employees 100%. I had a fairly large line of credit for buying green coffee. We weren’t going to be buying a lot of green coffee. So I said, we’ll just use our line of credit, you know, screw it. If we go a million and a half in debt, that’ll get us roughly through whatever we calculated July.

This thing’s got to be over by July. And then we leaned into our values and we said, hey, never stop learning. So the only thing we asked of our employees was that they learn a new skill that could be knitting, it could be sourdough bread, it could be anything they wanted.

And they would just send a quick email to their boss and CC Melissa and I at the time, because we wanted to see what they were up to just to kind of celebrate this moment. But we paid everybody, went into fairly deep debt in December, the programs from the government came online and we were able to work through it. But what we learned is that if you trust your values, and we will always lead with these values.

And it was quite terrifying because I was prepared to be deeply in debt for many years, but I was also prepared to take care of our people when they needed us to.

 Anthony Codispoti : So I want to pause for a moment on this because I think it deserves a bigger spotlight. When this all started, you know, March of 2020, yeah, there was a lot of people who thought, hey, this is only going to last a few weeks, a few months, something we just got to hold on until then. But the reality is, nobody knew. Nobody knew how long this was going to last. Nobody knew how long the shutdown was going to last.

Nobody knew how the curve was going to look. And so, yeah, to use the word terrifying, it almost feels like not a big enough word. Because the whole world, you know, could have completely melted down and you didn’t know.

And so to dip into your line of credit that you use to buy coffee beans and go into, you know, over a million dollars in debt and to make that commitment to pay your employees 100%. It’s one thing to do that if, yeah, we know this is going to be over in two weeks, three weeks, four weeks, we can sort of pencil it out and be like, okay, this is tough, but we can make the numbers work. But with that uncertainty, that unknown deadline of when things might kind of snap back to a little bit of normal, I think it says a lot about how committed both of you are to your values. When things are going well, when you’re successful and the money’s flowing, it’s a little bit easier to have these values that talk about taking care of everybody being involved in the community.

And then when it’s, you know, you’re, you know, I don’t know which financials look like your house is on the line, you know, the line of credit, like the business is on the line, like things could really completely implode to commit to that to that financial level, I think is something really impressive. What you were going to kind of add to that there, Melissa.

Melissa Perez  : Yeah, I was actually going to say like, we need to spotlight on this more because I feel like in February, Eric and I were, we were watching the headlines, my, my parents were visiting their family in the Philippines and Eric was already like, I think you should come home.

They didn’t, they didn’t want to, but like, you should come home. And so Eric actually started like, like just laying down the groundwork of like, he was, I feel like ahead of a lot of other people of like, what is going to happen? We should just plan for this just in case. And I remember we were together and we made a decision. It was a weekend. We called our leadership team and saying, we’re going to close tomorrow. But I want to highlight how much we, like, we really leaned into it. We took care of our employees, but we would receive the most amazing videos like they would post on Instagram, like what they were learning and, you know, the hashtag, never stop learning. You know, like our graphic designer learned how to do animation and someone learned how to like just do juggling. I mean, just really great.

And so I will add that it really brought a community within Stone Creek Coffee, like, because we’re all trying to like, it’s such a weird time. No one was going outside. Everyone was inside, but it kept everyone connected because they would share these things with each other. And then we’d all share them together because like, did you see how like, they were able to like bake this amazing pie?

Like just all that kind of stuff. And it was really, so I felt like that was really fantastic. And it really, like, I think the employees finally understood, okay, I understand what this like community is about. And that was really lovely. And just again, we leaned into just like surveys, like we did lots of the data, the data part is we also kept surveying our employees, not just the customers, but the employees like, hey, how like how safe do you feel?

What’s going on? And then that’s that actually helped us build our rollout plan to reopen some of our cafes. And how do we do that? Like, everyone was trying to navigate it. But we were relied heavily on making sure our employees were comfortable and safe. And, and then on top of that, we also had tons of products. So we, we had lots of coffee, and we still had lots of coffee, and it still has to get roasted. So we were just, we were giving it to the hospitals, we were giving it to schools and teachers that were having a hard time, like, we were giving it to like, you know, donate some to your neighbor, like it just, and then our e-commerce just went crazy up. And then also we have like, Tip Your Barista, and like, it was an online Tip Your Barista. I mean, just all these things in which we could navigate.

And we were just trying things, but it was, it was actually, even though it was such a dark, weird time, it was also lovely and within the stovepan of coffee culture.

 Anthony Codispoti : That’s interesting. And so I hear that there’s a lot of sort of like internal leaning on each other. Did you also have maybe peers who were in similar businesses or unrelated businesses that you could kind of, I don’t know, talk to and use as a support network for, Hey, what are you guys doing? How are you handling this?

Eric Resch: Yeah, I guess we, I’m part of executive group. So I had some discussions, but you know, our situation is very unique in terms of just the number of people and the age group and just sort of how we manage them. And what we learned, as Melissa said, is that you just, you have to be 100% transparent.

Hey, we don’t know what we’re going to do. That’s why we’re sending you this survey. Can you tell us how you’re feeling about acts?

Can you tell us what you think of why? And we sort of use the collective wisdom of the group to navigate the decisions. And of course, when we did that accidentally, we were, we were essentially following all the steps of change management. We were just involving everybody.

We were getting their input. We were having early wins. We were rolling it out with good communication that we just learned that skill set. And as Melissa said, many times, that’s just helped us build our culture. Like, and, and so I very much believe that, you know, when it’s tough, you know, it’s sort of like, okay, where’s the lesson?

And how is this going to propel me? And that, that brings this sort of dichotomous joy between the toughness and then which gets, gets mitigated by the team and the fun with the learning. And that usually adds up to just a challenging fun day, week, month, year, whatever.

 Anthony Codispoti : If you had to sum it up, what was the biggest lesson that you learned going through that experience?

Eric Resch: Go ahead, Melissa, I have resilience.

Melissa Perez  : I mean, I think that is a word commonly used with COVID, but I definitely feel like Stem Creek Coffee, the culture is very resilient.

Eric Resch: Yeah, and I would, I would say trust yourself and those you care for. Yeah, I like that.

 Anthony Codispoti : Tell me a little bit more about community involvement. What kinds of things do you guys do to stay connected with those around you?

Melissa Perez  : Well, obviously related since we’re, you know, very food related. A lot of it is just food banks. We donate a lot of coffee and we donate bakery items, homeless shelters. Eric is very much involved with a homeless shelter and the Food Bank River West co-op. Oh, wait, no, it’s called kinship now. Sorry, they haven’t, they had a name for kinship.

Eric Resch: Yeah, I would say the, there’s always been this tension and I’ll just kind of lay out the tension quickly. I know I’m in a bout here in about five minutes, but the tension is, do you earn a bunch of money and then change the world or do you operate your business in such a way that you change the world every day, every customer, every employee? And we’ve sort of shifted. I mean, when I was young, my belief, I was going to go to the Peace Corps, I was ready to go to Honduras. I said, you know what, I’m going to go into business because to me at the time, that’s where the levers of power and change existed. And I thought if I can get my hands on some of those levers, I’m going to make a bunch of money and then I’m going to change the world.

So fine, good idea. That’s why it’s Geary Corporation in a way. But what I realized along the way is actually the change happens every day. So if we build an amazing cafe in your neighborhood and we have these wonderful teams in there serving you, is that a community asset or is that a business that’s trying to make money? Well, from our seat, it’s a community asset that you now get to walk your dog and when your grandparents come, you can all go down there and get a really awesome sandwich and have coffee and see your favorite barista and you just build this community connection, you see your neighbor. So I very much see many pieces of our business. We do the traditional things. Every day we send our leftover bakery to the shelter. We do lots of what we call brewing change. So we have these initiatives and employees can raise their hand and we give them money and support and use our assets to help them do the change they seek.

And we do all the traditional things. But what we do, I think most importantly, is we look through and into the business with a set of glasses that look for ways to make this impact in the decisions we make. 50% of our vendors are within 90 miles of Milwaukee.

90 plus percent of our customers are within 90 miles. So those are the kinds of things that we do in the sort of broadest sense of community and that’s the impact that we make every day.

 Anthony Codispoti : It’s so interesting to hear that part of the impetus for starting the business was as a vehicle to make the world a better place. Let’s start the business. I can make a bunch of money and then I can use that money and let it get to make the world a better place. And then as you got into it, people do that even today. Right. And it’s kind of evolved is what I’m hearing you say is we don’t have to wait until we’ve got this pile of a billion dollars. It’s the big and small things every day and how we treat our employees and how we treat our customers and how we outfit our cafes just to make the world our little corner of it a little bit better for everybody. Right.

Eric Resch: And what you also realize as you get a little older is the changing the world means changing the people around me, the people I care about, the people down the block and that it’s that place where you have the most agency and you can’t. I mean, I can buy mosquito nets I can make donations of money to NGOs and certainly I do some of that stuff. But the biggest impact in the part that I think has the most return is when we work locally, we think locally and we make that impact in our neighborhood and community.

 Anthony Codispoti : Oh, that’s so powerful. Right. Because we think about making the world a better place and we’re like, oh, the world’s a big place. There’s lots of problems. There’s lots of people like where do I start? And yeah, just just look around you. There’s people that need your help. There’s things that you can do a little bit better. I love that. Always be learning. What’s a book, podcast, course or other resource that’s been really helpful for each of you that you’d recommend to somebody else?

Melissa Perez  : Okay, so there’s a Jacob Nielsen 10 heuristic usability principles. And that sounds like it’s a mouthful, but it’s literally a page that you can read. It just breaks it down. So it’s like 10 usability heuristics and then Nielsen N-I-E-L-S-E-N But I still remember that. I remember the list to this day from grad school, but that it’s just basically make things flexible, make things like real world, make things and so there’s like this list of design principles. And you can apply that to business. You can apply all of them to business and it’s it is actually really impactful and we’ve used it as stone pre coffee. So I would How about you?

Eric Resch: Yeah, for me, I would say never stop learning. You know, start reading, start listening to podcasts. It doesn’t really matter to be honest. What matters is starting and learning and trying to implement them and working on the habits that are required to make that change.

I’ll say a couple just because you asked, but there are hundreds. The first one is read to your kids. I’m just kidding, but that is important if you have kids. Let’s see. I’m just looking at my notes. So so one that had a big impact on me, although it’s a little bit maybe odd, not odd, but Ray Dalio, the book principles pretty hefty book. But if you slow down and you read that book really well, you’re going to learn a lot about building culture and building performance because remember a really lovely culture has to be married with performance because without performance, we don’t have enough money to do it again.

And then you’ve failed. So you have to perform while you build an amazing culture. And we have a strong performance culture at Stone Creek, like this is not get your guitar group hug.

We do we do have guitars and we do have group hugs, but we perform and we perform at a high level and we keep our commitments. So secondly, Fred Kaufman, conscious business, I think is a really rich and deep study on how to make commitments, how to have agency, how to own your responsibilities. It’s kind of a little bit of a tough love book. But sometimes that’s required as we build cultures that are trying to change the world, meaning our community.

 Anthony Codispoti : That’s good stuff. Eric, is this the time that you need to bounce?

Eric Resch: Yeah, I do. We’re building a new website and I meet with our developers at 11 on Monday. So forgive me for bouncing, but I appreciate Anthony, the invite and the time and it’s just a blast to talk about the business and hopefully this helped some people build their path.

 Anthony Codispoti : I know that it will appreciate your time, Eric. Melissa will continue to carry the torch for us All right, thank you.

Eric Resch: Bye.

Melissa Perez  : I’m so glad he was able to meet with us as well.

 Anthony Codispoti : Oh, yes. It’s to be able to talk with both partners, especially, you know, given all of Eric’s perspective and his different involvement in the business, it’s it’s a it was great to have his voice in here. So I’m curious to hear a little bit more, Melissa, about those usability heuristics and how those come into play for Stone Creek. Yes.

Melissa Perez  : Okay, so let me try to think. So one example is like what Eric had just mentioned, there’s lots of different ways in which people try and buy coffee, you know, they and so early on when I joined the team, I interviewed lots of customers, our customers and I interviewed a lot of our wholesale customers. And I said, like, what is like, and so then I basically had them rank how they buy coffee and observe them buying coffee and observe like their conversations with people buying coffee. Then I also looked at like, then I married it with how our baristas talk about coffee, how they look at coffee, how they like, what do they look for when they go to other coffee shops and, and whatnot. And then with that information, I provided like a just basically some information like, here’s the experience of coffee buying, and here’s what we’re not doing. And with that, we were able to change the design of how we talked about the coffee, how we saw the coffee, how we even like the visual design of the coffee bags. So that’s most people, first they look at the roast, which is really interesting, because I should add Anthony that there isn’t a scientific like light roast in Milwaukee is completely different than light roast in San Francisco and dark roast.

I mean, this is completely different. So the West coast is like light roasts are very, very, very light, basically raw. And then the Midwest, they prefer things as dark as possible. So our light roasts are still a little like, they’re still caramelization. Anyway, that’s a tangent, but long story short, so we were able to have it so it’s segmented by light, medium roast. And then we have that visually so that it’s very easy for someone to see like, Oh, I definitely like the light, the light roast coffees. And so this is where it is, because these are all like golden yellow.

And then these, the medium roasts are like have an orange bag. I don’t know if you’ve been to our website, but it’s also split that way. So we mirror that as well. So then, so then the darker roasts and so that you can see that light to dark spectrum. So that would be one, one way in which usability user experience design is used.

 Anthony Codispoti : Why do you think the the tastes are so different from Midwest to West Coast? I would think that within the US that coffee is sort of coffee, no?

Melissa Perez  : No, I think it’s culturally what sells well. And so like just a different palette. And, and usually like the Midwest is like in the middle in terms of like, you know, there’s a lot of medium roasts and and really like the roast is like, think of when you’re baking a chocolate chip cookie. So sometimes you want that chocolate chip cookie to be like a little soft. Sometimes you want it hard, so you can dip it in like some milk. And then sometimes you want it like, our black sheep blend is kind of like the chocolate chip cookie.

Think of it as it’s, it’s hard on the outside and it’s soft on the inside. So it’s, it’s really like the roast temperature. And it really is a recipe. And that’s what, like we’re very meticulous of where we want each roast to be at. So it’s like that, that sweet spot of here’s a medium, because what we like our medium roast is like where it’s hard on the outside and like soft on the inside. Not this is not like literal, but just more of like just if you, if you have the metaphor of a chocolate chip cookie, you can describe and explain roast more and how like it’s very, it’s very different. So like the West Coast, they like their, their chocolate chip cookies a little softer.

 Anthony Codispoti : Is there something in sort of the user experience design space that like a project you’re kind of working on internally that may roll out here in the cafes coming up?

Melissa Perez  : So often I interview our employees. And again, I say that they’re my, you know, they’re our customers. And so when we’re, when we’re rolling out like a new, a new product, they won’t know what the new product is, but they’ll get hints of, I mean, I think they can read between the lines. Actually, I should choose a different one, because since we can’t mention the product, but it’s just, it’s, it’s interesting because Eric and I are, we’re a lot older than a lot of our employees.

And so things that I think are super cool are probably not super cool. And so there’s a lot of like red shirt, blue shirt, red shirt, blue shirt, but it’s not just A.B. testing. It’s also like A.B. C.D .E.

testing. And then just our designs, we have a really strong design team. Angelina Garvey is an amazing lead designer. And she understands like our, we like things that are, that are aesthetically pleasing, but also just a little like either funny or weird or just something just a little different.

And and her, her pieces are very beautiful. So that’s something that we, we test with and we, we will roll out with our employees. So we get their opinions a lot.

 Anthony Codispoti : So talked a lot about iteration. Innovate, we iterate, we see what we learn and, you know, we, we make changes as we go along. And sometimes we try something innovative and it does, doesn’t work.

It falls on its face. But in that process, generally, if we’re thinking and we’re observing, we’re learning something from that quote unquote failure. Can you think of an innovation that you’ve tried, just didn’t go the way that you thought, but you still pulled some lessons from it? Yes.

Melissa Perez  : This is very basic, but this is an example. So when we did a remodel of one of our cafes, I wanted like our bathrooms to be, I wanted a bathroom to be really, hey, let’s put, so I had one bathroom have like two, two, one be Baker Street, like the number sign and the knocker and everything. Yeah, it was like, I’m like, oh, that’s so cool. And then, but we didn’t push it far enough. And it just was still an ugly, not ugly, but like just a basic bathroom. And, and then one of our cafes, like we had a shared bathroom with another space, another Bruegel, another bagel company, Bruegers, and I just couldn’t stand those bathrooms because they were so just like metal, stalled fluorescent lighting. And so what we did, we decided to lean in and we went like, okay, let’s have a fancy hotel bathroom, like let’s have really nice. And so we actually spend a ton of money on just tile and like really nice fixtures for our bathrooms.

And I would say that’s the iteration that we like, we kept pushing on and like, it wasn’t enough. Now we like have very high expectations for our bathrooms. That sounds bizarre, but it’s, it is an extremely important customer and employee experience.

 Anthony Codispoti : Yeah, especially, you know, folks are going to hang out there for a little while and everybody knows sort of like coffee, they kind of helps get things moving in the morning.

You want to have a nice facility there for your customers, right, and your employees spending a lot of time with you. Talk to me about your daily habits. Any practices that are regular currents for you that kind of help keep you on track, keep you centered?

Melissa Perez  : Yeah, I will add, I’ll speak for Eric. He does meditation every single day, every day for many years, and that has really helped him stay calm and focused. And he highly recommends it.

So I need to add that. For me, I do, I doodle and, and do art every single day. Creating is extremely important to me, even if it’s just on a napkin, but I draw and paint and do a lot of art every day. So those two things help.

 Anthony Codispoti : Anything from your Filipino heritage kind of show up in your, your doodling and your art?

Melissa Perez  : I do paint a lot of my family. I paint a lot of them and like just in terms of just my mom is, she’s very funny. And so she appears a lot in a lot of my art because just that immigrant experience, she’s hilarious. So her texts are like usually at two in the morning and extremely long. And so I have a painting in one of our cafes and it, and it actually has like the verbatim quote of like just this really long, just this breakdown of a day. And then I have all these different Filipino things around it painted. And that’s, that’s really fun.

 Anthony Codispoti : And is your mother still in the Philippines? She’s, she’s, why are you getting the text at 2am? Why are you getting text at 2am from mom then?

Melissa Perez  : She actually lives. So we’re really lucky. My sister lives down the street and my mom lives three blocks away. So we’re really close.

 Anthony Codispoti : What’s one thing you wish more people knew about your industry?

Melissa Perez  : New about our industry. Hmm.

 Anthony Codispoti : I think if that one doesn’t feel right, what’s one thing you wish more people, okay, go ahead.

Melissa Perez  : This feels right because this is definitely true. I feel like baristas don’t get enough respect. Like in terms of a lot of people think, Oh, barista, like, you’re just a barista or like, that’s just like a side gig or job.

But it is amazing to me. Like, if you know how to be a barista and know how to pull shots and know how to make a really beautiful latte art, you will be able to get a job anywhere in the United States and anywhere in like Europe. I mean, honestly, like, I would have, there’s, there’s always a cafe, there’s always a coffee shop. And if you can do beautiful, like if you know your coffee, like the way that we teach knowing your coffee and you can pull two shots and make gorgeous latte art, I mean, you’ll be hired. You could go to somewhere in Ohio and somewhere in like Utah, somewhere in Montreal. I mean, and so I feel like baristas don’t get enough credit for being like such a, it’s just such a great job to have that you could do anywhere.

 Anthony Codispoti : It’s a skill that takes a lot of practice to learn like anything else. Yeah. Yeah. So Melissa, I’ve just got one more question for you. But before I ask it, I want to do two things. First of all, everyone listening today, I’m sure that you love today’s show because both Melissa and Eric have been wonderful guests sharing lots of great stories. Please hit the follow or subscribe button on your favorite podcast app to continue getting great content like this. I also want to let people know the best way either to get in touch with you or Eric or to continue following the brand story. What would that be?

Melissa Perez  : Well, there’s our Instagram and there’s our website. Our website is stonecreekcoffee.com. And then our Instagram is Instagram at stonecreekcoffee. And you can reach out to either of us through email and you can find it on the website. It’s a very long email address, so I won’t even repeat it.

 Anthony Codispoti : Okay, great. But that can be found on the website, which we’ll include in the show notes. So last question for you, Melissa. As you look to the future, what changes in the coffee industry are you most excited to see unfold?

Melissa Perez  : Most excited. I’m excited to see just the innovations of water. Just innovations of where do we get our water? How do we filter our water? And we’re right by the Great Lakes, but water is going to be extremely, it’s going to be extremely an important discussion within our lifetime. And that’s definitely going to impact coffee. So then how do you have like, will it be packaged coffee? Will it be how will it perform? So all these things will be impacted by water.

 Anthony Codispoti : So I think maybe part of what you’re saying is that water, especially in certain parts of the world is becoming harder to get clean waters getting harder to get. Maybe another element of this is, yeah, what’s exactly in the water that affects the quality and the flavor of the coffee, right? Yeah, yes, like the mineral content and all that.

Melissa Perez  : Yeah, coffee that’s made in one of our cafes will taste completely different from another because of the water. And we actually have our water and we treat it with different minerals so that they’re all the same. And so we’re already doing that. So that’s just going to be, and that’s now. So what’s going to happen in like 10 years that you’ll have like manufactured water is just bizarre to me, but that’s possible.

 Anthony Codispoti : When you say manufactured water, just the ability to sort of like, tailor that mineral content so that you can affect the flavor and the quality of it. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

And this hit home for me several years ago. I used to, my family’s from Italy, we used to travel there regularly. And I’ll tell you what, there was something about the espresso over there that it just seemed to taste better.

And well, it’s just, it’s in your head because, you know, you’re in this, you’re in Italy and it all just seems more exotic. And my grandparents actually did an experiment and they brought some tap water back with them and prepared coffee here in the States. And it tasted the same way that it did back there. This light bulb moment for us that, yes, there’s a lot to be said for the water that you’re using. Yeah.

Melissa Perez  : Same with dairy. Like the dairy in latte, like dairy tastes very different wherever you are. California, Wisconsin, Europe. Yeah.

 Anthony Codispoti : And so in Stone Creek, you’re already sort of standardizing that water output in each of your locations so that, you know, somebody gets it in this part of town versus that part of town, that’s going to be the same experience for them. Yeah. Yeah, that’s pretty cool. Well, Melissa, I want to be the first one to thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us today. I really appreciate it. Thanks for the name. It was fun. Yeah. Folks, that’s a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us today.