A few weeks ago I had the pleasure to speak to Amanda Campbell, the general manager at Halcyon Coffee Bar, to get an understanding behind the coffee scene during COVID-19. Since then, more health organizations like WebMD are discussing if the indoor coffee culture can survive this pandemic and if customers can still socially distant indoors. I wanted to get more insight in this profession and reached out to Jamie Isetts, the Director of Green Coffee for Merit Coffee, to discuss more on the coffee industry moving forward. Jamie Isetts serves as green coffee buyer and leads Merit’s quality control program, interfacing with the supply chain that composes Merit’s lineup. Jamie began her coffee career at InterAmerican Coffee, managing accounts and specialty buying projects. Jamie joined the Merit team in 2015. She travels frequently to origin and speaks Spanish and Portuguese (just not perfectly).
With more people at home trying to cure boredom, there’s been a plethora of new coffee recipes and DIY videos posted on Instagram. Has any new ideas/trends caught your attention through online platforms or practicing on your own?
We’ve seen a jump in the importance of a rotating selection of offerings because people are coming to us to escape the monotony of quarantine. It may seem simple, but because many of our offerings are hyper-focused and seasonal, we’re able to offer something new every few weeks.
With fewer people working standard 9-5 jobs in the office, how does a coffee shop predict and stabilize what periods foot traffic gets light or heavy?
Great question! It’s very dependent on the location, as always. I don’t have the answer for how to predict this, but I can point to some interesting trends we’ve seen. Our locations with more outdoor space are being rediscovered by folks who may not have sat outside before. Our staff has adapted to the unique challenges of curbside and online ordering, and having less people inside the cafe means that each customer gets truly individualized service. Our foot-traffic patterns have kind of flipped: some of our more suburban cafes are seeing more people venture out for a break in their routine, while our cafes in urban and tourist-heavy areas are much slower.
Are there any key products/activities that you see coffee shops adopting post COVID?
Larger format offerings, like selling growlers of cold brew or bulk whole bean coffee. Unfortunately, this can be bad for quality since coffee is really at its peak within a week of the roast date, and some of the bulk format cold-brews that I’ve seen in individual cafes are not really food safe.
It seems the difference between a local coffee shop versus a national coffee chain is that sense of community, but how can that be built effectively with current restrictions on foot traffic?
Social media and ecommerce is even MORE important than usual. Hearing our voice through that medium keeps people connected to the culture of the physical cafes. We now see our ecommerce platform as an extension of the retail shelf in our shops. In a way, the existing community around our brand has been our savior. We started our loyalty program (points = coffee) in the midst of the pandemic to huge acclaim from our community.
Any tips for someone wanting to start their own coffee shop?
**Shameless plug** Use our coffee! For real though: in addition to Merit’s own cafes, we provide roasted coffee and equipment for some of Texas’s best coffee shops and restaurants. Learn more here.
