Heather Robison describes the importance of consistency and culture in creating a great customer experience. She also shares how Dutch Bros grew from a small-town coffee cart to plans for over 2,000 locations.
Heather Robison describes the importance of consistency and culture in creating a great customer experience. She also shares the secrets to success behind Dutch Bros’ rapid growth from a small-town coffee cart to plans for over 2,000 locations.
Welcome to Elevating Brick and Mortar. A podcast about how operations and facilities drive brand performance.
On today’s episode, we talk with Heather Robison, Facilities Manager of Dutch Bros Coffee. Dutch Bros is a drive-thru coffee company founded in 1992, with over 900 locations across 18 states.
GUEST BIO:
Heather has over 15 years of experience in strategy and growth with a customer focus. She advocates for people over costs, people over profits, and respecting the people on business’ front lines. In her free time she participates in RFMA, CASA, WFF, and organizations that support better outcomes for children in foster care. for days and days and thousands of gallons of water going down the drain.
TIMESTAMPS:
00:17 - All about Dutch Bros
06:26 - The role of the physical space
09:43 - Heather’s story
15:25 - The challenge of consistency
25:20 - The impact of COVID
36:31 - Are robots on their way?
38:48 - The future of facilities
45:17 - Sid’s takeaways
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LINKS:
[00:00:00] Sid: Hello everyone. Welcome to Elevating Brick and Mortar. Thank you for joining us. I'm here today with Heather Robison, facilities manager of Dutch Bro Coffee. Heather, welcome.
[00:00:11] Heather: Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here today.
[00:00:14] Sid: Heather, for folks in our audience who might not be familiar with the brand, can you share some insight into Dutch Bros?
[00:00:20] Heather: Absolutely Dutch Bros. Is a coffee and energy drink, quick serve concept that was founded in Grant's Pass, Oregon. Tiny little town on the southern portion of the state by, uh, Dane and Trav, two brothers who used to own a dairy farm. Dane decided coffee was his passion and you know, sort of the rest is history. Went from one little rolly cart sitting outside of a grocery store to 2000 plus locations that we're trying to get to by the end of this year. So
[00:00:49] Sid: Wow.
[00:00:49] Heather: An exciting and fast growth process for an amazing brand.
[00:00:53] Sid: Wow. Yeah, I mean, I, I've heard the story. I believe I listened to How I Built This, right? And I think one of the founders was on the show. The brand has been around for a while and, and truly has a fascinating origin story. And I believe that influences your culture even today. Right. Can you share a little bit more about that and how it all started and how's it going today?
[00:01:16] Heather: Yeah, so when I started, one of the orientation offerings was what they called Dane Talks, and it was 10 recordings that he had made when he was out walking around on his dairy farm, talking about his passion for the business. Why he chose to do coffee and why he chose to present it in such a fun and casual way.
[00:01:37] And what really struck me when I'm listening to these recordings is he says, what I've always felt, but is not a very popular sentiment in any industry for profit, in that we don't succeed. Nothing matters if we don't send that person away with a smile on their face. A genuine, good, wholesome experience that they can talk about, and that that can be the highlight of their day, or it can just be a regular part of a really great day for them. But it's consistent and it's genuine and authentic. And when you start from that framework, from making the customer truly happy with no restraints, with no hands tied behind your back, you foster this culture that becomes so deeply ingrained from frontline all the way up to the top that it's. It's remarkable to see.
[00:02:27] It's even more remarkable to see it after 20 years. You know, there it's so hard to maintain that sense of commitment to experience as opposed to a commitment to profit. And I think that's really the difference. Dane always believed if you do the right thing, the money will follow. And so we just get to do the right thing every day.
[00:02:45] And that means turning a customer's frown into a smile or a free drink because you know they spilled the first one in their lap. It's kind of one of those, those opportunities for us to be empowered to just do good and share that with the world around us. And it's amazing that I get to do that through fixing a pipe.
[00:03:06] Sid: I I love that. I love that. And that's amazing. And I, I wanna talk about like the impact you make and facilities makes on the brand. Folks love you guys. Like, it sounds like you know, folks who, have had Dutch Bros coffee talk about it and like they evangelize it. What makes someone make that u-turn, you know, to come to your location, or go through your drive through, you know?
[00:03:27] 'cause that's, that's a big deal, because when you walk, when you're driving. the ones that actually have customer loyalty, customers will find them and, and, and go out of their way to, to, to grab that, you know, morning coffee, uh, and any in, on any given day, right.
[00:03:43] Heather: You know, and it, and it's a really good point you make because when I'm traveling to these shops here in Texas and New Mexico where my territory sits, a lot of the customers are from. Southern Oregon, Northern California, Washington State, where we really kind of blossomed in the beginning and it's, I'm so glad you finally built a Dutch here.
[00:04:03] It's just like back home. Can you guys make the drinks they make in Portland that are on the secret menu? You know, there's, there's a loyalty that carries because people are mobile, you know, they travel from place to place. They, they find job opportunities or they move for family. And now that we have kind of broached the national market, we're following them and they're kind of helping drive, you know, new customers to the brand. I went to my first Dutch because my very best friend was like, oh my gosh, Dutch Bros is here. They're right around the corner from your house. We have to go. And you know, I wasn't even a Starbucks person.
[00:04:38] I'm not a big coffee fan in general. But that's the other difference at Dutch, I think, is we take our coffee very, very seriously, to the point where we have customized our own blends of coffee. We roast our own beans and our own facilities for quality control. We grind it to brew. So everything is freshly grounded, ready to go when you order it.
[00:05:00] And I think that makes a difference. I think when you focus that much on the small details, it, it pans out into the reception you get from the community. And for me, as somebody who has nothing to do with the coffee making process under than ensuring the equipment that makes it, keeps working I think that the fact that they have that much pride in an ingredient really inspires me to love the brand even more because it, that goes to show that it's not just about, here's something covered in sugar and, and caramel and,
[00:05:35] Sid: Yeah, yeah,
[00:05:36] Heather: you know, drizzled and sprinkles. It's about that being a good coffee drink covered in caramel and drizzled with all the sprinkles on it. And if you can take that much pride in that, you can take pride in serving it. You can take pride in taking an order. You can take pride in getting underneath the cooler and reconnecting a condensate drain line.
[00:05:55] Sid: Yeah.
[00:05:56] Heather: Because it starts with that minute little detail and it just sort of flows from there, I think. And people can sense that when they come through. I think they can sense. That drive and that passion.
[00:06:08] Sid: Yeah, it, tell me about that. Like, tell me about the, the role of the physical space and the environment and the impact it has on, you know, the Dutch Bros customer and employee experience.
[00:06:20] Heather: Yeah. You know, there's a quite a difference between the, the coffee cafes and coffee shops of old and what we're seeing today, right? Even other brands that have been around for decades are going to a smaller footprint, less lobby space, less place to kind of hang and chill and make it sort of a, an experience and more of a moment. And I think that is the right shift to make in the coffee industry because it is a moment. People aren't running through to get their caffeine fixed, to sit down and chat. Most of the time they're trying to get that drink, they're trying to get on their way, and it's usually early in the morning or at the end of the day when they need that pick me up, and that boost, and when you can provide it quickly with a good attitude, with bright colors, with great music as you're rolling through the drive through, everything is clean and fresh and bright, and you've got that crew smiling and talking through the window. I think it, it makes an experience that's normally like something on your checklist in the morning into something you look forward to before you get to your checklist in morning.
[00:07:28] Sid: Yeah, a hundred percent. How many locations does Dutch Bro have today? It seems like you are blowing up and, and entering new markets every month, or, it's because I keep, I, I keep seeing you guys everywhere I go. I don't know which one it is, but it seems like you're, you're growing right fast.
[00:07:47] Heather: We're, we're over a thousand shops now, nationwide, and we have very aggressive goals over the next few years to get us, even further out. And we wanna be in all 50 states eventually. And then the world. We have a lot of territory yet to gain and we're, we're hungry for it.
[00:08:03] And we are opening a lot of shops. It's two, sometimes three shops a week that are opening across the country. And just the last month I visited five shops that are gonna be opening here in my area within the next month or so. And that kind of growth is not common, I don't think in many industries.
[00:08:23] You know, I used to work for raising canes and our goal was 125 shops in a year. If we could get to that, we were like at peak performance. And at Dutch, you know, we're, we're gonna do that. Within a few months, at the rate we're going. So we are expanding quickly and we wanna keep doing that. We wanna bring the experience to the people. Coffee's everywhere. We're not bringing anything that isn't available beyond our experience and that quality and that, you know, that culture that we're coming in with. And I think that that really kind of sets the stage for growth.
[00:08:58] Sid: yeah, yeah. Either people usually fall into facilities. At least before they did, right. Today, I think it's much more intentional. There are a lot of great programs out there. Folks are actually choosing a great career in facilities. But if you talk to folks that have been around for a while, like they find, kind of found their way into facilities, tell us about your journey. Like, how did you get here, what's your story like?
[00:09:23] Heather: So my story is kind of a combination of both. I did sort of land here unintentionally, but it was maybe predestined. And I say that because I'm the fourth generation in the trades on my, on my dad's side of the family. My great, yeah, and my great-grandfather, he came over here from Germany in the early 19 hundreds and after he joined the army, during World War I, he came back home and ran a farm for most of the rest of his life.
[00:09:54] And his son, my grandfather took over that farm and he kinda became a jack of all trades. He was a butcher, he was a floor layer, he was a carpenter. He did the farming as well. And my dad picked that up from him.
[00:10:07] And I rode in his truck at three, four or five years old and we didn't have daycare. He strapped me up in the back of his work van and he'd teach me the difference between a carpenter's hammer and a pneumatic hammer and this type of wrench and this type of screwdriver. I knew Phillips from Flathead before I could count to 10 because he gave me that exposure, you know?
[00:10:30] So, when I was younger, I wouldn't have told you I was coming into this industry. I would've told you I wanted to be a veterinarian or a teacher or something else in the supportive world, but. It was probably in my early twenties when I realized that working in the background is my niche.
[00:10:53] Sid: Hmm.
[00:10:54] Heather: I, I don't like to be the center of attention. I much prefer to work in the background and provide solutions and support and kind of do that silently. And for better or worse facilities kind of allows for that. You know, a lot of times we're the unsung heroes.
[00:11:07] Were the silent heroes. Were the ones who wear the capes underneath our shirts, to make things happen and we don't strut around like peacocks after the fact to say we did it. So between just it being a family thing and it being the perfect place for me to sort of nest, and have an impact, it, it felt right and it feels more right every year that this was a decision I was meant to make.
[00:11:32] So.
[00:11:33] Sid: I love it. what a fantastic history. And, and it's interesting, you know, you've been in the space for a while. It's funny though, you say that you like working, you know, in the backdrop because facilities as a whole, it can be like the unsung heroes, right? They're always there when you need them, but when everything's working you don't think of facilities as the first, function When you walk into a space, no one walks away thinking, wow, that store, you know, was maintained well.
[00:12:00] But what they will say is that store was great. Like it was a great location, but that is significantly impacted by facilities, right? And people just don't sometimes realize that, well, un unfortunately, you're not gonna be, you know, in the backdrop anymore. You're on the show, so you're gonna be, you're gonna be everywhere.
[00:12:18] So first of all, thank you again for, for being on the show, but, and we'll, we'll make sure to put your face everywhere, Heather. So Heather, what, what is the charter of the facilities team in your organization? What kind of impact are you looking to make, in the business every day? How do you start the day and what, what does it mean to actually say that we, we take care of dutch Bros. Facilities.
[00:12:40] Heather: So my goal is to remove the obstacles. Remove the inconveniences, remove the processes, positioning equipment that is delaying the success of our crew. So when I go into a shop and I'm doing a walk, I'm obviously looking for things that are failing from normal wear and tear, or maybe there's a defect in the equipment or something that got broken and I'm looking for the things that need to be fixed. But I'm also looking for where we need to maybe make a change, make a shift, find a way to make something better. And that's really sort of the driving force behind Dutch facilities is we're not just here to say. They did the PM on the HVAC. You know this. This pipe isn't leaking. We're there to say.
[00:13:29] Okay, so it's taking you two minutes to get a customer through the line, and I see that you're walking from here to the back and back again, and that's adding a lot of time. How can I shorten that for you? And it's not that we wanna overstep ops and, and sort of take control of how they do things.
[00:13:46] We're just looking for ways that our side of the business can be less of a hindrance and more of a boon for what they do every day. So I'm always looking for that we call it in, in some of my past lives, we called it finding a way to Yes. You know, it, it's taking that challenge they have and, and finding out from a facility's perspective how we can turn that into a gain for them.
[00:14:12] And I love that approach. I love being on the side of process improvement and advancement, as opposed to reactionary break fix.
[00:14:21] Sid: Yeah.
[00:14:22] Heather: Know, it's a different vibe when you're on a break fix team versus a improvements team. So
[00:14:27] Sid: A hundred percent.
[00:14:29] Heather: A great experience here.
[00:14:30] Sid: And, and especially if you, if you make it about experience, then it's not the team that fixes broken things. It is ensuring that the customer experience, the employee experience is like day one always right. And it aligns with the brand as well, right? That that's a huge deal.
[00:14:47] One of the biggest challenges with businesses that grow fast and into different territories, new cities and states, is that they can lose control of, of consistency.
[00:14:59] How do you maintain and manage that consistency within facilities and, and how do you within the brand as well, holistically talk about consistency as a whole, when it even comes to service and, and experience.
[00:15:15] Heather: That's a really good call out and it's something that I have really enjoyed as a unique experience at Dutch is you can go to just about any Dutch and the experience is gonna be very similar. The quality, the flavor, you know, what you get is what you expect to get. and you're very rarely disappointed or shocked, by that experience and well, facilities does contribute to that. I, I would be completely negligent to neglect the process by which ops builds leaders if it weren't for the fact that every operator and these are people that lead, you know, two or more stores, typically, every operator started as a broa. And there's a timeline and a path for them to, to advance beyond that first step in the, in, you know, the Dutch journey to go into an operator position or a business coach, which is more of like a regional leader.
[00:16:10] And so you don't move forward until you've mastered where you're at. And that builds that culture, that makes sure that that culture is maintained and that it stays, the way it was intended to be. Because you're bringing people that have been there from the beginning, essentially. And a lot of our people have only known Dutch.
[00:16:31] There aren't any reservations going into working for Dutch because you've been somewhere else and you've had that like, not so great experience. You start at Dutch, you stay at Dutch, and I think that's a key part of it. But on the facility side, it's about making sure that we understand what ops is doing, how they need to do it, and, what our function is and making sure that happens. You know, there's always confusion. Does facilities handle this? Does facilities handle that? And here facilities will find out how to handle it. If somebody comes to me and they're like, Hey, you know, I have an issue with this, uh, marketing material that we received. How do I get that taken of I department connect? So it's about on the facility side, for me, it's more about understanding the overall function of everybody and making sure that we can drive that and, and support that. You know, we do that through preventative maintenance programs to ensure that our equipment is not running without routine inspections or making sure, you know, on the HVAC side that we've got good belts and filters and that we don't have any refrigeration leaks. And then on the plumbing side, we're checking those backflow devices and making sure that everything is routinely staying at that standard and bring brought back to it on a routine basis is integral.
[00:17:58] The shop having equipment they can rely on that they know is gonna have uptime. We try to provide some redundancy. We have two ice heads instead of one, or we have, you know, three espresso makers instead of two. So that it, we, we don't risk capacity if we have an outage. And that's something that we try to work to provide too, is workarounds.
[00:18:17] That makes sense. You know, it doesn't make sense for me to have them go out and buy like an espresso, espresso maker when their espresso maker goes down. But it does make sense to have that backup available that they don't use quite as often, that we can slide and paste. So our role is to make sure that there's no stoppage.
[00:18:35] We don't wanna shut down, we don't wanna take a product off the menu. We don't wanna have them using an under counter cooler to try to store all of their milk because the walk-in doesn't wanna do its job. So, you know, we maintain that consistency by maintaining the consistency of performance, and that's really what it comes down to. We want them to be able to rely on each piece of machinery routinely, consistently. And so that's where we, you know, focus most of our time is just the uptime, not reacting to the downtime.
[00:19:08] Sid: Yeah. By the way, you, you said it kind of nonchalantly or I misheard it. Did you say broista or, or was it barista?
[00:19:16] Heather: It is Bro-ista. Yeah. Like
[00:19:17] Sid: do
[00:19:18] Heather: BRO. Yep. We do. And I.
[00:19:20] Sid: Oh my God, that is so great. I love it. I love it. In a business like yours. Every asset is revenue generating.
[00:19:29] You can't have your critical assets go down, God forbid you have people who are dying for coffee, wait, you know, 15 minutes to get their coffee, that's not gonna be pleasant. It don't wanna be between the person and their coffee. Right. And then that makes facilities even more critical.
[00:19:45] Heather: Mm-hmm. It really does.
[00:19:47] Sid: Yeah.
[00:19:48] Heather: And to that point for facilities, you know, we can go in, we can troubleshoot, we can do. Some basic repairs for them, but we're never gonna have the knowledge of the experts, the ones that go to the training schools and sit through the certifications and get that like little certificate from the manufacturer saying that they're experts in Manitowoc or Scottsman. So it's also for us, a process of relationship building. As much as we're focusing on that uptime, we're also focusing on. Those partnerships we have with the people we rely on to keep everything up and running. I've always believed that a vendor customer relationship should be more than dollars and cents.
[00:20:28] You know, there should be some, some personal intermingling there to the extent that, you know, you. You go a bit a job and then you have a casual conversation about, you know, his kid's soccer team or my son's choir performance. And I like to carry my vendors with me. So if I find somebody who's really reliable and who understands when I call and say, this is urgent, that means now.
[00:20:50] And that really helps, you know, I have the boon of these wonderful relationships with these really great vendors that definitely make me look a heck of a lot better. Providing that consistency. So I would be absolutely remiss if I didn't bring in in those guys too.
[00:21:05] Sid: a hundred percent. You've worked in quite a few brands, you know, through your career. Is there anything that you'd say is different about working for a business like Dutch Bros? 'cause it, I'm sure there's some, some unique challenges, right? Can you share some of that?
[00:21:21] Heather: Worked with Raising Canes when I came in, they didn't even have 250 restaurants yet, and now they're closing in, I think on a thousand. So they went from what was truly a very small business owned by Todd, with heavy involvement from him to a corporate enterprise where we're bringing, like, we're, you know, posting McDonald's numbers, like billion served kind of statistics.
[00:21:46] So a lot of those growing pains that we went through at Canes as we tried to kind of transition from this small, everybody knows everybody business to this larger network of baristas and operators and, and support for all across the country. I think that is where we are currently focusing most of our energy is, is trying to bring in that knowledge base of what a big corporation looks like and runs like without taking away from that family feel of, of Dutch. 'cause it is, it is very much a family at Dutch. It is very much as we're all in this together, we're part of the same team. And it gets harder the bigger you get. So I think that we're doing a really good job of trying to maintain that feeling and that culture and making sure that there's still those connections. I think that's really the biggest challenge as you grow, compared to other brands in general. It's always a matter of bringing in that outside perspective without taking over.
[00:22:51] We have a lot of people that have been Dutch for their entire careers and they've gone from working in the shops to working in marketing or working in human resources or working in design. And it's awesome when you can say that you've only done what you do with one company, but if you miss out on those experiences, those challenges, those unique situations from other companies, uh, in that same role.
[00:23:16] So you bringing in exterior knowledge is important, but we don't want to bring in the type of knowledge that's gonna destroy the culture. So finding that balance is interesting. You know, you, you bring me in from the outside and I, I've worked under several different types of culture and, and different types of structural organizations.
[00:23:34] So taking a step back and learning the Dutch way before I come in and try to like, you know, toss in all of the Heather way of doing things and being mindful of that on in every position is important and we really need to continue to do what we're doing there.
[00:23:51] Sid: Yeah. What are your thoughts on like how the physical space has evolved over the past five years since Covid, businesses have had to change their location design and how they serve the customer because. The customer interaction with the businesses has evolved, right?
[00:24:08] How has it impacted how Dutch Bros looks at its locations and, and design concepts? Like, for example, drive-throughs came back, right?
[00:24:16] Heather: Yeah.
[00:24:17] Sid: Is that a thing at Dutch Bros too?
[00:24:20] Heather: I think Dutch Bros probably less negatively impacted over Covid. We've always had the capacity to sort of get out and serve or serve through the window. We have mobile carts and ways to communicate with the, the communities that aren't available to some other brands that really focus on that one model of brick and mortar.
[00:24:41] But what I will say, and this just kind of impacts everybody on the front line in the restaurant industry over Covid, is there was definitely an attitude shift on the side of the, the frontline. I think that being told at the beginning of Covid when, there's no vaccine, there's no treatment and, and we don't know what the survivability is, that somebody serving a burger is an essential worker while simultaneously treating them, you know, in, in a subhuman manner when you get upset about an order or an issue.
[00:25:17] Really started to shift the paradigm a lot. And I think that a lot of brands have moved towards trying to eliminate those opportunities for a customer to get to that point. And then, you know, advocating for crew when that happens, giving your your team the autonomy and the authority to address a situation where the customer isn't right.
[00:25:42] And I think Dutch handles that beautifully by creating an environment from the minute you pull up. Where we're serving you, we're taking care of you, we're providing you with a smile and a greeting and a, a good experience from the minute you pull up. We have the music playing, we've got little menu boards throughout the drive through, so there's never a point when you just have to kind, like, sit and, and be lost in your own thoughts.
[00:26:06] There's always something to focus on, something providing, you know, stimulation for you while you're, while you're waiting for your drink.
[00:26:12] Sid: Yeah.
[00:26:16] Heather: You know, telling our crew that you can do what feels right to take somebody from upset to happy,
[00:26:25] Sid: Yeah.
[00:26:25] Heather: giving them a wide range of flexibility is really, really helpful in those moments because. Given the opportunity, most people can turn around a negative situation. Right. But I don't think that we were training the cashiers how to turn things around.
[00:26:44] You know, there was always this, this sense of well just call your manager over your manager will deal with it. And then the manager like, gives them something for free and pretends to lecture you and then you go back to doing what you were doing before, you know? And, and now you know, we're telling that cashier, you don't have to take that.
[00:27:01] You can say, I'm sorry, Sarah, I won't serve you if you're going to be rude. And that's completely okay. On the flip side of that, you can also say, "it seems like you're having a bad day, is there anything I can do to make it better?" You know, "can I, can I pump your drink? Can I add a muffin top? Can I, you know, shake your hand or, or listen to you gripe, you know?"
[00:27:21] Because we allow our crews to personalize the experience, we also give them the ability to. Insulate themselves from the negativity of, of those types of customers. And also just in general, showcase us as a brand that cares.
[00:27:37] Sid: Yeah.
[00:27:38] Heather: You know, we're not putting our people on the front line just because we wanna make money and sell coffee. We're putting our people on the front line because the customers need that pick me up. The customers need that sense of normal. The customers need that smiling face because they're not getting it. You know, I don't know how many days I sat in my house and didn't see a single person face to face that didn't live there.
[00:27:58] Sid: That's right. That's
[00:27:59] Heather: you know, so, um, but in terms of design and the structure of the building, we didn't change a whole heck of a lot.
[00:28:04] Obviously we were using masks and trying to social distance. But, our buildings have largely been the same. You know, we tried to find ways to get them done faster, more economically so that we could kind of curb some of that loss of cov through covid of just, you know, less traffic.
[00:28:21] Sid: Yeah.
[00:28:22] Heather: We didn't really need any modifications to make our systems work. Thankfully, um, we, we already had a pretty good structure in place, so we got lucky. I.
[00:28:32] Sid: I hear you. That's great. A lot of things have changed, you know, even in terms of, you know, how expensive things are, how fast you can get things. The shortage of just, uh, high skill labor, and also the shortage of, you know, human capital for working on the front line. All of this is happening while consumer expectations are higher than ever.
[00:28:57] And budgets are not getting any bigger at this point. But generally speaking, still, you always have to deal with with less and still do more.
[00:29:06] How does that impact how you manage facilities? Uh, you know, trying to. Ensure that your front lines happy, your operators are happy. Uh, your buildings are clean and warm and welcoming, and functioning the way they should. Your assets are always functioning and there's no downtime and impacting operations and impacting the customer experience while dealing with everything becoming more expensive, and budgets not necessarily keeping up.
[00:29:36] Heather: Yeah, that was something that really started to hit hard. I would say probably six months into Covid, when supplies went down. Steel went through the roof. We were getting pricing adjustments from Scottsman and from Pit Co. That were 10, 15% more than the pricing we'd been given at the beginning of the year. And obviously, we hadn't budgeted for that kind of increase throughout the balance of the year.
[00:29:59] Sid: Yeah.
[00:29:59] Heather: So we started talking volume. We started talking sales commitments. We started talking promissory arrangements with these vendors that we had built these relationships with to say, look, we're gonna build 50 shops this year.
[00:30:13] Each shop has seven fryers. We're gonna commit to buying all of those from you by the end of the year, if you'll hold the pricing. Um, so being able to leverage volume and being able to leverage like your impact to those manufacturers without it being a manipulative, like, well, I'll just take my business elsewhere, kind of interaction, you know, that really helped save us a lot.
[00:30:38] We were able to do that with quite a few vendors to keep our prices as low as possible. But a lack of trade labor. That has been a challenge, especially on the refrigeration side, I have found for several years, even when it was a very popular trade to get into because it was one of the higher paying options available to you, to folks who are, you know, fresh out of high school.
[00:30:59] The conversation that we see around the type of wage a job deserves. And kind of diminishing the value of the person through those wage discussions has sort of turned people off to the trades to some degree. It takes a lot of time and effort to get to the top as an electrician, as a plumber, even as a refrigeration tech, and to tell them that it's an unskilled job and they shouldn't be making a livable wage off of what they're doing doesn't attract people to the trades. So I think reframing the value of the trades has been a huge driver in, in trying to change the paradigm. A lot of the smaller HVAC contractors that I deal with are actually creating training programs where they'll take a kid fresh outta high school and put him in as an apprentice from day one, you know, to get him licensed.
[00:31:56] And that creates kind of that loyalty and they stick around for a while. Which has always been a challenge. You know, it, it's always, who's gonna pay me more? I'm gonna switch to that vendor next. And yeah, that's a discussion that I've had with some of my larger HVAC vendors. Like, why aren't you guys working with high schools?
[00:32:12] Why aren't you guys sponsored vocational training? Why aren't you guys creating these, these, uh, sort of pathways? Building bench in these industries. And I'm starting to see that happen.
[00:32:24] And the more we push that, I think the more we drive it as a valid and desirable option with support from the companies that you're gonna be working for. We're gonna see people come back into that. And on the operation side, looking for people that can serve the customers and, and that are gonna be able to do that with what we can offer wage wise.
[00:32:48] That really comes down to consistency, culture, advancement opportunities even as an adult, a lot of people are starting off in their twenties on the front line, their waitressing, their host ising. They're working, you know, in fast food restaurants and they're trying to get into that career position.
[00:33:08] They may have a college degree, but they don't have that experience. And so people are, you know, telling them they're not gonna come in. And we as the restaurant industry really need to showcase the possibilities. And companies really just need to start recognizing the value of the person a lot more, and Dutch is really good at that. We need to stop selling it as a benefit. If we offer tuition reimbursement, that should be a standard. You want a well educated staff. It's not expensive to provide that. And ultimately the return on that is huge when you have somebody who knows who's confident, who's certified.
[00:33:47] And if you're facilitating that, that also builds that loyalty, that builds that consistency and that trust between you and your and your employee. So I think that's been the starting, that started to sort of take shape. And we're seeing that more as we go through the industry. But you know, there are still companies that are profit first and they always will be.
[00:34:11] And I think making those the quieter, you know, less, less loud brands will help us, and really encourage people to come back to this, and give the restaurant industry, give the trades a chance.
[00:34:24] Sid: Yeah, there you go. We're in a time of massive leaps and advancements in technology as well, right? Everyone's talking about AI and robotics. Are we gonna have robots serving us coffee anytime soon at Dutch Brothers? Like, what's, uh, what's Dutch doing to explore new ways with the interacting with their consumer?
[00:34:45] Heather: Sure. You know, I think if you're a brand that's focused on. Drive through times, turn and burn, get 'em through as quickly. How many burgers did we sell today? Kind of mentality. You want that automation. You want somebody that can go in and punch it into a kiosk and then like the assembly line puts their burger together and then you have one person expediting it, or maybe it goes in a chute and sits in a little bin, you know, that's great.
[00:35:09] If it's just about making the money. If it's just about like a quick exchange. There's always room for automation and we've seen that, right? Wasn't it, like Jason's Deli was the first one to come out with a self-order kiosk where you could put in your order and not have to walk up to the counter.
[00:35:25] But I don't think that chains and businesses that rely on the human aspect of what they do are ever gonna switch to a fully automated system. You know, I think we'll rely on AI for things that. Are harder to visualize, you know, we'll have systems and we're working on those now for energy management where we're tracking temperatures in the walk in and we can diagnose some of the issues that may. Im impacting that from the computer. You know, we've got a little system that pops up and says, Hey, your water pressure has dropped down to X, Y, Z. Please contact your water filter company. Or we've sent a work order to your water filter company. You know, we'll, we'll see some automation on, on that side. And we're even pushing more towards that, but. I don't think you're gonna see a day at Dutch where a little metal hand slides out the window and hands you your, your gold eagle. I think that we're always going to focus on that personal interaction because that's what we're selling.
[00:36:31] Sid: That's,
[00:36:32] Heather: you can, you can get coffee anywhere. We're not selling coffee. We're selling that personal interaction and that experience with you.
[00:36:38] So yes, we will advance with ai, but we're not, yeah, we're, we're not gonna be robot run anytime.
[00:36:45] Sid: There you go. There you go. Heather, as you look into the future, what excites you about the future of brick and mortar, especially in the QSR business, and what role will facilities continue to play?
[00:36:57] Heather: Yeah, I think that we are really going to have to take the lead on sustainability, on preservation of precious resources and on being a good steward of the communities and the environments that we're in. We're the ones that see the real cost of that resource usage. We're the ones that see the, the pipes that are leaking for days and days and thousands of gallons of water going down the drain.
[00:37:24] We're the ones that are getting those calls from the city when they're saying that watering two days a week is too much or we can only water for 15 minutes one day a week. And also, why isn't our grass green right now? And, I think facilities is gonna have to stand up as that advocate. And, and they're gonna have to work cross-functionally with, you know, the internal stakeholders and also with those municipalities, with those organizations, and just with the environment in general and be more, um, flexible and, and more responsive and more sensitive to the limitations of where we're putting our shops.
[00:37:59] We have to be mindful of that and if we can get ahead of that, if we can be, you know, the example that others refer back to, even better.
[00:38:08] Sharing that knowledge and, and spreading, you know, the experience through the industry is one of my favorite parts. And I think we're gonna see more of that. You know, it used to be you might see facility man, uh, managers from other companies and other organizations, in passing. Maybe you meet at one trade trade show once a year, but now there's more open collaboration, thanks to the internet, thanks to organizations like RMA and you know, companies like Service Channel who bring people together from different sides for, you know, various reasons. We are more open about our own ideas and our own struggles, and we're asking those questions and we're getting that insight from a broader pool now. And we have such a wealth of knowledge. And people kind of stumble into facilities a lot of times.
[00:38:56] We also have a depth of variety in that knowledge. So I think between the collaboration and between, taking the lead on environmental responsibility, we're really gonna sort of create a solid path forward in facilities.
[00:39:13] I think that'll, that'll be our driving force over the next several years.
[00:39:17] Sid: I love it for folks in our audience who are either in construction or operations or are thinking about entering facilities or are in the early stages of their career, any advice that you would share with them?
[00:39:32] Heather: Keep an open mind to everything. Find a way to yes, never say no. If somebody comes to you with an idea or a solution to a problem that doesn't work for whatever reason, maybe you've got past knowledge, you've tried it before and it failed. Look at it from their perspective. Ask questions, dive into the why, you know, what are they actually solving for?
[00:39:58] What is their purpose behind the solution? What's the new solution? What's the next option? How can we account for that know in the past and move forward? So if you're, if you're gonna come into this industry, you've gotta have that flexibility in your mindset.
[00:40:13] We are from the operation side of things. There was a time when facilities didn't talk to ops. You know, we were the ones that called out when they had to have something done, and now we're having collaborative meetings with them about is this design working for you?
[00:40:26] What do you think of this proposed r and d program? Should we move these systems, in humbling ourselves to take in that feedback? If we walk in as the experts in the room, but we're not willing to listen to the people that are in the trenches every day, we're gonna struggle.
[00:40:42] Sid: Yeah.
[00:40:43] Heather: Be humble, be kind, be receptive.
[00:40:45] Keep your mind open and find a way to, yes.
[00:40:49] Sid: I love it. As we wrap up, is there anything that you can share about what we can expect from Dutch Bros in the future? What do we have to look forward to? I.
[00:41:00] Heather: Many, many more locations. We have several pilot programs in the work, so they don't wanna, uh, share secrets on quite yet because they're not my projects to share. But we're going to be adding to our experience for our customers. We're gonna be enhancing, you know that the environment that they walk into, we're gonna be enhancing the way the menu is presented. What's available to the customers.
[00:41:24] We're gonna focus really heavily on that growth aspect. And in the process of doing that, we're gonna focus on the give back side of our business. Coming up here in May, we've got a Drink One For Dane Day, where all of our shops bring in money for a LS research. Dane, one of the founders of, of Dutch rows passed away from ALS a few years back.
[00:41:47] And so ever since then, we've been very active in that community and, and probably providing support for research and, and services to those impacted. I think you'll see more of us giving back and trying to draw attention to the needs of our communities.
[00:42:01] You're gonna see more Dutch cups and stickers when you walk down the street. And, if anything, eventually there's probably gonna be like a little secret eBay black market for some of these Dutch stickers because they're super popular. So maybe that's coming. Maybe there'll be some sort of a, a, a trade floor option for, for sticker collectors in the future. Who knows? But, all good things from Dutch, all good things. We wanna, we wanna spread the love, we wanna make people smile. We wanna just the community better than it was before we got there.
[00:42:34] Every day, all day. You'll
[00:42:36] Sid: I love
[00:42:37] Heather: Plenty of that.
[00:42:39] Sid: Well, with that, Heather, I wanna say a huge thank you. Thank you for being on the show. I really, really appreciate it. I thoroughly enjoyed our conversation.
[00:42:45] I.
[00:42:46] Heather: Me too s thank you so much. I appreciate the thoughtful questions and this was great.
[00:42:52] Sid: Thank you. And for all those in our audience, thank you so much for joining us, and we'll see you on the next episode of Elevating Brick and Mortar.
[00:43:01] Well, that was Heather Robison, facilities manager at Dutch Bros Coffee. You may have heard of the origin story of Dutch Bros, and if you haven't, it's worth checking out. But what you might have seen is the incredible growth and loyal fans that Dutch Bros seems to be building. They're very focused on culture, creating great experiences, and recognize that in a people business, a smile goes a long way, all while, of course, serving you great coffee.
[00:43:31] Heather talks about how the physical space is critical to delivering on the consumer and employee experience. They understand the importance of having great facilities that are warm, welcoming, and in line with the Dutch Bros culture. If you haven't visited one of their locations, check them out and I'm sure you'll be served great coffee with one of their broa.
[00:43:53] With that, I'm your host Sid Shetty, and I'll see you on the next episode of Elevating Brick and Mortar.