Opening a small business is no easy task. I recently sat down with Landon Bonner, co-owner of Peach Coffee Roasters in Johns Creek, GA, to ask him about some of the ins and outs of owning and operating a small business and talk about what is currently going on in the specialty coffee industry in Atlanta. Landon has been in coffee since his days in business school. While working as a consultant for a Georgia coffee shop, he met David Pittman, who he would eventually co-open Peach Coffee Roasters with.
Question #1: Could you describe a typical workday?
Answer: Well, it’s changed a lot in the first year that we’ve been open. In the beginning, you’re really doing a lot of the day-to-day work. Just trying to get the systems in place and have a good working rotation so you can hand those off at another time. Now my day is back in administrative. Kind of planning and evaluating what the next steps for growth would be in the company. And I’m really just meeting with a lot of potential clients.
Question #2: What about your job do you find most enjoyable?
Answer: Probably the people I work with along with the people that I meet. The food and beverage industry honestly has a lot of genuine people in it that are very creative and kind of fit my mold, personality-wise. A lot of very genuine, nice people from humble backgrounds.
Question #3: How many hours a week do you typically work?
Answer: Probably fifty to sixty, but you don’t really even count it. From the time you wake up to the time you go to sleep you’re thinking about it. You might not be directly doing something pertaining to work, but you’re always thinking about it.
Question #4: Which seasons of the year are the toughest for Peach, or coffee in general, if any?
Answer: Probably the Fall season heading into the Winter. It’s usually the busiest time for food and beverage. It’s where the most need for workers are, just for the time slots. And with our production side of it too, our partners are also getting busier, so they need more coffee. It can really become an overwhelming task. You kind of forget planning and forget all the admin stuff, and just focus on fourth quarter. Strictly work. Everyone is working. And then you regroup at the end of that in the first quarter of next year when things slow down to say, “Okay, back on planning pace, where are we at?”
Question #5: How would you describe the culture of your company?
Answer: I would say that it’s really taking on the personalities of the people that work here. It’s very relaxed. It doesn’t seem to be a lot of pressure on people. There are certain stresses day-to-day depending on what someone’s responsibilities might be. But overall, I think the culture really reflects the people here. People enjoy the work and who they are working with, and that’s been my hope. I want everyone to feel like this is just as comfortable as their own home. Because I know that’s what I hope for myself when I come in every day. I’ve worked with places where it feels quite the opposite and it’s very toxic, and I tried my best to put people in a place that I think will best compliment what I’m trying to achieve.
Question #6: Is the specialty coffee field growing, shrinking, or staying the same?
Answer: It’s probably growing within itself. I would say the pie that coffee is has always been the same size. But now the quality of the pie is changing, so for example, twenty years ago it was 95% all commodity, where it’s just like Folgers, Folgers, Folgers, and 5% everything else. Now it’s that Starbucks is its own quality, and specialty coffee is now growing so we’re really seeing the bigger players make huge investments into specialty as well. Because they understand this is what the consumer wants from a higher quality standpoint.
Question #7: What developments on the horizon could affect future opportunities for Peach?
Answer: I would say internally, as far as business planning, we’re doing a few things online that we would hope to bring in more revenue stream in that direction. What’s nice about that is it doesn’t require anymore overhead than we already have, which is kind of the beauty of online retail sales. And then in wholesale development, we have a couple different leads that I think could really change things here. We’re really trying to take the next steps to make one or two more people here full-time, as well as just make everything here more sustainable. That’s the positive, but I’d say a negative is on the outside. I would say there are uncontrollable factors. We don’t know what—it’s unforeseen what it might be like in five years from now as far as coffee goes in our weather conditions, with all the global warming stuff. So that’s always a risk factor in this industry, and that goes for all agriculture. As far as business-wise, directly here in Atlanta, it is very competitive. New roasters are popping up every year. This area is still growing too, so that’s probably even more room for people to get into the game. At the same time, we’re due for an economic recession, so you really want to brace yourself so you can survive. Because there will be other competitors that won’t make it, it’s just going to happen.
Question #8: How do most people enter the coffee scene?
Answer: I would say they usually got a job at Starbucks or something and they got into coffee. That’s probably the most popular route, the one that I hear the most. As far as the barista level goes, interesting enough, and I think this is missed on a lot of people in the industry, is that some of the people who are the business owners who start something or invented a new piece of tech in our industry don’t have any coffee knowledge at all. They’re just someone who really enjoys coffee and was doing something else—one guy I knew was like a top sales executive For IBM, and he was like, “I’m going to open my own coffee business,” and he’s been doing that for twenty years now. Another one, Acaia Scales, that guy is just a computer programmer—that’s it. And he likes coffee but it’s just a hobby, and he was just like, I know the tech to make a better scale, so I’ll make a better scale. I hear that a lot. It’s probably one of the most common things for the higher up stuff. That’s why I always think that the lower end of the spectrum, the people down there need to learn a skill set beyond coffee. Because that’s how you’re going to get to the management, the ownership, the executive position.
Question #9: What qualifications do you seek in a new hire?
Answer: I don’t really care if they come in with or without coffee knowledge. A little coffee knowledge always helps because you can kind of just throw them to the wolves a little bit. But really, it’s the personality—do you get a good feeling when they’re talking to you? I’m not necessarily going to give someone a negative if they’re nervous because that happens. But you can just have this feeling, based on their tone, if they’re arrogant or if they’re overconfident. I don’t really care for people like that. In this industry, it tends to give off a bad impression. You’re in service, so you’re supposed to appease others, not the other way around, so I try to look for that. And then also their desire to want to learn more is important. It’s hard for me to work with people that are stagnant in themselves. I want people to believe in themselves and move forward with their life, always looking to grow.
Question #10: Why do people leave the coffee industry?
Answer: It depends what level they’re at in the field. I’d say if you’re more on the lower end where you’re a barista or an assistant roaster or a warehouse worker, the work is just not sustainable as a career path. I would tell anyone that thinks otherwise that they’re kidding themselves. There’s just no way you can build a family on that. So that’s why we’re trying to build something here where you might enter in that level, but if you’re here for x amount of years, you can grow in the company to something else, or have enough skill set leaving this company to give yourself a better opportunity somewhere else. That’s my biggest hope for everyone. I don’t want to see anyone choose to be a barista for ten+ years, that’s just not sustainable.
Question #11: Who are the most important local people in the industry today?
Answer: Local to Atlanta, Sarah Frinak comes to mind. She is in sales for Ally Coffee, which is an importer out of South Carolina, but she kind of roams the entire southeast. She knows everybody and anybody in coffee in the southeast, especially in Atlanta. She helps put together a lot of the events here that the industry like to throw together. And then also probably David Lamont, who is the southeast rep for La Marzocco. Having him just down the street is a big plus and advantage, and just establishing that relationship. Both those people would go out of their way to help you in any kind of way, and they both come from very humble backgrounds. It’s really nice to work with genuine people like that.
Question #12: If you could start all over again, would you change your career path in any way, and why?
Answer: I don’t know if I would change anything, maybe certain decisions along the way. But I think the path would still be the same. If anything, I had a lull of time between opening Peach and my last job that I probably could have used a little bit more aggressively than I did, just to get as much experience in that timeframe as possible. It was kind of slow developing. But overall, I’m really satisfied with where my life has taken me; I’ve met a lot of really great people, so it’s hard to say like, “Oh, I wish I could have made more money or I wish I would have done this or had a bigger house,” or something like that. I think that’s kind of silly and I’m really glad for where I am.
That was all we had time for when I met with Landon, but there is no doubt a lot more knowledge he could share with us about anything specialty coffee or small business. Now that you know a little more, what questions do you still have? Leave them in the comments, and I can meet with Landon in the future to find out more!
Kelsey Makes Coffee 