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Everybody Else is a podcast about the invisible people who make life happen. What began as conversations with behind-the-scenes builders in the music industry has grown into a broader exploration of how people think, work, and carry responsibility across industries and across disciplines. Hosted by Wes Luttrell, the show centers on thoughtful dialogue with creatives, leaders, and operators whose work often goes unseen but shapes the world we live in. New episodes streaming every Tuesday.
speaker-0 (00:00.834)
This is the Everybody Else Podcast.
speaker-1 (00:09.902)
But most of the authors of the human story are unnamed. Invisible contributors to the greatest story ever written. So who are the invisible people writing our chapter today? Because behind every great city, industry, movement, and way of thinking are people who dedicate their entire lives to work that'll go virtually unnoticed. Work that builds on where we've been, shapes where we are, and points us towards where we're going.
There are those in the spotlight, and then there's everybody else.
speaker-0 (00:57.614)
Yeah, I do. It in either late August or early September of 2020, which was a weird year, obviously, as a whole. I had graduated college in May of that year, which also was weird because no graduation. I did have a job that was starting remotely in August. So I was trying to save money, move back to Evansville. My job was supposed to be in Los Angeles. So they were letting me work for
remotely for, I think ideally it was like two months and then it kept getting extended. And I knew the cost of living was radically different in LA than it is in Indiana where I'd lived my whole life. So I texted Jess, the owner of Honeymoon, who was my middle school volleyball coach and asked, are you looking for any weekend help? Like I've got some time, I'm in town. And we had spoken to each other off and off over the years since I had baristed since I was 16 about
me coming to work for Honeymoon. And since I went to IU, it never really lined up. But this time it did. So she was like, yes, 100%. We need people on the weekends. I will send you our recipes. You can start this Saturday. I said, OK. And that's exactly what happened. She emailed me their bar espresso ratios. And I did my best to memorize them and went in totally terrified because I was like, wow, this is really different from working at Starbucks where I'd worked before where everything was corporate hands on.
Very strategic training, like you have your day plans laid out for the first two weeks. And I never used a manual espresso machine, so that was also very intimidating where everything is automated at Starbucks. And I walked in the door and Jess did not realize any of those things, I don't think. And she said, here's the bar. Do you remember things? And I said, sure. And I went to work and kind of faked it. faked it till I made it. But it was so much fun because it was like...
I've lived behind a coffee bar for almost, I think, 10 years at that point. I think it had been eight. So it felt somewhat at home, but also somewhat very, very new and scary. that was at the Burkhart location, which was their second store at the time. yeah, it was a busy Saturday morning, but I was like, this isn't Starbucks busy, so I'll be okay. I'll fake it till I make it. And I did. And I just remember the crew being so welcoming and sweet, even though everyone had masks on and couldn't see their faces, which was a really weird way to start a job.
speaker-1 (03:00.429)
Okay.
speaker-1 (03:25.55)
Do you guys have people in the cafe? Are there people in here?
speaker-0 (03:28.928)
No, don't. We maybe had limited seating. had a weird pickup station where you had to sit the drink down and then walk back like three feet and call out a name and then wait for someone to come get it. Yep. And so yeah, that was also really weird and kind of a weird workflow to try to get used to. And then a drive-through open, so that really helped too, but.
speaker-1 (03:49.166)
Tell me about when you started, what was your perception of honeymoon as not even just a new worker, but as somebody who knew of honeymoon?
speaker-0 (04:01.516)
Yeah, I had followed loosely like the honeymoon story just having known Jess and caring for her. So I knew it was their second location and that it was bigger and had a drive through. I was like, well, that's really impressive for a local coffee company, especially in Evansville where a lot of coffee companies have come and gone and maybe not had success. So I think my perception was just like, this is small town and this is a community space.
maybe not like, you know, Starbucks caliber where they're pumping out 65 drinks in 30 minutes. And that is a positive thing where there really is like more intention in every single drink made and, and even in the recipes and everything, not being like overly sickly sweet and yeah, actually prioritizing quality of coffee and quality of customer interactions. And it was like someone that I had, I'd always loved coffee and wanted to be a barista, but
Being in college and interning and kind of moving all over the place, I didn't have the stability that a local shop was looking for. So Starbucks was the best option of, can transfer to different locations and work anywhere and all the recipes and the layouts and the machines are codified. So it was easy. was like an entryway, I guess, to what I really wanted out of coffee and working with people and having a service industry job that was...
not being a server at a restaurant and I'm a morning person so it catered to that and yeah. It was like the true community feel.
speaker-1 (05:29.166)
That's nice.
speaker-1 (05:33.902)
What did you go to college for?
speaker-0 (05:36.6)
Journalism and Apparel Merchandising.
speaker-1 (05:39.15)
Okay. You do apparel
speaker-0 (05:42.956)
Ish. Ish. Ish. Yeah, I design all our merchandise and I like order it and try to keep inventory. And I do help with our like product inventory and ordering. I don't, that's not my full on role that I kind of oversee. But yeah, ish, very, very minimal merchandising.
speaker-1 (06:02.604)
Sick merch. It's sick merch. Thank you. I don't know if you did the new design, but I walked in the other day. It's like a cream shirt with red font. Yeah, I walked in and I asked the barista, did you make that shirt? It looked homemade, like, because I was like back in line. She's like, no, they're right there. And I'm like, sick. Thank you. So kudos.
speaker-0 (06:04.462)
Thank you. Trying to level up this year.
speaker-0 (06:11.864)
Say it with coffee.
speaker-0 (06:25.048)
Thank you so much. New hats coming.
speaker-1 (06:27.222)
Is your new hats? New hats. Sweet, sweet. What is your role today? How do you explain what you do at Honeymoon today?
speaker-0 (06:34.712)
So now I am the vice president.
speaker-1 (06:39.303)
President of the entire company? Yeah. Wow. What does that role entail? What is the oversight?
speaker-0 (06:45.79)
It is, it's definitely our less clear role out of probably our whole like operations, salaried team. The day to day is really, there's some things that are set and repeated every single day. Like I always review kind of our sales and labor and what we're looking like there. look at a of, yeah, all stores. I look at a lot of like individual product sales as well as category sales kind of like work my way down from a big picture to the more granular.
speaker-1 (07:04.782)
across all stores.
speaker-0 (07:15.882)
I have different stores that I start at every day. it used to be all four stores, I'd kind of go through rotation and we've kind of worked our way into delegating some oversight into other operations team members from the Weinbach and the West stores. So now I really start my days split between the Newberg and the Burkhart stores and they tend to be our busiest volume-wise stores as well. So giving more oversight to those.
Starting those, making sure that the baristas have what they need to function, managers are feeling supported, and then kind of doing more clerical admin work. So I review different schedules. I handle some customer interaction if there's any feedback from a positive or a negative interaction that they've had in the stores. I handle RPOS backend. So a lot of that, like new item entry, adjusting any prices.
All of our online ordering, I handle all of that. Integration into our website. Merch design. I do a lot of our like calendar planning for the year. So looking at any holidays. Like a President's Day where banks are closed. A lot of people are off of work planning that we know we're gonna be busier. Nobody's in school. Things like that. So a lot of foresight. And then some manager like assistance and coaching as well. And then anything that falls in the cracks.
speaker-1 (08:41.102)
So tell me about the systems of Honeymoon today. When you guys, like when you are starting your day, you are reviewing, let's say you're reviewing shop performance. What are you looking at? What is the dashboard? What is it?
speaker-0 (08:56.462)
Square. So yeah, we use Square and Homebase, which is like a scheduling labor tool. So looking at that and going store by store and normally starting with like overview of are they busy or not? Do they need help right now or not? Go from there. How are they scheduled for the day? If there's anything strategic, do they need to push somebody out so their shift doesn't start as early? If they have a slow morning, do they need to cut somebody in the afternoon?
Like if the weather's looking really bad and it's going to rain, so we know people are going to stop coming in at 2 o'clock, something like that. And then looking into like the days prior or reviewing a weekend and seeing like what really, really sold, what maybe didn't sell. How can we integrate that into our menu or make our processes better or easier for the staff and for managers to continue like ordering enough inventory, serving enough customers and making sure that they're all satisfied.
speaker-1 (09:51.616)
And you take this information into the next meeting? Like an ops meeting or something?
speaker-0 (09:55.98)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, nearly. I mean, I'm in day-to-day contact with the owners. And we're always kind of trying to ideate and brainstorm what could make things better. But then we do weekly manager meetings as well. normally every week I meet with the manager of Newberg and then try to sit in maybe every other week with the managers at Burkhart. And then once a month we do in-person manager meetings. And then weekly we also do an operations team meeting. So there's always a lot of data.
having four locations, trying to make sure that everybody gets the information that they need to function properly.
speaker-1 (10:30.86)
And I know you guys use Trello? Yeah, big Trello people. like work flow. But so what I'm curious about is when you started here during COVID, two shops, were systems like this in place yet?
speaker-0 (10:48.064)
Not at all. It's pretty comical to look back on. We use Slack for communication as well. And I remember when I first started, I was just like a part-time barista, but I always really liked being involved. And so I would always try to assist if I could. And the manager at the time, 100%, I'm sure I was annoying. I'm also like nosy and I just want to know what's going on. I like cannot stay in my own lane. I was the person that did all the work in the group project.
speaker-1 (11:05.774)
Did you ask a lot of questions?
speaker-0 (11:18.03)
But the manager at the time, Mindy, she's actually on our operations team now. So very homegrown. I remember her showing me how we transferred inventory back and forth between just two stores at that time, Burkhart and Weinbach. And the Burkhart store always had more storage space in the back end for bulk items. Weinbach had a basement. It was not optimized at the time. It was a scary basement. We've made it better since it's improved.
how we would kind of transfer like if deliveries were received at Burkhart and things needed to go to Weinbacher vice versa. We literally just had a slack channel called Burke to Wine or another one called Wine to Burke and it would just be one message sent with whatever piecemeal items that they needed sent back and forth and somebody would react with an emoji with like a thumbs up when it got sent. Yeah, it was like the least efficient thing possible because you could look at the wrong day or forget to react with an emoji and not know if it got taken or
There's like very little communication and not a lot of accountability either. And yeah, it's very funny to look back and see like we've gone through using Slack, we've gone through using Trello for inventory where we would create like a Trello card and a list for every single inventory item that needed to be brought somewhere as well, which had maybe more accountability, but way too many moving pieces and you'd spend like 30 minutes just moving cards around to say that you took an order to one store. So yeah, we've made it to where
We feel like it's more efficient now using a lot of Google Sheets. And it's like crazy how many Google Sheets we have, but I love Sheets. I love Excel. So it kind of scratches an itch in my brain. But it's really interesting and cool for me to see coming from a corporate background. I worked for Burlington Coat Factory, where I did live in Excel every single day. having obviously like a massive inventory system, how we with four stores can still make Google Sheets work and kind of like hack things to our benefit.
speaker-1 (13:12.95)
Yeah. Do you think, or you probably could know, in your, you're starting at Starbucks and then working at Brilliant to Code Factory and then coming into Honeymoon at such an early phase in its journey, and then being along for the ride, have you helped implement that systemization?
speaker-0 (13:36.546)
helped. I definitely cannot take all the credit for sure. It's been a big collaboration and I feel like I've learned a lot from a lot of people that are maybe more like inventory brain minded than I am. We had another person from the operations team who had owned his own business and
He's come and gone, but he implemented a lot of the inventory management just knowing from his own restaurant business and working in corporate restaurants, which is a little bit more catered to what we needed rather than working in corporate merchandising retail businesses. You can store 30,000 t-shirts. You can't store 30,000 gallons of milk. so, yeah, looking at how to manage those systems, he brought in a lot of knowledge. So, yeah, it's definitely always a collaboration.
It's nice to have outside points of view and then have a team of people who have been here from the start that have grown up to see like, we've tried that and it didn't work for honeymoon, but there's a piece of that idea that could be applied.
speaker-1 (14:35.478)
Yes, you guys know what works on the front lines, coming from the front lines in the trenches, you know what's useful in the trenches versus just something, some sort of concept passed down to you that is theoretically gonna work.
speaker-0 (14:48.974)
Right, but then it's also so hard to have your mind get stuck in being in the trenches and be like, well, if I'm in 911 mode all the time, I'm never gonna think of something that will prevent me from being in 911 mode. So then hearing those people that do know, like forcing, let me help you, it's like, okay, we can find a common ground and know that like 911 moments will happen sometimes, but there's probably a system that could help us not get there every single Saturday.
speaker-1 (15:13.646)
So tell me about when a honeymoon, a honeymoon, a shift, we can even do just a shift. When a shift is going well, what is working? What's happening? Because the reason I say this, as somebody who's worked in the service industry and food, I know that when a shift is going well, there is almost some sort of
Like it's like when a basketball team is in sync or something. So tell me about the honeymoon when it's going well.
speaker-0 (15:49.912)
the secret sauce that there is. I think a lot of it comes down to proactivity, being prepared. So obviously you cannot run a shift if you're not stocked for inventory in your store. So just being proactive and ordering the right things, being proactive in looking at any outside outliers that may affect your business or your store. Thinking of the Newburgh location, that's kind of like my baby where I spend a lot of my time.
reactive to weather, their customers are being on a riverfront. literally last night, I was like, what's the weather like this week? Thinking for my own, like, what am gonna wear? And saw that it's gonna be 60 degrees in February, the next three days. And immediately thought, crap, we are gonna be busy at Newburgh. Doesn't matter, we're not staffed for that. Like, we have to add a person. So looking at things like that, whatever that may be for your business.
being proactive in who you schedule as well, like who you know can work together and fill the roles that you need filled for a specific shift. So making sure that there's a strong person that's gonna be interacting with customers, taking their orders that are really, really personable and aren't gonna get burnt out talking to customers and have a strong social battery. People who can work well together in the kitchen. Like if you have one person that is maybe a little bit more chaotic or messy in a kitchen.
that does not vibe well with someone else that's like really, really anal in a kitchen as I am, does not work well. Speed, like you have to look at, know, maybe someone is really, really great at crafting quality beverages, but they don't work fast. And on a weekend, you have to have someone that can do both. So scheduling the right team members too. And then I think a lot of it is just attitude. The day of, it's like how...
your manager or your quarterback, whoever that is, that is setting the attitude for the day of what they're bringing in and how they can shift the attitude of the team too. It's like really, I think it comes down to one or two people every single day. It's like if you're coming in and you know that you have an impact on your team as a leader, you have to set them up for success, whatever that looks like. You have to put aside if you're having like a tough morning and you ran late or you didn't get to like fix your hair or something.
speaker-0 (18:05.506)
deal with it, figure it out. There are people depending on you and that will set the tone for the entire day. that, I mean, that really impacts how people perform in the moment too.
speaker-1 (18:15.256)
How do you talk about that, that thing, attitude? How do you guys' leadership talk about attitude as it relates to on the ground operations?
speaker-0 (18:24.532)
Anytime we have a hard conversation, we always like to start with, we acknowledge that we're on the same team. So just leading it in that way, where we all know we want the same end result. And maybe like you've got your blinders on and you didn't realize that you were in the weeds that day and you were coming across as negative and it was impacting your whole team. Like we know that's not your intention. We know that's not how you want to be presented to your team or to customers or to us as your bosses, whatever, like as a whole company culture.
we try to approach things from saying like, we're on the same team. These are our expectations. We want them to be your expectations. So how can we get there? So I think just like setting the tone that mistakes are gonna happen or like bad days are gonna happen, whatever, but just knowing that, yeah, we all come from the same place and we all really wanna serve our community. And if you don't, like maybe this isn't a good fit for jobs. Like maybe you have to reprioritize things in your life. But knowing that like we are here.
to practice servant leadership and to know that at the end of the day, like it is just coffee, but we're touching tons of people every single day, whether it's your staff and your team or your customers, like you are impacting someone every single moment of every single day. So you need to think about that and hold that in your mind.
speaker-1 (19:41.006)
And I mean, the thing that you're serving is coffee. For example, I was just in Florida visiting some family. They didn't really have the coffee that like gets me going. And that's, it's such a like crux of my day to really start things. And I just go to the place where I know I'm going to get a stable, like do the job coffee that tastes good.
I go to Starbucks. When I'm in Evansville, I go to Honeymoon because I know that, not all the time, I do switch it up occasionally, just heads up. tell me that. Yeah. But I know that I can get a solid cup of coffee and that launches my day. And I feel like there's such an emotional connection to coffee. If I don't have coffee, game over. that's a problem.
speaker-0 (20:32.62)
Yeah, absolutely. And it's like a splurge thing too. Like you could make your coffee at home. We even sell everything that you would need to make your coffee at home. But you're choosing to spend how much money you're spending depending on your order, which is also something that like we've seen coffee prices soar over the last few years. Like you are choosing to come and spend money on something that is a splurge that does start your day and that will set the same tone for your day. Whether it's going to be positive or negative, whatever stock you put into that.
Whatever if we got your order wrong like period your day is ruined. You can't drink something super sugary You just wanted a black coffee like done
speaker-1 (21:09.618)
And I just spent six bucks on it so I'm shitty about that. So tell me about your bosses. Tell me about their leadership style and what it's like working under a husband-wife power duo.
speaker-0 (21:13.39)
Absolutely.
speaker-0 (21:28.318)
They are. They're the definition of power couple. They're great. They're fantastic. I call them mom and dad jokingly, but also kind of real. I am so grateful. I feel like I have learned a ton working under them, especially this is the only job I've ever had that isn't corporate. And that is so impactful from a leadership standpoint of it's not about productivity all the time. It's not about checking boxes.
and clocking out at five o'clock and being done and going home and not caring. They are always on. They are always working. They care. They will be in the trenches with you on a Saturday morning. they value this business, but they value the people that bring along with this business. Again, same thing, customers or staff. They lead by example, which I think is so, so important of knowing that they will be side by side with you, whatever challenge you're going to face.
speaker-1 (22:25.024)
And you feed off that and then you instill that, you take that into the shops, the managers feed off that, everybody, it's just like a nice trickle down of-
speaker-0 (22:32.696)
Exactly. Trickle down leadership. Yes. they are, they always say, like, they will tell every new hire this, they will tell every person they meet this. Honeymoon is a people company that serves coffee. So they care the most about coaching and leadership and building people up, whether it's someone that works with us for a year or someone that's here for five years. Like, that is their priority. And giving back to the community that same kind of energy.
and having a space for people to come and meet and feel that service. So they always have an attitude of, if you make a mistake, so what? What was your intention behind it? just learning, like, I can definitely tend to be a Debbie Downer sometimes, I think, coming from the corporate productivity side of go, go, go, do, do, do, and slowing down and learning to know that, again, other people will make mistakes. I make mistakes. I'm not perfect.
But knowing that there is opportunity in every mistake has been a really cool thing to learn from them and see like, don't react, don't get angry, don't get upset, whatever, like look for the silver lining in every little thing and see what opportunity there is to grow for a company but as individual people.
speaker-1 (23:47.97)
Yeah, they're the, they are, they're one of a kind in terms of, I know that they show up in the trenches. I know that they invite people into the process from outside of Honeymoon. I saw a photo of Zach and two of our buddies building, I think a new bench or something at the Weinbach, the renovation of Weinbach.
had the great privilege of helping load in coffee maker, coffee roasters, not makers. They were little locomotive looking huge things, heavy ass things. Getting it through a tiny doorway. it's like, it makes you more, like it makes me proud as a friend to go to the West side. I actually feel like I've contributed in some way versus
speaker-0 (24:21.292)
terrifying.
speaker-1 (24:42.286)
I don't even know if this is supposed to be public knowledge. It wasn't OSHA approved necessarily that we were standing on forklifts. But it was like a community, it felt like a family thing. I literally called my father-in-law, he comes over. It's like we brought his equipment. But was all just like we're on a mission to get this shit done.
speaker-0 (25:06.766)
It's like a community urban legend of like what did you play in the honeymoon history?
speaker-1 (25:12.334)
And it makes me proud as like yeah, just also like a community member like that that's that that exists in our That like it. I don't know. It just is something grassroots. It's something real and the
speaker-0 (25:24.11)
They're not afraid to ask for help. Like they are not afraid to ever say that they are weak in an area or not knowledgeable in an area. Like they will be the first to be humble and ask for help or expertise or whatever is needed.
speaker-1 (25:40.142)
which creates like this culture of continual growth and learning and perpetuating better, betterness.
speaker-0 (25:47.758)
Exactly, just being open, like not being ashamed about things you don't need to be ashamed about, not knowing or not being perfect or exactly like I think that them being a married couple really plays into and seeing that example of like communication, they will get in screaming fights and will end up saying, I love you at the end of it. And we have different priorities, whether it's in life or the business or.
and seeing them come back together and the ways that they do find a common ground and compromise and know that we will be angry at each other and we will have different opinions, but at the end of the day, we love one another. So we can talk about it. And it will be hard, but we will be better at the end of it. That is something that I carry with me into my personal life and have learned in relationships for myself how to grow and be better.
have had shortcomings in the past and should have done better. And now I can reflect on that and see it and know, like, don't sit on a way that you feel or don't feel afraid to speak up or ask a question or, like, that is just something that being a good person, you can learn from.
speaker-1 (26:55.808)
Yeah, it's fun. It's like the business itself, the culture of the business is a reflection of the people who run the business, of the owners. And it does feel that, you know, honeymoon carries a warmth to it, like a hominess to it, really. It's not trying to be, it's not like trying to be cool or trying to be hip. It just, it feels good to go to honey.
speaker-0 (27:24.564)
Absolutely. Yeah, it is. It's like you're sitting in somebody's living room. Yeah, it's not. That's something that they've always said since the beginning, too. Like they have had terrible experiences at coffee shops that do act pretentious and are hipper than you because there's a lot of trend in coffee and there can be a lot of technology in coffee or like equipment. That's the newest cutting edge or even just like.
we don't make sweet drinks here. We make our house made basil, lemon, cello syrup, and that's all you're getting. We don't have vanilla syrup. Like, there's a lot of pretentiousness that it's like, why do you have to yuck somebody's yum that's trying to pay you $6 for a drink that they are splurging on because they just want to have a good day? Like, sit down and shut up and make them a cup of coffee. That's what it's about.
They want to sit here and enjoy this space and not have to feel judged by somebody that has no right to judge anybody else.
speaker-1 (28:19.094)
It's funny, you guys bridge in a way, like you bridge those two worlds, like the everyday and the... But we can get fancy if you want.
speaker-0 (28:28.014)
Exactly, yeah, quality does matter. Absolutely. We value quality. Yes, it's high quality, but if you want a sugar bomb, come and get it. You'll just get it with high quality coffee that you won't taste, and that's okay.
speaker-1 (28:31.47)
It's high quality.
speaker-1 (28:40.258)
Yes, it's great, it's great. So how does Honeymoon, how does Honeymoon stay aligned with its mission? How does, like, do you guys talk about the mission or the vision of the company to, does it just get talked about a lot or does it just get lived out a lot or what do you, what's your perception of it?
speaker-0 (29:01.954)
I think both. It definitely gets talked about a lot. Like I said, we have weekly operations meetings. Over the past year, really, we've experienced more growth than ever in the company. In August, this will be the 10th year of the company. So it's kind of a crazy time to be experiencing more growth than ever. It was really unexpected. So that's been really challenging of how do we scale and grow and continue to serve people without losing the heart.
of who we are as a business. that in like a strategic planning way gets talked about a lot. But I think putting the right people in the right places is how we try to model that and perform it every day. just knowing like maybe someone that's a manager isn't the quickest at doing an inventory count or isn't the most astute at managing inventory, but they really, really care about their customers and their staff.
So knowing that person is right where they belong because they're at the end of the day, they're going to stay an hour over their shift to make sure their responsibilities get done. But that also their customers were served or that their staff member who had a really bad day could sit and cry on someone's shoulder. Like their mission is in their heart. Whereas our mission as true like leaders at the top of the pyramid or whatever we are.
we have to do the hard job of looking at the processes and making sure that it still maintains the mission. Like we just want them to serve and to be open-minded and open-hearted. So yeah, we talk about it a lot and try to do market research or whatever to figure out how to maintain growth and continue to serve people.
speaker-1 (30:44.342)
So it's it's scaling in size. mean, I guess the last, mean, literally two of the stores have like grown in size as the store just expanded into other like areas within the building. then, but it's really like about scaling the business, scaling the operation while maintaining the same level of connectivity between employees and customers. Like it's people remain.
the top priority. Exactly. Is this right?
speaker-0 (31:14.326)
Yeah, absolutely. People are always going to be it. Because again, at the end of the day, like, honeymoon isn't honeymoon without the people. We would probably still have customers if we tried to automate everything. Starbucks has customers. That's really fine. There are some amazing baristas that work at Starbucks that are people people, but it's not honeymoon. It's not every single food item being prepared on site to order right then and there. It's not every single drink.
being handcrafted and trying to pour latte art on every one of them and trying to train our staff up in that way so that each customer knows that there's care put into it. Like it would not be the same business.
speaker-1 (31:52.643)
What are the biggest challenges facing Honeymoon today? What do you struggle with? What makes your job hard?
speaker-0 (32:02.006)
Honestly, just maintaining the growth that we've seen, especially over the last four months, just sales volume alone. It's like they're busier. food on plates, pouring coffee in cups, that is the hardest part. Maintaining inventory. Like you could only buy 12 gallons of milk on Walmart online. I don't know if anybody else knows that. I do, unfortunately.
speaker-1 (32:11.278)
stores are busier.
speaker-0 (32:30.922)
Even if you get 2%, that's only 24 gallons enough. That's enough for one Saturday, sometimes. So even just like little hacks that we had had as a small or even medium-sized business are starting not to work anymore. So now it's like, okay, are we a big business? What are we? Like, what is our identity and how do we make that fit through this scaling? That is the hardest part of knowing like, can we continue to hack something as many small businesses do?
to save money and survive and fit things to their people? Yes or no? If yes, how do we hack it? If no, then what do we do? Who do we go to? Who do we ask? What equipment do we buy? So on and so forth. So it's a lot of decision making, which is stressful and can be difficult, as well as, shit, they just had a huge 9 a.m. hour. Do I need to go downstairs from our office and help the team? Like, do I need to go do dishes? Like, what do I need to do? How do I need to spend my time right now to make lives easier?
And a lot of it can be just getting lost in the sauce of, do need to go do dishes for them or I need to go wipe down tables because they don't have a body to do it. Like, how do I reprioritize myself as well and see triage in the moment? Like, what will do the most impactful thing at this time? Or do I need to walk away and look at the bigger picture?
speaker-1 (33:46.048)
I can see that being challenging. Okay, we're prioritizing people. You know what it's like to work a busy shift. You see a team drowning in a busy moment. I can feel that your heart says, yes, we need to go do this. However, if all I ever do is do this, in a way, I'm training my team to rely on me. And then two, I'm also not 10,000 feet up. I'm not in the air traffic control. I'm out on the runway feeling up planes.
speaker-0 (34:14.752)
It's a slippery slope. is so hard. it's like then, and I think a lot of small business owners or managers go through this, like how do you ever have personal boundaries? It is so hard to establish like, should I feel bad because I'm not working on my day off, even though I'm not going to get paid or ever recoup it or whatever, like what boundaries?
speaker-1 (34:35.477)
If you're like, if your messages, if you have access to your messages that are saying like, we need this over here, but you're supposed to be hanging out on your day off with somebody. I can see the, it's hard to turn it off, I imagine.
speaker-0 (34:49.29)
It's like FOMO in a weird negative way. It's like, I'm missing out, but I have guilt over it rather than, man, I wish I was there over excitement. It's like, man, I don't wish I was there, but maybe I should be. Yeah, it's a very difficult slippery slope, but I kind of feel like I've been on either side of it. When we opened the Newburgh location in 2022, it was insanely busy from the start. We were open 14 hours a day in the summer, and I had zero boundaries.
Absolutely none. It was like you need me there. I'm there. I live two minutes away. Don't worry. Do not fret And I was I was friends with a lot of the people working there and they're fantastic people but it was like I talk work I live work. I work work. I love work. I have no other personality traits. I am work and Then I got burnt out believe it or not. And so it's yeah, it's a hard line of Sometimes I do feel guilty or I do have FOMO the Burkhart location
yesterday, which was the Sunday after Valentine's Day, had their busiest hour ever in the history of Honeymoon. The day after Valentine's Day makes no sense. It was my day off. I see these messages coming through because I still read my messages, but I try not to go in. But immediately I was like, man, I wish I was there to experience that and to be a part of that team and to have that fun. But also like, wow, I'm so glad I wasn't there. I'm sure that was horrible.
And they managed it and they did it. So then it's like, all right, they can do that number of sales without me. Now I have the confidence in them. Jessica was there. So that definitely helped a lot that they had the owners. But knowing like there is that confidence, you kind of got to like push your baby bird out of the nest and know I can challenge myself by challenging them. yeah, it's.
speaker-1 (36:38.51)
Everybody gets stronger in that sense because you're creating boundaries. They're more self-reliant. You can recharge, come back the next day with a new fresh perspective.
speaker-0 (36:49.342)
Or and or it creates an opportunity of knowing where we failed like that Huge growth comes from failure, which is really really hard to let happen and I struggle in that a lot because I am a perfectionist and do not like failure and Like makes me feel stick to my stomach but to know that's the only way you're gonna grow You're not gonna see your pain points unless you're in pain
speaker-1 (36:53.528)
Yeah, that's a point too.
speaker-1 (37:10.786)
Yeah, stretching and then see where it breaks. Yeah, that's good. So if we look ahead, if we look, by the way, I just thought of this too. I was listening to a venture capitalist talk about, and he's retired now, but he was talking about his career and he said, so many founders think that, you know, at some point this is going to get easier. But it's funny, the more successful your business becomes, the harder it gets because the challenges are so great. And most likely,
There's really no playbook that matches your exact business. So you just have to gather all the information you can and then make the decision to the best of your ability. So you guys are in a shared space.
speaker-0 (37:51.63)
last meeting I came out of was literally that. It was that whole conversation of, well, we thought it would get better. We thought opening another store would take the heat off of this store, and then it didn't take the heat off of that store, so then we opened another store, and then that store got busier, and then the other stores are also getting busier at the same time. So now what do we do? Open another store? Yeah. When are we shooting ourselves in the foot? Nah, no.
speaker-1 (38:09.24)
made everything more successful.
speaker-1 (38:18.254)
Yeah, it's funny though, it is such a delicate balance of like, we're gonna grow into, we're gonna grow out of this, like we're gonna grow out of this current problem and then we grow into a whole new set of unknowns that we had no, we had no idea this was even gonna be a thing. And now all of a sudden here we are with a whole new, we're having record days.
speaker-0 (38:43.818)
If you are involved in your business, yeah, it's never gonna end. If Zach and Jess wanted to sit back and put someone else in charge of everything and go fly to Europe, they could. Then it would be somebody else's problem, but they're
speaker-1 (38:57.294)
And now we risk operational drift, or quality shifts. Yeah, we lose that sort of thing that I just talked about being so great. Yeah, there's a lot to consider. There's always a lot to It's funny too, because I don't think if you've never worked in operations or seen operations intimately, you have no clue. You really don't maybe have a reference.
speaker-0 (39:06.722)
Losing the heart.
speaker-1 (39:25.486)
Maybe you have a little bit of a clue, but not really like a reference for why things are the way they are. When it's done well, it's invisible and you think, is just the way things are. My coffee always tastes like this. I like my burrito. It always tastes like this. You don't know that there's constantly decisions in the background being made, conversations being had. We need how many eggs we're going to need for the burritos. then there's a...
crisis that someone has to drive to Costco, like all these things that go on behind the scenes.
speaker-0 (39:57.198)
and how many people are involved and how much human error there can be. And that's not a positive or a negative. Like, mutations come from human error, sure. But it doesn't, like you wouldn't look at Honeymoon and think we have over 100 employees. And we do. Because you walk in and maybe there's the same four baristas working because you come at the same time on the same day every single week. It's very easy to look at and see a bubble in a small business, but it's not.
speaker-1 (40:24.686)
Do you guys get together as a company? don't have to rent like a small venue now.
speaker-0 (40:27.651)
We try.
We try. We rented a venue two years ago, I think for a Christmas party, and the turnout was a little lacking. So we got a little disappointed and we decided to skip a year and try again in the future. But we get together a lot from leadership. So we're actually having a happy hour to recoup and postmortem on our Valentine's Day weekend today at Lifetime.
speaker-1 (40:54.024)
hell, that sounds great. I'm for you guys. That's all you. You guys live it up and enjoy your post-Valentine's Day record. Okay, so I do have a question. When you look out into the future and you see you, you see honeymoon, you see your life, can you paint a picture of where you want to go? What excites you about the future?
speaker-0 (40:56.75)
I'm straight. I'm gonna Marg with us.
speaker-0 (41:20.622)
I've always said slash begged to have a honeymoon outside of Evansville. That's always my one wish list item. am born and raised in Evansville and it's not my favorite place in the world. It's grown on me a little bit in my older age, but I definitely have a taste for travel and going other places. So that's 100 % my wish list item would be to expand somewhere else and just see the...
It's the same thing. It's like, well, then what set of opportunities does that open? Does this become national or, I don't know, at least like past the Midwest? Maybe it's a location in the Northeast or something. Like, what opportunities for growth are there? I know like the Evansville market, there's definitely still areas to be saturated. So it's not a rush for that. But that's always been my dream to just
go with it and see what could happen and see if there was like the opportunity for a different district that could be my own to manage or something that's kind of bigger. But yeah, just taking it day by day.
speaker-1 (42:29.73)
What are some of your, do you have any favorite coffee shops outside of Indiana? Yeah.
speaker-0 (42:35.15)
Oh, absolutely. There's Elegi in Nashville is one of my favorites. It's amazing. They did a jalapeno espresso tonic that I drank once two years ago and I have never forgotten it. It was amazing. I love a spicy drink. I really like, there's a few places in New York. I interned there a couple of years. there's Cafe Grumpy holds a little special space in my mind that's
It's where I would go a lot every day before work.
speaker-1 (43:08.866)
You'd get, yeah, yeah, yeah, you were internet. Were you, were you breezing in New York as well?
speaker-0 (43:13.772)
No, I attempted to transfer to a Starbucks and I'm really glad I didn't do that in the long term.
speaker-1 (43:18.606)
I'm sure you were coffee before the coffee. No.
speaker-0 (43:21.056)
if only. But yeah, definitely those. And then there's also, it's maybe not specialty coffee on the same quality plane, but when I was in college, I went to Soma in Bloomington a lot. And it has a very like hippie come here and sit and like they play metal music out loud.
speaker-1 (43:45.55)
Is it in like a basement? Yes, okay. Yeah, I think I've been there.
speaker-0 (43:47.362)
Yes, on Kirkwood.
speaker-0 (43:52.552)
a lot of time there. Like, I was the first one in the door on a Sunday morning because I knew I had to get a seat if I wanted to get my homework done and I needed a cold brew and they had like a burrito bowl place with a connecting spiral staircase that was above them so you could walk up and get a burrito and they'd deliver it down to you and that was my jam every, almost every day. So yeah, that holds a really special place in my heart.
speaker-1 (44:17.006)
Do you think that you have been a leader or have had the qualities of a leader your whole life?
speaker-0 (44:27.118)
I would say so.
speaker-1 (44:29.411)
You said you were the one doing the projects and like... studying, yeah.
speaker-0 (44:32.398)
Yeah. Yeah, I would say maybe I felt less empowered as a leader and I was a doer, but I was definitely always one to step up being a perfectionist and really caring about school. I would always be the one to step up and just do what needed to be done. I didn't necessarily care to be like the more vocal person or the center of attention or I just wanted to make sure my work was done to the best of my ability.
check every box and know that I had confidence in that.
speaker-1 (45:06.542)
Why'd you get an I.U.?
speaker-0 (45:08.398)
It was cheap and in-state tuition you can never beat, but they did have a really good apparel merchandising program, which was my primary. I got two degrees and I don't know why I got a degree in journalism. It was a reach, but yeah, apparel merchandising was definitely my focus and they had a really good program for still being in-state and affordable. And I really liked Bloomington. I'd spent some time there on trips up from high school, so it seemed...
where I really, really wanted to go out of state. It seemed at least like a little bubble that didn't feel like Indiana while it was still in Indiana tuition.
speaker-1 (45:43.167)
Crack it. Did you only intern in New York?
speaker-0 (45:45.772)
Yeah, yeah, only in New York, two summers.
speaker-1 (45:47.95)
Okay, but it was in fashion both times?
speaker-0 (45:51.04)
It was, yeah, the first year was at a kind of like larger retail white labeling sort of company. It was called the, I can't even remember what it was called now, something apparel group. But I worked specifically under a brand for that apparel group. That was Nanette Lepore. So they sell it like Macy's, TJ Maxx, Burlington, Marshall's.
speaker-1 (46:01.294)
Okay.
speaker-0 (46:17.718)
Walmart like they just white label all kinds of different products for larger retailers So yeah, I worked in the textiles department. I did not apply for the textiles department. I applied for merchandising But they ended up putting me in textiles and I learned a ton I my boss was going through a master's textiles course at the time So he would literally like make copies of his paper homework and we do it together So it was really cool that I was getting like a crash course and a master's textile class for free
to learn a lot about that. And then the second year I was there, I worked for a really small company called Of A Kind that had been acquired by Bed Bath & Beyond. And they did all like national-based kind of small artisan makers or designers. They would, most of the time, most of their product lines would be specially acquired, small, either 200 units or less batches of an item.
And it could be jewelry, apparel, glasses, earrings, whatever. But there would only be up to 200 made of that item of a kind. So that was really cool, getting to work with a lot more like small designers and makers. And then there were other things that they would buy more stock of and sell online. their office, every single sample was in-house. So it was like you had a little fashion closet and you could go seek out a sample and get a picture if you needed. And we did like fashion shoots for every launch.
speaker-1 (47:24.278)
Hmm.
speaker-0 (47:44.662)
It actually felt like kind of living the Devil Wears Prada dream of being in like a real fashion company and seeing since it was a small business, the two women that started the company were in the office every single day. It was an office of just 10 women and we all got to work together in one big open room. So was kind of like the honeymoon of fashion. And it really gave me the taste for more small business rather than like they had been acquired by a corporate company and they had, you know, certain metrics to meet.
speaker-1 (48:03.544)
Yeah
speaker-0 (48:11.65)
but the people that were executing were there every single day collaborating together.
speaker-1 (48:16.622)
Do you do the honeymoon photo shoots for products? Did you learn from some of that from the previous experience?
speaker-0 (48:19.51)
I do. I help with them.
For sure, there were a lot of hacks. It was definitely more for apparel.
speaker-1 (48:27.502)
Just like the staging and lighting and stuff.
speaker-0 (48:29.742)
Yes, lighting for sure and kind of like almost like the concept of a still life. It's like you can tell when you at an image and you know it's been staged. But really good staging. You look at it and you're like that just feels lived in or that feels like home.
speaker-1 (48:43.18)
Yes. It's like the difference, the difference between to me, good product photos versus not good product photos. I just like quality versus not such good quality for better for worse. If that's what you're going for, that's what you're going for. But I think about like major television commercials and local television commercials. The local ones always look local and the major ones look different. And it's like just the
difference between I'm assuming somebody who does all the things that put in like quality and maybe the cost of the camera has something to do with it as well but like the the the eye behind it and the giving a shit about what it looks like in the final phase right where it's like a difference between good and
speaker-0 (49:31.36)
Yeah, even just using independent contractors and knowing they're getting a cut of this. So they want it to look good. And or they're an artist, so they want it to look good. Whereas in the past, I've definitely been guilty of like, shoot, we're launching a new waffle. I'm just gonna slap that on a plate because I need a picture of it really quickly because I didn't have a chance to do it until now. Go, go, go. I'm not staging that. I don't care. But knowing that someone's name is gonna be attached to someone or someone's brand is going to be attached to it and...
using those people to the best of their ability too and knowing that it's a creative outlet for them but also their source of income.
speaker-1 (50:06.542)
Yes. So tell me, I have one last question for you. How important is music inside of a honeymoon?
speaker-0 (50:14.478)
It's more important than you would think. Each space definitely has a vibe. And we don't use any curated playlists. We kind of let each barista that opens in the morning pick something out. So it can be comical. Sometimes I'll walk into the Newburgh location at seven o'clock in the morning and Kesha is playing. I'm like, you know what? That wouldn't have been my choice this morning. But I'm not mad about it. Yeah, it does. It sets the tone for your day. Or it can. Music is such a personal thing.
All we, I mean, obviously we have guidelines of like nothing explicit, nothing like club music. But otherwise it's like, you could hear jazz, you could hear R &B, you could hear like crooners playing or just recent pop music. Like we really kind of let people curate what vibe they want for the day. And it's ever changing and it depends on the locations. it's really fun to hear either our baristas sharing new music and be like, my gosh, have you heard the song?
I'm addicted to this, I heard it on TikTok, whatever, and playing it through the speakers. And or there have been so many customers that have come up and been like, what is this playlist? It's fire, like give me the link. And knowing that it's so funny, like sitting here watching this person and thinking they were doing homework or working the entire time and they're really just listening to the music that we're playing and jamming out.
speaker-1 (51:32.152)
I mean, a honeymoon without music is, I mean, I just don't think it's, I don't think I could. I know that when there's not music playing, and you or Zach or Jessica or somebody walks in, they run directly. What's going on? Why is the music off?
speaker-0 (51:45.72)
Yes, it's almost, it's odd because maybe when you're at home or like out and about, you don't realize that there's always a background track to your life, but there is 100%. Like if you think about a coffee shop, Walmart, a lot of people that have just the TV on in their house that they don't have music on, like we're so accustomed to needing and wanting noise that silence is jarring. It can be a good thing in certain places, but.
No, like it is somewhat cinematic. Like you do need a background track in your life and at a cafe is especially part of that. Like who doesn't feel like the main character when they're walking in and ordering their latte and then walking out with it and taking a cute picture of the art or whatever. Like it is an experience and music is a huge part of that as well.