Coffee Knowledge Hub

This is the last episode recorded before Paul opened the doors to his cafe for the first time on October 5.  We discussed his menu, opening hours, vision for the cafe and its impact on different stakeholders and we did some predictions for sales in the first month.  Tibor and Andrew have started sharing their reflections on the conversation after the recordings, so stay tuned to hear our post inte...

In the 5th instalment of our podcast series following Paul Ross as he opens the bricks and mortar home of Special Guests Coffee, we hear about progress with recruitment and shop fitting. We now have a tentative opening date and the pressure is on to finish the build out and get all the equipment in on time. Will it be opening on International Coffee day, we shall have to wait and see.  Amongst oth...

Our conversation includes insights into: Growing from one to three cafes. The benefits of co-roasting The Importance of systems and processes The theme that runs through the interview is people - designing an experience for all the people who are touched by the business, whether it is the people from whom Dagger coffee source products, to the way people are recruited and supported who work in the...

Major Cohen grew up with coffee, was a passionate consumer and hobbyist, mentored by George Howell in the 70's and went on to have a 25 year career with Starbucks from the age of 45. He subsequently left Starbucks during the pandemic and wrote the essential foundational coffee book - Coffee for Dummies. Join Andrew and Tibor in this conversation with Major. His experience with Starbucks is full of...

Tibor and Andrew had a catch up chat after World of Coffee in Copenhagen to discuss trends they saw and how they relate to the wider cafe industry. We dig deeper into the question of how do you decide which products to put on you menu using the operational complexity and profit margin matrix. You can see the matrix here: https://community.coffeeknowledgehub.com/c/trending/which-products-to-sell

Episode 4 in the series following the opening of the Special Guests Coffee cafe in Marlebone, London. Join us as we hear more from Paul Ross about opening his cafe. There are valuable lessons for anyone thinking about getting into the cafe business or for people already operating cafes.  In this episode we catch up on progress with the cafe build out and what Paul has been up to since our last int...

This was a short episode continuing our series with Paul Ross.  This episode touched on some aspects of the business fundamentals of running a cafe, but we will go a lot deeper into this in future episodes. As Tibor alluded to in his question, there are many first time cafe owners who do not have a good knowledge of targets such as labour and cost of goods sold as a percentage of net revenue. Pric...

If you have ever experienced staff shortages, difficulties finding qualified people for your business or find recruitment overwhelming, watch this interview with Ben Szobody.  Ben’s interest in coffee predates many people’s, he was following the US coffee competitions in the 2000’s, in a time before twitter, which was once a big thing in the coffee world and certainly before competitions became a...

Our latest podcast is released in time for WOC Copenhagen, where Ewelina is now based. Over the course of our conversation with Ewelina we learned about growing into new roles and developing skills. We learned about the transition from barista and friend to boss and we learned about retailing. There are some practical tips for improving cafe retails operations, implementing new service styles and...

This is episode 2 of the series following Paul Ross' journey in setting up the Special Guests Coffee cafe. This is a fun one to watch. We recorded it in early April and then travel and a few challenges with the editing got in the way of releasing it. So, you will hear Paul’s projected opening dates which have not yet been realised. He is battling on though. I highly recommend watching/listening to...

We are Following Paul Ross, founder of Special Guests coffee as he takes his high end specialty coffee business from a digital to a physical experience in his soon to open cafe in Marylebone, London.  This is the first of a multipart series where we follow Paul on his journey in opening a cafe.  This episode covers the origin story of Paul and his business Special Guests. We learn why he...

This is a wide ranging conversation on the business of specialty coffee covering micro and macro trends and some insights in decision making processes across a range of specialty business types.