Co-Hosts David J Morris and Dave Rand take a look back on their favorite moments from Season 1.  Over the last 11 episodes, guests have shared stories of the vision, values, and hard work that paved the path to successful business ownership with our audience.  In this episode, our hosts discuss what these insights mean to them personally and how Dillanos Coffee Roasters applies similar practices in its daily operations.

Season 1 covered everything from company culture and community engagement to brand evolution and whether or not franchising is right for your business.  Highlights include:

• “The Total Customer Experience” by Darren Spicer of Clutch Coffee
• “How to Cater to a Unique Market” by Shane Murphy of Java Espress
• “Bold Branding” with Emily Holzer of Hot Shotz
• “Bringing Community Together” with Andrew Stanisich of Two Guns Espresso
• “How to be the Solution to Your Culture Problem” with Bryan Reynolds of Anthem Coffee
• “Expansion Strategies” with Joe Lloyd of Durango Joe’s
• “To Franchise or Not To Franchise… That is the Question” with Marty Cox of It’s a Grind
• “Resourcefulness as a Guiding Principle” with Alan Butts of Coffee Crossings
• “Large Scale Team Management Techniques” with Robin Jean Lyon of Copper Mountain Coffee
• “Constant, Never-Ending Improvement” with Chris Heyer of Dillanos Coffee Roasters

All episodes are archived on The DCR Blog and available on Apple Podcasts & Stitcher. If you’ve enjoyed Season 1 of The DCR Coffee Podcast, take a second to leave a review!  We’re already in production on our second season and can’t wait for you to hear more stories from behind the scenes at Dillanos Coffee Roasters—the roaster for the most successful specialty coffee retailers in America!

We’d Like to (Re)Introduce You to Dillanos Cold Brew!

Our Dillanos Brew Box is a delicious, shelf stable concentrate of our award-winning Paradox blend, crafted specifically for cold brew coffee.

Paradox Blend is known for its rich, heavy body with a sweet candied aroma and vanilla cola flavor.

Each Brew Box contains 2 gallons of concentrate, yielding you 8 gallons of finished product!  Enjoy 270 long days of unopened storage and 14 days of freshness once tapped.

Serve the overall winner of Best Cold Brew at Cold Brew Fest 2018 in your business!  Your Customer Service Representative has all of the information you need to get your order in today. Contact them directly or use the link below to connect with the customer service department.

We can’t wait to simplify serving cold brew for your baristas this season thanks to the Dillanos Brew Box!

>> Contact Customer Service <<

WINNER! Paradox Wins Best Cold Brew at Cold Brew Fest 2018.

Get to know Dillanos Co-CEO Chris Heyer in the season one finale of The DCR Coffee Podcast.  Co-Hosts David J. Morris and Dave Rand enjoy a candid and light-hearted conversation with Chris… it’s a little bit of business and a little bit of stroll down memory lane in this last episode of our first season.

Those close to the company will tell you: there’s no Dillanos without David, and there’s no Dillanos without Chris.  These brothers are the yin and yang of the DCR Coffee brand and business. And together with their late father/step-father, they built it from the ground up.

This duo has been through it all.  Exploding coffee bags, wild goose chases to Las Vegas, and that one time a car drove straight into their very first roastery… And while they’re best known for their wildly different personalities, you’ll still find 90’s rock playing on both their Air Pods and New Balance shoes on their feet.

Join us for a fun conversation about the odd jobs Chris held before joining David to start building what has become one of the most beloved coffee roasters in America.  Learn what’s still Chris’s favorite thing about running this business, the coffee he’s been drinking every morning for the last ten years, and the shockingly few college classes these successful CEOs have between them in our latest episode!

Tune in on Apple Podcasts

Chris balances the demands of building the systems that keep Dillanos running by adventuring on the water from the Puget Sound to the Salish Sea with his wife and kids.  You can find his favorite coffee, Las Lajas, on Dillanos.com, along with the two blends named after his children: Ava Blonde and Skylar’s.

The best part about running your own business? You get to make all the decisions. And the worst part about running your own business? You get to make all the decisions.  Can anyone out there relate?

This week’s guest on The DCR Coffee Podcast shares his path to entrepreneurial success with our audience.  Marty Cox of It’s a Grind is like many of our previous podcast guests.  Each finding themselves at professional crossroads along the way and making a leap into owning a coffee shop, often without a sense of what lies ahead.

Marty’s background is in sales, and like many others in the industry, Marty often found himself in various cafes throughout the week to catch up on the day’s leads and refuel with a cup of coffee.  After a negative experience trying to place his order for an extra dry double cappuccino, he thought to himself that he would do a much better job if it were his business.  And the idea for It’s a Grind was born.

In partnership with his wife Louise, they committed themselves to a brand that was dedicated to customer service. “The customer’s needs drove all of our decisions” says Marty in today’s episode.

Right from the start they were turning heads. The first location popped up in July 1995. Over the course of 5 years, another 6 locations were up and running. And by the year 2000, they had begun to franchise It’s a Grind.  The brand was in high demand—they secured a 60-location deal right out of the gate as a newly minted franchisor.

As his ownership of It’s a Grind began to sunset, Marty and Louise’s place the spotlight became even brighter.  They were recognized multiple times in the Los Angeles business community, securing award after award from 2004 through 2009.

• 9th Fastest Growing Privately Held Company in Los Angeles County, Los Angeles Business Journal (2004)
• 2nd Fastest Growing Privately Held Company in Los Angeles County, Los Angeles Business Journal (2005)
• Small Business of the Year, Long Beach Chamber of Commerce (2005)
• Top 100 Movers & Shakers, Fast Casual Magazine(2005, 2006)
• 3rd Top New Franchises in the United States, Entrepreneur Magazine (2006)
• 1st Fastest Growing Privately Held Company in Los Angeles County, Los Angeles Business Journal (2006, 2007, 2008)
• Top Franchisors in Los Angeles County, Los Angeles Business Journal (2006, 2007)
• Biggest Customer Award, Dillanos Coffee Roasters (1998 through 2009, annually)

Listen to episode 10 of The DCR Coffee Podcast to hear real insights from the front lines of business ownership. Get a sense of the hard days that fuel the good days, the kind of hard work that is so often a prelude to the big wins.

. . .

It’s a Grind has 200 locations across 15 states. If you happen to find one in your neighborhood or in your future travels, be sure to stop by for a cup of coffee.  And in the meantime, you can always order a bag of whole bean Dillons Blend for a taste of It’s a Grind at home.

Join us on Instagram for your chance to win our Perfect Pair prize!

The prize pack features our Dillanos Limited No. 63: Bloom, a Chemex brewer and pack of filters to get you started brewing our latest limited edition coffee.

Here’s How to Enter:

• Find our Perfect Pair Post on Instagram
• Leave a comment sharing your perfect coffee + brew method pair
• Tag a friend to do the same!

Entries close at midnight, February 14th.  A winner will be selected at random and announced Monday, February 15th!

What’s Your Perfect Pair?  

Here are a few of our favorites!

Dillons Blend is the original Dillanos Coffee Blend.  

It came on the scene in 1992 and has reigned as our #1 best seller ever since!  Dillons loves to be brewed with a regular drip brewer — the kind you probably have in your kitchen right now. 

Grab a bag of Dillons, find your perfect grind, and then brew a pot of rich, full bodied coffee… Fill your home with the aroma of hazelnuts, and enjoy each chocolatey sip.

Lucent Loves Lattes

This coffee combines several different growing regions, all processed using different methods, for a cascade of complexity. It withstands the pressure involved with brewing as espresso beautifully–even ideally so.

Lucent is known for its crisp, full body with a sweet dried fruit aroma and lingering blackberry flavor.  It is just… luscious when served as a latte. 

If you have an espresso machine at home, give one of our favorite blends a try for your morning shots.

Co-Hosts David J. Morris and Dave Rand talk to Robin Jean Lyon of Western Montana’s favorite coffee chain, Copper Mountain Coffee.

Copper Mountain Coffee is a female-owned-and-operated business thriving in the Northwest corner of Montana. One part Business Management Degree, two parts grit and intuition, Robin leveraged her business savvy to transform an uninspired juice and coffee shop into a stylish 12-location chain of drive-thrus and cafés across the region.

Since 2006, Robin has been reading the landscape of customer demand and responding with her famous agility.  “Focus on the people; don’t worry about making money” is what Robin has to say to everyone out there pursuing dreams of business ownership. After all, even if this entrepreneur had the choice, she’d still choose hard work over luck… “it’s more satisfying that way, we won’t appreciate what comes from luck nearly as much as through hard work.”

Over the last two decades, Robin has fearlessly led this growing business not from the front, per se, but shoulder-to-shoulder alongside her 90+ employees.  They have a unique approach to company organization and effectiveness.  Copper Mountain Coffee employees organize themselves into various teams, depending on the task at hand.  Each team member knows what “hat” they’re wearing and together they get the job done!  With communication at the forefront of the company’s values, the employees use a popular walkie-talkie app called Voxer.  This enables teams to communicate via video messaging—a creative solution to address a common challenge all companies face: detecting tone in email.  Using video messages improves communication quality and protects their great culture.

If you find yourself taking in the scenery of the Flathead Valley anytime soon, be sure to swing through one of twelve locations from Libby to Whitefish down thru Kalispell to Missoula.  Robin recommends trying one of their customer-favorite signature drinks like the Copper Mountain Mocha and the Copper Top Latte.

Tune in now to listen to Robin Jean Lyon on The DCR Coffee Podcast!

. . . 

Find Copper Mountain Coffee on social and online:

Web: coppermountaincoffee.com

Facebook: @CopperMountainCoffee

Instagram: @coppermountaincoffee

And for a little taste of Copper Mountain Coffee at home, buy the coffee they’ve chosen to serve year after year: Dillons Blend.

The DCR Coffee Podcast shares the mic with co-founder and co-owner of Coffee Crossing, Alan Butts. Hailing from the heartland of America, Alan has been running Coffee Crossing since 2002 with his wife, Mary, and their children. Fueled by faith, this family has grown their business from a single location in 2003 to five thriving locations to date—with two more scheduled to open in 2021 alone.

Company culture is on the minds of most business owners these days and Alan is no different.  Anyone can tell you that protecting healthy culture requires a keen approach to recruiting new staff.  So you might be surprised to learn that their recruitment process doesn’t prioritize a knowledge of coffee. That’s right—this café owner doesn’t have coffee anywhere near the top of his list.  Alan says, “the number one thing is to focus on having great people… everything else will find its way.”  They look for integrity, a love of customer service, and a generous attitude – people who happily give their time and care to both customers and coworkers.  It’s important that each new employee brings a spirit of service with them as they join a likeminded team.

This successful entrepreneur doesn’t sweat the small stuff… and he doesn’t sweat the big stuff either.  When co-host David J. Morris asked Alan to describe his “end game” for our listeners, his answer wasn’t what we expected to hear. He didn’t have one.  Instead, he shared the benefit of setting aside the worry that often accompanies building that traditional 5-year-plan having been inspired by an archived Chris Locurto Podcast episode.  The discussion landed here: “Some entrepreneurs are just in it for the creation.”  That clicked.  Nineteen years into entrepreneurship, Alan’s still having fun creating new opportunities for Coffee Crossing—enjoying every chance to serve coffee and his community along the way.

Alan and the team at Coffee Crossing in Southern Indiana are a great example of what the path to a successful coffee chain can also look like… You’ll enjoy listening to some thoughts on how both businesses and business owners evolve over time and how to chart a better course for your brand and business by tuning into Episode 8 of The DCR Coffee Podcast!

Find Coffee Crossing on Social & Online:

Episode 7 of The DCR Coffee Podcast features a business owner that is local to the Dillanos headquarters in the Pacific Northwest and the originator of your next favorite customer service mantra: Heroic Hospitality.

Bryan Reynolds, co-founder and co-owner of Anthem Coffee, sits down in our latest episode with hosts David J. Morris and Dave Rand for a conversation about being in “the people business”, the value of self-care as a business owner, and a great way to cook a steak.

Bryan’s passion for serving people radiates through every word spoken.  He’s best known for being a team builder, visionary, and a business mentor.  Plus, he’s the biggest fan you didn’t know you had.  Seriously—if you’re having a bad day, just go sit by Bryan. You’ll walk away refreshed and ready to start turning problems into possibilities. His passion for developing leaders, defining brand culture, and creating memorable moments is among his many entrepreneurial hallmarks.  As he says, “Every cup, every interaction, every experience needs to be a good one, cause people are talking.”

But the Anthem Coffee experience wasn’t always that.  Bryan shares his biggest-mistake-made-slash-lesson-learned taught him that scaling a business isn’t just scaling the good, but the bad as well.  Like so many other growing businesses, improved communication was the key to their turning point.  Communication improved culture, culture improved customer experience, and customer experience became a brand-defining tenet for Anthem Coffee. Now he preaches and teaches a hands-on approach to business ownership. In fact, he’ll still put on an apron and get behind the bar from time to time.

Tune in to hear a true “diamond in the rough” tale of what Dillanos Co-CEO David Morris considered to be the worst location for a coffee shop that he had ever seen.  But Bryan knew that sleepy part of town was where he wanted to plant roots. Fourteen years and eight locations later, Anthem Coffee remains a South Puget Sound favorite.

. . .

All Anthem Coffee locations use our Skylar’s blend as espresso.  Try a bag for yourself at Dillanos.com

Find Anthem on social and online:

Web: myanthemcoffee.com

Facebook: @anthemcoffee

Instagram: @anthemcoffee

Books & Podcasts mentioned in today’s episode:

• Building a Storybrand with Donald Miller
• The Road Less Stupid by Keith J. Cunningham
• EntreLeadership by Dave Ramsey
• The GaryVee Audio Experiencewith Gary Vaynerchuk