Show Notes

"Unfiltered" - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8912280/

• Other Half Brewing - https://otherhalfbrewing.com/
• Aporia Coffee - https://www.aporiacoffee.com/
• AM FM - https://www.instagram.com/amfm_coffee/
• Best of Panama
• Perfect Daily Grind
• - https://perfectdailygrind.com/2024/10/diversity-in-gesha-coffee-panama-processing/
• Joe Bean - https://shop.joebeanroasters.com/
• Ugly Duck - https://www.uglyduckcoffee.com/

Mentioned in this episode:

Joe Bean Roasters

Joe Bean Coffee - Coffee that lifts everyone. https://shop.joebeanroasters.com

Welcome to the Level up podcast.

I'm Wade Reed, and I don't know what the hell we're doing tonight.

I don't either.

I just pulled us all here to have some fun.

Right, Wade, you just brought us here because you knew I would bring beers.

Oh, I was shocked.

Other half, if you don't know.

I mean, now you know.

Yeah.

Definitely my go to staple.

Joined also by producer Chris Lindstra.

Oh, we got some.

We got some tired boys in the studio tonight.

So tired.

Is he here?

Yeah.

He's got a fresh shaved head, though.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

I was on Connections earlier today.

Oh, yeah.

With Dawson.

Yeah.

What'd you guys talk about?

We're doing.

Doing some impossible meets discussion.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah, cool.

So we're doing some impossible meets.

Get a little lunch door plug in there.

Nothing wrong with that.

Awesome.

Yeah.

So I had a good conversation.

I brought up the perils of hyperbolic based on venture capital.

So the obvious segue from impossible meets to the deleterious effects of hyperbolic venture capital statements.

Honestly, though, like, I see the very clear connection, and it doesn't really matter whether the person giving you money is venture capital or just someone with money.

They're going to make a lot of very hyperbolic statements.

Right?

Like, about you and what you can do to a lot of people.

It's like, oh, okay, yeah, here we go.

So that was.

Yeah, that.

That came up during the show, and that was very fun.

I love Evan.

Just.

Yeah, yeah, that was.

It was an absolute blast.

It's so much fun.

I'm hoping we're going to be able to do a lunch and.

Or update maybe early next year with all of the new shows coming up.

Awesome.

Yeah, that'd be great.

That'd be great.

I was on the last one.

That was the last time I was with Evan.

Was.

That was fun.

Yeah, with you.

That was great.

That was great.

And I was really happy we got to hijack it and talk about coffee for 20 minutes.

It was so funny that he just straight up said, like, I.

To keep myself from asking all the questions I want to ask.

And I'm like, no, Nope.

This is what we do.

That's the fun part about having conversations, you know, like these is we don't know where things are going.

And one of the great things about being the producer chair, and actually, you get to feel this today, too.

I have no idea what we're talking about today.

I'm so happy to not be in the driver's seat.

Aaron.

Like, I'm so grateful you Sent me this email.

I'm just going to be honest.

I said, looks great before I read it because I was like, I didn't have to make it.

So it looks great.

And I knew I'd, you know, look at it at some point.

And we're going to find lots of things to talk.

I have lots of things to talk about.

I actually have one really specific point that I want to talk about that, you know, hold on.

Here's the other thing.

First of all, there is something about bringing people together that's going to come in here.

Okay?

So I feel justified in getting you two tired boys into a room together and then us talking over coffee.

The tire boys.

Yeah, the tire boys.

It sounds like a motorcycle club waiting to happen.

But I weren't sure if Wade was going to show up because Wade is busy, busy all the time.

I know he reads my text.

It's whether or not I feel valuable enough for him to respond at any given point.

That is absolutely not how it works.

But it's 100% how it works.

I know where I am on the totem pole of a pore.

And AM FM and everything else going on.

Shout out to AM fm by the way.

Shout out for first Friday.

And it was a great scene that night.

You know, it's exciting times.

And Jocelyn Masiti is now up for best photographer.

I saw City Magazine Best photographer.

That's awesome.

That was honest to goodness photos.

Everyone.

Go vote.

Actually, all the photographers on there are amazing, including Lunch Door's own Richard Colon.

Yeah, we got Richard Colon and Rudy Favre, both behind the glass alumni.

We actually have two.

I wish I was wearing my Rudy designed hoodie.

Oh, so good.

And then we also have two shows on the best of list.

Two.

We have Anomaly Presents and the Departing Slash Evolving Refined Taste.

Right.

Departing revamping.

Oh, okay.

So it's turning into Think global Act Local, hosted by Dario.

Yeah, I actually just saw Dario.

He just came into AM FM over the weekend and we talked about doing like some kind of comedy show there.

But also on the podcast Beat your authentic life Pod is by Josiah Ball, who is now an AM FM barista.

Oh, nice.

Yeah, yeah.

Our first ever, like, barista who was trained elsewhere and has experience anywhere but AM FM other than myself.

So yeah, AM fm, man, that's a whole.

We'll get there sometimes.

Wonderful.

We will.

I mean, that's.

We can plug that in wherever.

Because we do need an update on your.

I'm.

We've.

We've got some ideas.

So Wade and I are bouncing Ideas around.

We, We.

We're excited.

I'm excited about storytelling, and Wade is thinking about storytelling.

Yeah, I'm.

I'm trying to do.

Does he have concepts of storytelling?

An audio essay?

I have what I have in mind.

And I'm thinking more of a this is my life.

So we're going to figure something out, but I'm excited about the opportunity to tell the story of something like that in a different way.

No doubt.

No doubt.

So there's no distance right now.

Yeah.

I can't get to take a step back long enough to be like, this is what it is.

Yeah, I don't know what it is yet.

And it just keeps getting bigger.

So, Aaron, how's the control of the show going?

Oh, I mean, you know, here's the thing with you guys is I'm not what you consider an alpha male.

If there's a fight going on, I'm not going to step in.

I'm going to wait for the other guys to go at it first, and then I'll finish everything.

Yes.

Hey, that could be a shout out to punches and popcorn.

Get me on.

Oh, absolutely.

Come at me, dude.

Oh, they're starting to record again, so it's a good time for that.

They're just finishing Ninja November right now.

Ninja November.

I think they do.

They did American Ninja.

I got to listen to that one.

They're doing the entire run and they all sound awful and exciting.

It looked terrible.

Just terrible.

All right.

Do you think there's any chance they'll do three Ninjas?

Oh, I wouldn't be shocked.

Have such fond memories.

Oh, you ask.

They're going to show up, dude.

That's the one we should do.

Okay, that message is going out.

Find the coffee connection there and you know, it'll be a crossover.

Yeah, exactly.

Co Ferment podcast.

If aol.

That's what we're going to call the crossovers lunch at our Co Ferment.

I mean, we all say we don't qualify for awards.

Not in Panama.

I was not in Panama.

And that's the segue into coffee.

Right.

I got it for you.

Let's.

So let's jump into Panama here.

Wade, did you look at all at that last link there about, oh, Gesha has a thing going on in Panama?

Yeah.

What do you.

What do you think about this whole article on Perfect Daily Grind about Gesha in Panama?

Do you have any thoughts?

Do you have.

Do you have a little Prior.

Yeah.

So I was looking for.

There's one bit that I was.

For those of you not reading it.

While Wade's perusing, give me some Cliff Notes.

This is coming off of.

First of all, the whole episode was supposed to be a revisit to a lot of things we've talked about before.

We got massively sidetracked into everything else here.

So, you know, this is the beta male coming in, wrangling everything again.

But we talked about how the Panama Board of Coffee, or the board who runs the Best of Panama there, Specialty.

Coffee association of Panama.

Yeah.

Had put a bunch of regulations on coffees that could be entered and considered for this award there.

One of the main things that they brought was that CO ferments and other newer processing methods were going to rule out certain coffees here.

So when this article came up, it's on perfect daily grind.

It's titled, it's from October 29th, just how much diversity is there within Gesha and Panama?

So I thought this was going to relate directly to that ruling that came out there.

Far be it for me to assume that, you know, two companies would be in sync with each other at all and finding that this is all about the diversity of GESHA and how it became rooted in Panama and nothing related to just the fact that it can be that it's synonymous with Panama and best of Panama there.

Yeah, it's really.

It is fascinating.

I was really fascinated by a section about.

Do you remember the section on river flow fermentation that was on my list?

It's so wild.

And the science is going to come out here.

All right, so this is.

This is the whole relation to this ruling about Best of Panama.

Right, was that the GESHA was supposed to be pure Panama.

Right, Right.

It's pure to Panama.

You can't alter it.

That was the whole point that the ruling was based on.

Well, yeah, it's.

It somehow exemplifies the terroir of Panama.

And it's really because it was planted in Panama that it became what it became.

And so, like, yeah, they became very, very protective of what it means to grow gesha in Panama.

Right.

So, you know, then the CO ferments apparently change that too much, but this doesn't.

The Altier team says we measured how temperature impacts bacterial activity and how heat transfers differently in liquid compared to air.

To achieve this, we anaerobically fermented fresh cherries and sealed silage plastic bags under running water.

So a.k.a.

a river.

River flow fermentation.

Okay, first of all, can we imagine hiking through Panama, coming up to a river and seeing bags of probably gross looking fruit ish things sitting in the river?

Yeah.

Like bags of what would look probably like waste compost.

Like you wouldn't necessarily know looking at it that it's coffee.

That's.

That wouldn't be your first thought.

Not at all.

So I find it really fascinating that thermal shocks were included in the SEAPS ban because how is this not a thermal shock?

It's this.

We're literally.

We want to know what heat does to the process.

Like is it literally just if it gets too hot too quickly or if it gets too cold too quickly?

It reminds me so much of the, the, the black panther geisha, the Proud Mary.

The one that Proud Mary brought in because theirs was, you know, in a dark room or whatever.

It was something with light.

Right.

And I've since learned that black honey processed coffees, you have to cover them from sunlight.

So that's actually pretty standard.

I.

Yeah, because.

Because the sunlight, it does something to accelerate one of the anaerobic processes.

Yeah.

And it over sours and this, that and the other.

So because I have now my second black honey processed coffee on AT AM fm, the one I brought you tonight.

I'm excited to try it.

Yeah, I've had it before, I've brought it in before.

But this year's lot is so wild anyway that to say like if a honey process method's okay, requiring darkness, requiring this temperature, requiring that, you know, this, that the other, all the specs, like where is a meaningful line and if you can't draw a meaningful line, why are you drawing a line?

Well, and I think that's the thing that I came back to and what I keep coming back to with this is somebody decided they needed to make a ruling and have power here.

It seems so arbitrary.

It's very arbitrary.

It's very absurd when you look at it.

Especially this entire article is centering around all of the things that they're doing to promote Panama Coffee.

Yeah, it sounds a lot like.

It sounds a lot of protectionism and isolating new producers and trying to keep the money where it is with the Producers that are already doing it, they already made the investments.

I mean, this is very copyright.

Very, you know, very, you know, copyright protection kind of thing.

That kind of thing.

Yeah, yeah, that's really what it is.

Like, they're just protecting the people who already made the investments.

And it seems like this is, like.

Yeah, they're allowed to do the.

Some of the things.

Yeah, but not new people.

Right.

Well.

And that's.

And that's the thing.

The best of Panama was all producers in Panama, if I'm not mistaken there by this.

Oh, yeah, definitely.

And so why is it that certain producers are gonna get.

That gets allowed to do this and others are not?

That gets a little bit fuzzy because they might be producers in Panama, but what you find is a lot of them have German names, so this is pretty common in Guatemala, too.

So, like, one of the main.

One of the first families to ever plant gesha and bring it to the United States and sell it to roasters and make it famous.

Their name is Hartman, and they're growing coffee in Panama.

So, like, it does harken back to that colonial past we've talked about before.

And, like, how.

How just messy the coffee supply chain is.

And so, like, I honestly, I don't mean to always, like, ring the racism bell, but, like, global anything just tends to find its way to that bell, so.

Well, and thankfully, what we can say for sure is that, you know, the migration of Germans across South America was certainly something that never had any of those backgrounds, so no problems.

And I'm assuming that the Hartmans don't own the La Esmeralda, you know, plot there.

No, it's not.

It's not Esmeralda, but it.

But it was, like, kind of the one that was the one before, you know, the Esmeralda took.

Before the CoE competitions, made Esmeralda famous, before Esmeralda became.

But.

And I can't think of the family name off the top of my head, but Esmeralda and Black Jaguar.

They're both, like, very European names of the families.

And I'm not here to criticize those families.

And I don't know if, you know, those.

Maybe the kids of the family grew up in Panama, married Panamanian national.

I have no idea.

But what I am here to say is that when you live in a Central American country and you have a.

You have a European last name, I kind of know what story led you to prominence or at least, sure, I have, you know, like, 80% of it.

Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah, I would say that'd be my judgment, but Yeah, I think it's fascinating.

I think, like, if you see an arbitrary decision and you have reason to believe it's because moneyed interests with a kind of racially tinged background made that decision.

Here we are, you know, obviously, we're not immune in coffee.

We've never been.

And it's.

It's just.

It's interesting to see, and it's frustrating because it's like, I would so much rather if these new producers and their river flow fermentations and all their fun stuff they want to do could just get highlighted and just make them money, too.

For sure.

That'd be great.

I'd be fine with that.

But.

Well, and this might be one little thing.

Here we explore the idea when we first talked about thermoshock and all these coal ferments that these producers needed to put money into their facilities there to provide the technology they needed to control these beds or these vats as they might be, you know, to keep constant temperatures.

Right.

If river flow can do that without the money expenditure.

Yeah, that might be an in.

Right?

Yeah.

I think it's great.

And I'm sure that people who have money and who have spent money think it's cheating.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And in a way, this is so similar to the Starbucks conversation because it's people who kind of started.

Were like.

Were like disruptors and first movers in an industry and who made a positive impact looking at kind of what's going on now and going like, that's not fair, or we want to be more like that, or, you know, or like, we can only compete in this marketplace if we can.

If we can box them out.

Right.

So I think we need to move on to Starbucks because that's going to be the longer conversation.

Oh, and wait, wait one second.

Let me see if this works.

Now you know the rest of the story.

What is that from?

Perfect.

It's from Paul Harvey, famous radio man.

It was his most famous homespun.

The Rest of the Story.

It was my favorite radio segment as a kid.

And that's his tag.

Yeah, totally.

No, I remember that.

Yeah.

So go ahead.

Oh, gosh, I'm getting punchy.

It's a long day.

Oh, he's.

He's.

He's getting loopy.

Yep, kicking in.

Let's go.

All right, so this.

This idea about this whole Starbucks stuff came up on my phone.

So I always gotta tell this.

My clickbait algorithm on my phone is so prime.

I open up the Chrome app and all those clickbait things that pop up.

Oh, yeah.

I literally want to read like every single one now.

Wow.

It does, really?

They've got you figured out.

Mine's great.

I get like the pro wrestling rumors of the day.

I get tech updates.

I get food and drink.

I get.

It's really disparate and weird and it's like, oh yeah, the hit rate's really good.

I mean I'm getting watch investment charts and Starbucks ads and other crazy things.

Like that, but I'm gonna run an ad and see how long it takes for you guys.

Like, the funny thing about Google is they've been trying to throw me $500 for like four years.

Really?

Yeah, yeah.

They're like, you have a 500 ad?

Because I do my domain through Google anyway.

Yeah.

So I wonder how long it would take.

That'd be a great test, honestly, to see if it could even get to us.

Yeah, yeah.

Because I don't.

I don't Google amp AM fm.

Really.

I know it's there.

Yeah.

If I need it, I go to the Instagram.

So if the Instagram can talk on my phone to whatever.

Like possibly.

They're always talking.

Yeah.

But they're talking right now.

Everything we've said.

So Clickbait on Starbucks.

I was getting like 4 to 5, you know, these crappy websites that run like the short stories.

And I had like 20 tabs open on my phone.

I sat down, I started reading them.

It was all about how Starbucks is losing profit now.

And losing profit probably being a relative term for them.

Yeah.

Not growing at the rate that they wish to grow.

Right.

Which for stocks is the same as dying.

Right.

Is you're not making more profit year over year, every year, forever.

Yeah.

So Laxman Nara.

Nara Seaman was the old guy in charge there.

Under him, Starbucks only gained 4% over the last year.

So that was the impetus to the change here.

And they brought in Nicole.

I'm sorry, Brian Nicole of Chipotle.

Yeah, I saw that.

Which I thought was an interesting connection there.

Very funny.

So now when you go in and buy a 12 ounce cup of coffee, sometimes you're going to get 8 ounces and sometimes you're going to get 32 ounces.

Works.

I mean like it's.

Well, your coffee's at the bottom of the bag.

Well, when they bring in the five guys CEO next.

Well, and if you're going to.

And if you're going to Chipotle, just.

Spill beans on the outside of the cup.

The refresher drinks at Chipotle are going to be replaced by bottled frappuccinos.

Now could be good.

I like that.

Could be worse.

Could be worse.

Apparently it's been up 38% since he took over though.

So few numbers I pulled there.

Sounds good.

Yeah.

Something, right.

I'll take 38% more everything.

The interesting part here was that most of the articles center around the idea of bringing Starbucks back.

And as the phrase comes into my head, making Starbucks great again, I mean.

They'Re changing the color of their hats.

Maybe red with a ultra red.

Can we just pause for a second?

An actual Starbucks CEO once ran for president.

Like that actually happened.

Like Howard Schultz really did that.

Right.

Wow.

Right?

Geez.

I can't.

I completely forgot that that happened.

And he poured a ton of money in the late primary states and got like one electoral vote and sounds a lot like one delegate.

Sounds very Bloomberg esque.

It was, it was very Bloomberg.

It was very like.

I mean, it's apparently very Starbucks to invest in all the wrong things.

Right.

This is what we're learning.

Yeah.

I mean, and that's, and that's essentially what I picked up here, is that they, they have this drive for profit.

Like it's an innate drive for profit and if you can't see it, you're blind.

Right.

One of the.

Now after this, I went on Netflix randomly and what pops up?

A docu series on Starbucks.

Okay.

It's called where it is Unfiltered.

It's called Unfiltered.

It's on Netflix.

It's fascinating.

It goes from the beginning of Starbucks and how they started and what they were going to do to.

Throughout their growth process and their mindsets and all this other stuff.

And it's weird because it's mixed with this idea of we want to be the coffee shop.

Like everybody's gone to a coffee shop.

They all love the coffee shop, but they're Starbucks now.

And so they want to maximize that profit.

And so what can they do to do that?

Now coming back to what they're doing, here's the phrase that came out.

We want to reestablish the brand as the community coffee house is what they're going for.

No, they're not.

One of the.

Well, and this was going to be.

And the other thing that came up was he kept saying something about this.

We're going to bring back the black Sharpie gives a shit.

That was what makes Community.

Yeah, obviously, I mean, obviously also like calling out the Sharpie Corporation.

That is almost definitely a corporate tie in.

There's got to be money involved.

Somebody.

Yeah, somebody has.

Yeah.

When Somebody like that makes a statement.

There's always money.

And there was, there was literally somewhere, it might have been an interview that came up where he said, yeah, we're going to need like something like 15 million Sharpies.

We'll get them.

And like, I thought Bring Back the Sharpie was like, you know, you know, some sort of imagery for how they're going to, you know, bring back the personality to the coffee cups and things like that.

Writing your name on a coffee cup, that was what they were doing wrong.

Correctly.

Yeah, they were printing it.

That's what they were.

That's what they were doing.

That's the difference.

That's what they got wrong.

So that we don't feel like you see us when you print our name in our drink.

So now.

Now that when they get in.

Now that when they get an online order, they're going to manually write it on the cup and ruin the entire flow.

And turning baristas into robots.

Yeah.

So.

Well, now they're robots who have to read human language.

So that's going to make community.

Well, you know, so, you know, I saw the look on your face.

I was more saying that, like, because the frequency of online orders has now become such a dominant part of that.

Oh, of going to a Starbucks that they don't have time to be people anymore.

They're just running all day.

You know what's funny is, you know, I still do go to Starbucks periodically and I always online order.

Like, I don't want to wait in line between all those people.

I'm guilty of that.

Right.

If I want to wait, I'm going to go to AM fm.

Dude, you don't wait that long.

Well, let me.

I could call someone else out.

I could call out another if you.

Wanted to wait around.

That's literally what I meant.

So sorry for the way that came out.

This is the story of my life, by the way.

People completely misunderstanding.

Side note, this is one of the least other half.

Other half beers I've ever tried.

Yeah.

So as a daydream, it does not overdo it on the oat cream vibe.

Yeah, it's actually.

Is this a session?

Not.

No.

Oh, no, no, no.

This is like a six or six and a half.

Holy cow.

Because it almost plays light like a session.

So we, we usually have during these later night recordings.

Usually something.

Yeah.

Oh, it's a six.

It plays very light.

I know.

Very bouncy.

It's not thick.

I think it's mosaic that makes the hop.

You know, like it.

It hits that really bright citrusy it's.

Got that, you know, it's got some little bit of armpit funk to it, a little bit of mango.

It's very pleasant.

I.

I feel like the daydreams usually are sugar bombs, and that's usually what I'm trying to do is pound a sugar bomb when I get a daydream.

Yeah.

But.

But this one is.

It's.

It's.

It's quite drinkable.

Yeah, it's nice and clean.

Yeah.

Cool.

Sorry.

So with Starbucks.

Swell.

What?

Let me ask you, as someone who goes to a Starbucks now.

So let me tell you, the last time I was like a Starbucks person was when I lived in Chicago.

Sure.

I started working in coffee in Chicago.

So it was actually way before that there was a Starbucks right off the train that I would get off of when I was going to school.

And so that's where I would.

That's where I would get coffee.

That was the only.

Maybe not the only, but the Starbucks I was the most regular at.

Yeah.

Kind of in my history.

So that was convenience.

That was speed.

That was.

I've got to get to class.

I spent all night studying.

That was, you know, all the.

Every reason to drink that coffee.

Except the coffee.

Every reason to drink that coffee, but not, like for community.

I guess what I'm getting at is when was Starbucks a third place?

When was literally what I had written down here was what Starbucks ever a third place?

Was it?

No.

Yeah.

So, like, like, did it ever achieve.

What it wanted to?

Yes, I mean, I think definitively so.

This was before it became the extremes of people working there.

Right.

But this was where people had interviews.

This is where people had, like, before Panera was the place where you had a devastating conversation with a relative.

Starbucks Was that.

Oh, 100%.

Wow.

Start.

Panera is one of those places where you.

If you want to see depressing conversations happen, great place to go see that.

Wow.

I don't.

Because it's.

Well, it's got a lot of, like, cloistered spots.

Yeah.

So it has, like, separate areas and it's very neutral.

I mean, what's more neutral than a Panera bread?

Sure.

White bread.

It's tan from top to bottom.

The food is tan.

It's.

It's just a very tan place.

It's just a beige flag in a strip mall.

So I'm really going after corporations.

You are?

Yeah.

But I think it really was a Place where people did meet, they did hang out.

But here's my thing with that.

When I think about third places that I frequented before that was a term in Rochester, it was Java's.

Then we had a spot coffee for a little bit.

And that was a spot I went to a lot.

And then I went to college and there were other coffee houses.

Sundays for me were a time that I always had to get out of the house to go finish studying before Monday showed up.

And all of the independent places were always closed.

Okay.

And so I would go, I get up and I'd be like, oh, Starbucks is open, let me go check.

Nope, they close at like 4 or 5.

So they were always like, if it's an availability spot for me to start with.

And the most time I ever actually spent at one was when it opened up down the road from the high school.

So I grew up in Brighton.

Twelve Corners was one of the first Starbucks I ever saw.

And I think it was fairly early in their development there.

But the one that's still there, is.

It still actually there?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But I can't think of a time that I would have chosen to go there over another spot if it wasn't that convenient.

Yes.

Like you said, fourth or fifth place.

Yeah, literally.

Well, I think at the time it was.

I think we're also coming at it from a.

Hey, we want specific character for a lot of places.

The neutrality of.

The reason I was joking about Panera is people.

The neutrality of the place is part of that benefit where, sure, it's a place where you spend the time, but it's.

The place is the facilitation of that.

It doesn't add much itself.

It's neutral.

For that is in many ways what people want.

They want a place where there's activity, they want some buzz, they want something going on, but they don't really want to pay attention to anything around them.

And that's part of what some people see as the benefit of spending time there because it's where you meet people, it's where you might even see somebody.

But the place isn't generating as much as it.

As it is just a location you can be and depend on see.

And that's.

And that's part of what I looked at with that is part of the appeal of going to coffee shops and getting into coffee as an enthusiast as much was getting to see that same barista at, you know, Ugly Duck or Joe Bean at the very least.

If I had been isolated all day from not being able to see people or do anything.

I know that I could go get a cup of coffee at Joe Bean, say hi to somebody who would recognize me, and I could pretend in my head they were friends.

You know, before, like, we were actually were friends.

Yeah.

You know what I'm talking about.

Like, and that's the appeal of those other places.

But no, I mean legitimately.

Like, I.

Like when we're talking about third places.

Like, I was.

I was lost for a year or two years because that was such a default for me to go there on a Friday night where Joe being on a Thursday or Friday night.

It was such a default to me.

It was such part of my routine that I was.

I mean, to be honest, like, it's still.

Like, it still affects the way I go out because I don't have a place.

Yeah, right.

To go to.

There was always.

Like, that would start.

Like, we would.

We would all still go to University Jobin.

Like, even after I left Jobe and even after fifth frame was up and running, like, University Jobin was like, it was so authentically a third place.

And I think, like, it was something that you said, Chris, that hit me.

You know, it's like where you go to see people and the places facilitation.

I'm like, oh, that is so Ugly Duck right now.

Like, you see everyone.

Like, everyone within, you know, two circles of any Lunch Door podcast, you're so likely to see them.

Like, I realized, like, how many of the people on the network I met for the first time at Ugly Duck.

Like, both Richard and Quadra, I met at Ugly Duck.

Randomly.

Yeah, the first time.

Randomly.

And then on purpose.

Was there.

Last time I was there, I saw your friend.

Your friend and my friend John Cannon.

Yeah.

There.

And we, you know, we'd been meaning to talk for a while, and he's like, yeah, I'm going on tour to Philadelphia.

Like, oh, yeah.

God, you're a world's touring guy now.

Yeah, yeah.

Seriously.

China.

So weird.

I was China.

Yeah, exactly.

And.

And I'm like, hey, like, come on.

The new music show on the network.

Oh, yeah, definitely.

He's like, yeah, that would be a blast.

Like.

Like, what an amazing thing.

Like, and I would have run into eventually.

Yeah.

But I get to see him there, and it's a different interaction.

And what we're talking about is how we think of a third place, which is.

It's facilitating those things happening.

Not just a place for things to happen.

To meet.

Yeah, right.

Those things.

It's making those Things happen just from the confluence of people.

Starbucks is just that.

Everybody was there.

And maybe it didn't facilitate the random thing, but it was the place that was the default first date place.

It was the default interview place, the default work from not home place.

But that doesn't make it a third place.

It makes it a popular place.

Well, is a third place where you spend most of your time or is it that other extra level?

I was always under the impression that the whole idea of the third place was, like you said, like a Joe Bean, where Friday night I could know that I was going to go down there.

And you know what?

Jim was going to be there.

He was either going to be drinking at the bar or he was going to be working the bar.

You know, Chris was probably going to roll in, you know, after, you know, seven or eight, you know, and he might stay, he might not stay.

Yep.

You guys were talking about Cheers and.

Then here was a.

Exactly.

You're describing Cheers.

Cheers is a perfect third place.

Although it really does.

It really does matter how they say your name when you walk into the place.

And if they're saying it under their breath.

Aaron.

Exactly.

Wade's over in the corner.

Exactly.

Now, who is this girl?

There was a.

There was a customer who came into Jobean.

And what was her name?

I'll have to find it later.

I'm going to read the definition for a second.

So this is from one of the books that defined this.

So the paragraph was.

They called the first place the home and the people the person lives with.

So it's also defining the people.

And that's where I think is the first place.

That's where we're coming from, is the.

First place in people being correlated.

Second place is the workplace where people may actually spend most of their waking time and they're around people, but they're not necessarily your chosen people.

Third places that are anchors of community life and facilitate and foster broader, more creative interaction.

In other words, your third place is where you relax in public, where you encounter familiar faces and make new acquaintances.

I think it covers depending on who you are and when you.

What age you are.

Yeah.

That.

It covers two thirds of what I would call those qualifications.

You think Starbucks does.

Yes, Starbucks hits two thirds.

Two of the three.

It definitively doesn't do the third.

Okay.

Which is anchor of community.

Well, anchor kind of.

But facilitate and foster broader, more creative interaction.

Yeah, that's the thing.

It can't do because.

Because it isn't that.

Because either of you.

If we had been going to A Starbucks.

And even if we're going to the same Starbucks, there's no way this relationship would have formed.

Correct.

And so that, for me, is the thing.

You might see a person, but it's definitely going to be passing.

And there's no way at a Starbucks, even in the past, I would argue that if I was sitting, that anybody I saw frequently would stop long enough to have, like, any sort of real conversation, even if it was the continual.

Hey, how are you?

Oh, this is, you know, what I did for lunch, you know, that wasn't happening.

It was the plate.

Hey, how are you?

All right, I'll see you on the way out.

And so that's, for me, is like, how did they think this was going to happen?

Because here's one of the other things that they were looking at with their whole business model, wanting to come back here.

They have over 300 stores in New York City alone.

Half of them are within eyesight of each other.

Yeah.

And so you're already disrupting your own desire there to be a third place, because it's all about convenience.

Well, and I think the big.

The big difference with.

When we're talking about those interactions.

Right.

You're defining how you go across that.

I think the other thing that the real authentic third place does is it removes part of a barrier.

Because if, let's say we walk into Ugly Duck, and we've never met, but maybe we interacted online, and that is an opening.

But there's something about just knowing that, oh, you're here, that means that barriers just a little lower.

Yes.

That I feel like we know something about each other, that we're here, and it lowers that just that little bit that maybe removes that.

Oh, I'm nervous.

I don't want to meet this person for the first time.

And I.

I feel like this is gonna sound weird at somewhere like Ugly Duck.

The way that's manifested for me is just knowing that, like, I know these baristas fairly well.

I see them every week, you know, and they're cool with this person.

Yeah.

So that person, like, there's an automatic.

Like.

Like, it's almost like they're recommending.

You know, it's like the algorithm recommending a friend.

Right.

It's not the 5 degree.

It's the 5 degrees of Kevin Bacon.

Right.

You know, you know these people.

And so you have an in.

They've unofficially vouched for this person.

Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

Without.

Without ever saying, like, without ever introducing us.

Yeah.

I know that if, like, this person's in the Space.

And Bob is cool with them.

Like, then I'm gonna more than likely be.

Be okay to, like, interact with them.

Also, by the way, Bob shaved everything.

His beard is gone.

Well, also, amazing matching outfit to the new coffee.

And, like, their most recent Instagram post.

Pretty funny.

It was a really good matching.

That was pretty fun.

I like that a lot.

So here's the question.

They're reorganizing, Right.

Is it possible for Starbucks to hit this status that they seem to be, on paper, wanting?

So I did a little bit of digging here, because this sounded so familiar to me.

And again, I have to go back to the last time.

Like, I was really, like, a Starbucks person.

Yes, I remember that.

Coffee's our passion, and we have.

And, like, if you were in the industry, you're like, this is such a stunt.

And, like, so many independent shops that I know were just miserable that day because they just got flooded with people who couldn't go to Starbucks and who didn't understand what they were trying to do.

And it just seems to me that within this model, like, you have to do this every, like, 10 to 15 years where you have to say, like.

You have to recoil.

We're off track.

Yeah.

And we got to get back on track.

And you have to kind of stunt, you know, you have to put that out there as, like, our identity now is.

And it's.

I'm sure they've had even more of them in between.

Their.

Their stock price is like, I mean, 10x at least.

I think that's.

The other thing is, like, you know, I.

I think for.

For better or worse, we live on a very similar pessimistic level when it comes to all those things where it's like, all right, well, if I.

If I know stock bump tactics, it seems like a stock bump tactic to me.

Yep.

So here's some of the other things they said, and I'm curious if this will happen.

They said that they are going to simplify their menu, that it's overly complicated.

Yes, it is.

Here is.

The customers are unnecessarily complicated.

We'll go there, Chris.

Let's go there.

Well, let's see.

Are there 89,000 variations of customers?

Because that apparently is on tape in that documentary about how many variations of drinks you make?

Do they.

Oh, God.

89,000.

Yeah, I believe it.

That's insane.

I mean, it's at least 10 too many.

What's the what.

How many variations at Ugly Duck could you make?

How many could you make?

Could you break.

Who's working?

Could you break.

Wow.

Could you break like 30 or 40?

Sure.

Yeah, absolutely.

If nobody's very busy.

Yeah.

Especially if you think of like, a hot and an iced as a variation, which, like, that might be part of this conversation too, but.

So the real number might be like 40,000.

Well, I think also factorial math makes the amounts exponentially higher very quickly.

Right.

Actually, also, like.

Yeah.

What.

What counts as a drink?

Is it like an extra shot?

Two extra shots, like.

Yeah, but that's where.

Considering that's what I was wondering.

Because, like, some place like Ugly Duck or you go to Fuego or any, you know, third.

Wavy.

Am.

Fm.

Am.

Fm.

Come on.

Oh, where's the plug?

I gotta say, that specialty drink that we were having while we were working through some of those fruity flavors.

Yeah.

Kerry still talks about that drink, the.

The Purple Coffee.

That's.

Yeah, yeah, really good.

Yeah.

Yeah, that was a blast.

Yeah, I like it a lot.

It's weird.

And I look forward to playing with that concept.

What's the name of the dream again?

What's the name of the Purple Coffee?

It's.

It's literally called Purple Coffee.

Oh, it's like.

It's the right name for the drink.

Yeah.

Is it like Blue Milk from.

A little bit.

Yeah.

It's just.

It's indefinable.

It's just.

It's purple and it's coffee and, like, you just gotta experience it and it.

Will be available for.

Is it still.

It's not at the moment.

Boo.

Because peaches are not in season.

So.

Fair enough.

I gotta find the right frozen peaches, I think.

Yeah.

Move on.

What was the next.

I was gonna say.

I mean, we've covered a lot about what Starbucks has done, but I just.

It's.

It's weird because they're talking out of both sides of their mouth here.

And this isn't new, but it's interesting that they keep putting this forward because I feel like if you're Starbucks at this point, you don't have to pretend you're anything different, you know, like, you don't have to be the third place.

You don't have to facilitate community.

Like, you produce a decent beverage.

And they even said in these documentaries that you have to make your coffee palatable.

Across the board.

And it was interesting because they said they had to purposely move away from light roasting to overcome their sugar flavors, overcome their milk flavors, and all these other things.

It's fascinating because it's the same thing that McDonald's does.

You walk into a McDonald's in China, it's literally the same as in the U.S.

i can only imagine that it's the same for Starbucks in any other country.

And that's what they want.

Yeah, like, McDonald's isn't pretending to be the gatehouse offering wagyu beef burgers.

Right.

You know, so why is Starbucks wanting to even dive into latte art or pour overs or anything else at this point?

So.

Yeah, well, and I think that it hearkens to, like, maybe some kind of identity they thought they had when they were like, you know, the disruptors.

So.

Right.

That's, you know, that's about it.

So I don't know if there's people out there who have other thoughts on Starbucks.

If there's a Starbucks employees listening to this chime in.

Because we're, we're open.

It's just, it's just the news.

Yeah, there's a.

Starbucks is like the incumbent, right?

Yeah, they are.

And like the incumbent party always, like, kind of has huge blind spots about, like, what they're doing wrong.

And they, they have a story about themselves that like, nobody else can actually see.

Right.

And then, and, and then disaster strikes.

So it's, it's, you know, I don't wish ill on the probably hundreds of thousands of Starbucks employees.

Right.

Because we're just covering the unions.

Right.

But that's the other thing.

Like, you can't, you can't have your CEO running for president and be anti union and then go, we're just like you, we're your neighbors.

We want to be a community place.

Sorry.

We want to facilitate community.

Except with our employees.

Yeah, except in the White House.

Except, like.

Yeah, we want to do it this way.

That looks like McDonald's.

And I'm sorry, but like, is McDonald's a third place?

Like, you know, like, once you reach that level of cultural hegemony, like, or.

You reach a certain age in a rural community.

Well, I mean, the only thing I'll say about that is this.

If you go to someplace like Dansville, they have a McDonald's, and a lot of people go to McDonald's because there aren't other big restaurants there.

So my grandmother, on Fridays, I'm not.

Even saying there's anything wrong with going to McDonald's.

No.

I'm just saying McDonald's that turns into a third place.

I mean, like I.

Here's the thing.

There have been a number of times I finished roasting at like 1 or 2 in the morning in a 24 hour drive through McDonald's with just like a 20 piece.

It's like delight, but like I don't meet any people.

McDonald's isn't pretending to be like anything else.

And so like Starbucks is on that level and yet they're trying to not be.

Yeah, I think it's, I think it's just nonsense.

Well, one parting note on Starbucks here is this.

Apparently they were caught violating the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Shocking.

Any idea what they were doing?

3, 2, 1.

Charging for milk alternatives.

Oh, yeah, I saw that.

So all of the headlines on my.

Click date, that's an ADA violation.

Apparently you're charging for allergies, Wade.

You're charging for preventing allergies.

Except, Yeah, I mean 90% of the people ordering milk alternatives don't have, don't have allergies.

But so the, the, the charts are 50 to 80 cents a drink might be saving.

So their, their profits are, they're going down.

It's bad for the stock price going down.

I mean, I can make all my lattes 550.

Anyway.

Well, on that note, on that note, we are level up and enjoy your coffee.

Wait a second, wait a second.

Wait.

What?

I had to bring an end to it.

This has been a presentation of the Lunch Door podcast network, the combinations calculator for Ugly Duck Coffee.

If there are 15 options for syrups and you can put two in the drink, there are 105 combinations of things you could put in there.

That's still not 89,000.

I have like four right now.