IF YOU OPEN IT, THEY WILL COME.
There is a surprising amount of depth in the movies of Kevin Costner, sure they are about (mostly) the triumph of the seemingly unremarkable white dude in the face of adversity, but in each role he shows surprising complexity. Whether its the unfinished symphony of Roy McAvoy and its lessons on the unobtainable nature of perfection, the whole of Bull Durham which is basically a teaching moment on the power of knowing who you are and what you stand for, or the Immortal Words of “shoeless” Joe Jackson, Costner's movies have always had something tell us. They are also the reason my favourite golf club is the 7 Iron.
Hold Up, this is a coffee blog, so why the Costner talk? For the last 5-10 years the Speciality Coffee industry has ridden a seemingly unstoppable wave, we’ve opened up shops and businesses safe in the knowledge that Shoeless’s prophetic words will hold true, “If you build it, they will come” (kay, so it's “He” will come, he being Ray Liotta weirdly, but it's a common enough misquote)
But what about now? What about the post COVID-19 landscape? Are we being naive to think that when we open, our all of customers will return and that our industry will continue its upward curve? In short, I believe we are, the anxiety many feel about being in public spaces is real and we’re kidding ourselves if we think all of our original customer base will come flooding back once we open.
Take a look at the standard specialty cafe, hell even look at the exceptional ones, chances are there are more than a few design cues that you’ve seen before. The industry has become homogenous in terms of looks essentially forming one large global chain and in the same vein as the actual global chains we’ve created places where the customer could be sure of the product they were getting and be happy about how being in that place reflected on their lifestyle choice.
(Side note here, this may be the truth of what the definition of Speciality Coffee really is, that despite of our efforts to communicate otherwise we’ve sold a lifestyle and a look to an expanding customer base)
As this has progressed and the overheads have risen we’ve seen little real innovation in the service model and bar design, on the whole it's about a nice looking bar and maximising the amount of covers or our T/A throughput, not unlike those global chains we thought we were so different from, the early days of experiential service have been replaced by the economic needs of the business.
The shutdowns forced upon us by the Pandemic have and will force us to relook at our spaces and businesses. Those of us who have had to open to remain viable have had to diversify their offer and often radically overhaul the service space to ensure the safety of both staff and customers, in a short space of time we’ve seen an incredible amount of innovation. This innovation must carry forward to the post lockdown future both for business resiliency and for the physical and mental wellbeing of staff and customers. The screens that are becoming common should be short term solutions, we need to loom at long term fixes as well. Right now there are no answers to this, but I believe that we need to consider the following:
1. Making our customers feel physically and mentally welcome: This goes beyond a cheery wave and hello or performative PPE, the anxiety many feel about being in public spaces is real and we need to recognise that. It also goes beyond 6ft/2m marks on the floor or one way systems. Look at your space through these eyes as see how it can be adapted to welcome those who are worried about being in public, are there any pinch points where customer flow stalls? Is the space as open as it can be? If you are limiting entry, are you allowing for those who need personal assistants? Does that insta-friendly bar design help or hinder the situation?
A lot of us deal with oddly shaped buildings, so this may mean some radical thinking. The simple truth is that we won’t see all of our customers right away, if ever, so this also means that we shouldn’t forget those who chose to remain isolated, carry on with pick up, pre-order, delivery services if you are doing them.
2. Take both long and short term views: If you haven’t got it by now, the chances are that we are not going back to the industry we had pre-COVID, so any changes you make should work in both the short and long term. Look at ways that safety measures that are needed now or immediately after lockdown can be removed or reduced as the situation develops.
3. Communicate and be transparent: Talk to your staff, they need to be on board with any changes you make as they will be the ones in harms way. Likewise communicate clearly with your customers, share the actions you are taking to ensure their safety and the reasons why. Yes we need their patronage to ensure that we have a viable business, but emotional calls for help can often put pressure on them to come in when they otherwise wouldn’t or shouldn’t.
4. Think about Access: When you make changes make sure you think about access for all. It’s all too easy to focus on avoiding contact or providing social distancing from an abled perspective. Educate yourself on how to provide access for all communities, this is actually sound business advice anyway and advice for life. Included in this is the push to go cashless and PPE. The life span of COVID-19 looks to be the same on cards, phones and cash and in all cases transmission is not likely with the best advice to wash your hands after handling any of them. Cash may present a lower risk than we think and the prevailing thought is that it seems to be easier not to accept it and exclude than it is to adjust systems, we need tom rethink this. The most visible of all PPE that we wear are the face masks. There is a potential access issue here for the deaf and neuro-divergent communities as the masks inhibit lip reading as well as the facial cues many use to read emotions. These are not simple questions and many carry deep moral and ethical loads.
Now is the time for us to re-invent our industry. We’ve failed in so many ways to double down on the early promise of the Third Wave. The experiential service and bar designs never really happened, instead regressing to the norm of food and drink retail service only we dressed it up with expensive materials or design schemes. Too much of this design came across as elitist and preached to the choir. Despite our progressive outlook we failed to become truly inclusive. Despite much work we have failed to have the impact we desired on the lives of producers.
If we truly want to have an impact on the global industry, now is the time for us to take stock of who we are and make changes.