Brioso Cafe: fragrant coffee, cooperative team

Photo: some members of the Caf é Brioso team: Nick, Knight, Emily, Carl

John Justice is the operations manager of Cafe Brioso, a great local cafe in Columbus, Ohio. John is an excellent example of learning through experience-85 per cent of learning comes from practice-and we interviewed him about the way he runs the cafe, how Cafe Brioso is different, and how he taught himself to be the leading gold medal barista in the US.

John, how would you describe your company?

We make coffee, which is a very important difference, because not all cafes focus on coffee as much as we do. Today's companies are full of individualism, but our company is a real collective, and here's a good example: last week, when the company's CEO and I went to a coffee bean roaster exhibition, the company's team played the leading role, and the coffee shop business was the same as when we were around. When we came back to see them manage and run the cafe in an orderly manner, it was amazing that their professional performance exceeded that of any team we saw at the exhibition.

Anyone who visits Bryoso Cafe can't help but notice your incredible enthusiasm for work. Where does this enthusiasm come from?

There are several "strong women" in my family who always find a way out. My grandmother helped build three public schools and Shawnee State University (Shawnee State College). In order to cultivate discipline and rich experience, I joined the army. And I'm sure I've achieved my goal. I have learned the importance of having a sense of responsibility in your field of expertise, where you can learn skills and be given autonomy. Today, our society advocates individualism, but I learned in the army that the team is everything, and the best players in the world can't beat a team.

How did you get into the coffee business?

I learned a lot about civic pride in the army. You know your surroundings and daily necessities, just as Germans know beer. Back in Columbus, I started working for Stoph Coffee (Stauf's Coffee). I noticed that everything was brand-oriented, but Stoph put their products first. They do business around coffee and have a wealth of expertise, which they believe. I am a person who wants to make a difference. Thanks to Stoph, Grandeville attracts coffee shoppers, and neighboring communities have been developed. They believe: "if your coffee is good, you can fill the door with customers."

After 12 years at Stoph, I worked in dairy sales for a while. I wanted to get out of my comfort zone and sell something I couldn't enjoy (I was lactose intolerant). But in the end, I couldn't convince myself to sell people products they didn't need. The economy was not good at the time. I had known Jeff, the owner of Brioso Cafe, for a long time, and when I started drinking decaf, I talked to Jeff and decided it was time to make less money to do something new. So I came to Brioso, where I could spend more time teaching about coffee and creating a community that brought people together.

What is success like for Brioso?

At Brioso, we believe in products and customer experience, and the quality of both is everything. For us, the customer's personal experience comes first, and the first interaction creates the atmosphere, and we don't immediately say to the customer, "what can I give you?" It's true that this allows the customer line to move faster, but we ask, "Hey, how are you?" We want our customers to love Brioso's products as much as we have learned. The employees who work here have learned how to taste coffee in order to know which coffee tastes best. Some of our customers will go to Brioso in the rain, even if they don't know what kind of coffee they are going to drink. There is a connection between customers who trust us.

In fact, you have become a coffee connoisseur, not just a cafe operator, which is reflected in Briosso's products and what customers think of you. How do you do that?

I have been looking for people who are better than me and learning from them. I studied the competitions I participated in and looked for ways to be different and to climb to the next floor. As you can see, we focus on the whole experience that customers can get, and we focus on working as a team. In addition, I spend a lot of time learning how to make good coffee. I have participated in five national and two world-class baristas competitions.

You took part in the competition to make coffee? This is not common in the barista business?

It is very rare that the industry has reduced coffee making to the push of a button and everything has been commercialized. But in Brioso, we make sure that customers see the whole process of making the coffee they drink, and we show them how much we care about the quality of the coffee. If I don't have confidence in the quality of coffee, I won't let customers drink it. In addition, when we hand the coffee to the customer, we will open the lid of the cup, and the customer will taste the coffee immediately and close the lid if necessary. Come to think of it, you can drink coke through a straw, but you can't sip wine from a duckbill cup.

You regard your team members as coffee professionals. How do you define a profession?

First of all, we teach a lot of coffee expertise to each employee, supplemented by actual tasting. In the process of learning, taste is very important. The length of the training will depend on the individual situation, and we will make greater efforts for those who need more time. We show them how cool it is to make coffee, and we have fun together after work, not crazy. In addition, we have a hierarchical learning structure. Students start with making hot cocoa, then lattes, then cappuccinos, and they don't learn how to make drinks on their first day on the job.

What is the most important thing for you in your job?

We don't care how much money we make. In our business, curves are not about money. For us, success means that customers fall in love with our environment and our products, and encourage our team to work better together. I think you can say that this is very important to me. I don't think our society can make progress unless we learn to work better together. It's easy to teach people about coffee, but it's hard to get them to work together. In the military, you always live in an atmosphere of teamwork, which makes it very difficult to return to the "real world".

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