Mark Bell's Power Project - Mark Bell's Power Project EP. 214 - CEO of Philz Coffee Jacob Jaber

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hopefully your dad doesn't watch this. Alright, we're here today at Phil's Coffee in Davis, California with the CEO. And I want you to kind of start out by telling me who's the founder of this place and how did Phil's Coffee come to be? dad and started around 2003 officially but he had a grocery store in the Mission that he built for many years and sold a lot of different products but was also always passionate about hospitality and people and coffee and wanted to transition the grocery store into a coffee shop and he his philosophy was that the best cup of coffee is the one that comes to your taste so creating a hospitable warm comfortable environment with a product that's personalized for you was his mission and we did that eventually

Starting point is 00:00:53 transition from a grocery store to a coffee shop a lot of things are unconventional about this about Phil's coffee if you guys never been here before but one of the things I noticed right away is all the different flavors that you guys have when I first walked in I was kind of confused I was like oh man I don't know about these flavors because I'm on like specific diets all the yep you talk about that a little bit yeah so there's over four million ways to enjoy your fills and that's a lot but there are about 50 I'm getting close to the end. I have four a day. I'm here all the time. So there's a lot of different ways to enjoy your fills and all of the blends are individually freshly made for each customer and then there's no condiment stand so we put in all the ingredients

Starting point is 00:01:36 for you. We put in the cream, the sugar, if you want almond milk or oat milk and there's a lot of additional ingredients you can mix and match. So I like drinking the Tesora with honey and cream. And there's another drink that I'm actually hooked on right now, which is an insider drink called the Oatmeal Cookie with oatmeal. It's fantastic. So I think the key is just to come in and have a good conversation with your barista and be open to recommendations they give you. But there's no sweeteners and there's no like artificial anything. Not at all. The actual coffee itself, it's just brewed a certain way. That's right. No syrups. And the flavor profile you have up there is just

Starting point is 00:02:11 distinguishing like how it tastes. Yep. That's right. That's exactly right. Yeah. So, you know, having your dad be the founder of the place and you're the CEO, like how did that happen and when? like how old were you when you started kind of like working inside the company? Well, when I was about 10 years old, when I started working at the grocery store. Sounds like a Gary Vee story though. Learning a lot, standing on top of the milk crate,

Starting point is 00:02:37 ringing up people at the register. And the last thing you want to do when you're in your, in your teenage years is work with family when you're spending all time at home with your family so but net net it was a really great experience and looking back at it I've learned so much from my dad and how to deal with people how to work with people how to treat people well and I think over the years working with him he gave me the opportunity and I never liked school because I felt like I was forced to learn stuff I wasn't really interested in from people who weren't that interesting or inspiring to me. So I read books.

Starting point is 00:03:12 I learned. I got really passionate about the business. I got passionate about the people and hospitality. And at around the age of 18, he gave me the opportunity to run the store and run the company. And at that point, it was just him and I behind the bar working. And that's what we did. And we did it every day and we loved it. We worked seven days a week, 12 hours a day,

Starting point is 00:03:30 and eventually earned a line of customers. So that's how it started. With the store, you know, having the original vision from your dad, I would imagine that there was friction, like maybe you had a different idea of how something, how something should be run, or how did some of that look? Oh, yeah, I mean, it was a lot of good energy between us back and forth growing up working with my dad. I mean, we'd agree on a lot of things, but we'd also disagree on some things, and being an emotional, passionate family, that it's outspoken. things and being an emotional passionate family that it's outspoken you know we'd have sometimes little healthy debates in front of customers and they'd participate it was just a lot of fun it was

Starting point is 00:04:13 all in good spirit but I think working with my dad taught me how to respect everybody no matter who you are or where you come from treat everybody with kindness and respect them and i think that that has just watching him and how he's worked with people uh has really inspired me and that's really important for me as we continue to grow in phil's is to instill that very deeply in the dna of how we hire and how we treat others do you ever uh like would your dad ever um you know get super upset with you like what you know if you had to fire you oh what well yeah dad ever you know get super upset with you like what you know if you had to fire you? Oh what well yeah I mean you know getting a call at 6 a.m. on a Saturday when you're 14 years old to go and help out you know one day I

Starting point is 00:04:56 remember walking into the store and him and I were working behind the counter and there was a long line of customers and we had a little bit of a disagreement and he said get get out of the store so as I was walking out he said get back in and help so there's a there's definitely a few a few exciting moments but overall I think it was just a lot of fun. How's the company growing expanding so much I think right now you're at like around 60 stores is that right? Yeah we'll be at about 60 stores soon. And what do you think is making that possible? I mean, obviously like you must need a really good team around you. Is that, is that a big element of it?

Starting point is 00:05:31 You have an awesome team around you. I think the most important thing is having a mission and a purpose that's worth pursuing. And I think that we have a great mission at Philz, which is to better people's days and build community. And when you have that and you believe in it you attract really great people so I've been fortunate to attract a great team of people that are helping me build the company and our goal is really just to get better and bigger as we go along we want to open in more communities but you know we have I think the most important thing to us is people we feel like we are more in the people's business than we are in the coffee business. So hiring the right people, training them really well, giving them the opportunity to learn and grow,

Starting point is 00:06:16 and treating them like humans before employees, those are all really important ingredients that help propel us forward culturally and as we continue growing growing it's one thing to say it's a totally another thing to do it I see you guys are actually doing it because there's events here like all the time like yeah almost on a weekly basis it seems like a local artist is coming in or somebody's coming in doing something that's like community-based and then in addition to that the care that you guys have for the customers, you know, people always say that's, that's what, that's what I'm most obsessed with. And we want to give our customers the best experience, but you guys, you take the time to actually do it because at Phil's Coffee, when they give you a coffee and I've never been to another coffee shop

Starting point is 00:06:58 like this before ever in my life, they give you a cup of coffee. They say, I want to make sure that this is perfect for you. So take a sip of it first. And then you're sitting there at the counter like, I'm trying to do this like polite little sip, but you try it out. And you can tell them, yeah, you know what? Actually, I'd like a little bit more cinnamon in there. Can you please put a little extra sugar in there, a little extra cream? Who came up with that concept and what's behind it?

Starting point is 00:07:21 You know, I think when we started out, we never thought about starting with payment. We always thought about starting with the person that's making your cup. Because growing up in my grandma's house and my dad's grandma's house, it was all about love and hospitality and warmth. And when Philz was created, we want to create an experience

Starting point is 00:07:42 that was about the experience and the person, not a transaction. So it's really personal. At Philz, you start with the barista, they welcome you, you craft your order while they're brewing it, you can go hang out and grab food and pay, and then they call you back up to make sure it's perfect because ultimately we are crafting the cup for them and we want to make sure that they leave happy. And if not, we're going to keep trying until they do. So we think that's actually one of the most important

Starting point is 00:08:10 things is how can somebody pay for something that we can't have them leave if they don't love it. We want them to love it. Awesome. Really, really awesome to be able to have a chance to sit down here, enjoy a cup of coffee. And we are in chicago phil's is coming to chicago we have four stores coming wicker park is the first one in june and we'd love for everybody to to uh to check it out and you can sign up at phil's coffee.com slash insiders to get more news and updates we're excited to be there and i'm going to be there and spending some time uh meeting the folks yeah if you haven't been to a Phil's Coffee, give it a try, they're all throughout California. What are some other states you guys are?

Starting point is 00:08:47 We're in DC, Maryland, Virginia, all the way from Orange County, San Diego, Los Angeles, Bay Area, and then Chicago is the next one. Just look it up, look up for location for you, that's in your area. And I gotta get a workout in with you, if I can keep up, I think I could. You gotta check out Super Training. Yeah. Yeah, you would love it would love it well i have the band and since you gave it to me

Starting point is 00:09:09 i've used it a dozen times and every time i use it i feel terrific it's very comfortable and it's it's great working on getting jacked well getting buzzed strength is never a weakness weakness never a strength catch you guys later

Mark Bell's Power Project - Mark Bell's Power Project EP. 214 - CEO of Philz Coffee Jacob Jaber

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