This Topeka Coffee Shop Has Increased Home Values | David Vincent

You don't make a lot of money. I was kind of feeling some burnout with my work, kind of getting tired of a farmer's market grind, and it was like what are we doing Like that? Why? Why? Maybe like something will happen today. It's like be a sign or something. This woman, she comes up and was like hey, you guys ever think about like opening a coffee shop?

David Vincent.

Welcome to our podcast Yeah's good thanks for having me, thanks for being here man.

Yeah, it's good to be between the two ferns or whatever these are.

Come on, let's start our, our pockets with cheers, cheers. Yeah, I already finished, mine okay ah, hey, man, well, it's good to have you, man. Uh, you run, you you launched and run circle coffee yep, a staple in the heart of tapio kansas. So, uh, I, that's I, we. I know we've talked a lot about, like your origin story, but this is a new podcast so maybe you know, catch us up to speed on how you kind of came up with that. And then really I want to get into other things beyond that.

But yeah, sounds good. Yeah. So my wife and I purchased a coffee cart business from a friend of ours, cameron Filgreen, back in 2019. He had built a coffee cart, started the business of Circle Coffee. His first ever event was my wife and I's wedding. I forgot that detail. That's amazing. It was awesome. They were there and serving coffee. It was amazing. I the coffee carts are really popular now. They were kind of fresh at the time, but we loved having them there. He and his wife were moving to Texas and we were like I would kind of want to build one ourselves, and so we ended up buying the business from him.

So Cameron is the founder of Circle Coffee so you could say your wedding not only birthed your family, it birthed Circle Coffee. It really did yeah, it's amazing.

Yeah, so we bought the business. Um, that was fall of 2019. My wife and I were kind of shooting weddings photography, uh, so it was like kind of in the event industry kind of made sense. We love coffee. We didn't really have any experience, but we love making coffee at home, so just bought that business. And then, which? Which type of Folgers is your favorite? Probably the French roast. Yeah, yeah. Magnus pre-ground ground, you know, like four years ago, yeah yeah, yeah, sitting in a warehouse for three years.

Yeah, um, pretty soon four or five months, covet hit. Uh, our little coffee cart was very event space, so that was all. None of those events existed anymore. Uh, so we decided, you know, after a few months we're like let's do some public facing stuff. Um, just try to sell, buy the cup. Uh, just see you who would come visit us. You know we had a decent social media following, so did that posted up in front of our friend's house over in Westboro? Uh, cause people. You know, everybody walked during. Covid is a beautiful time.

It was you know outside of all the sickness and stuff.

But yeah, so we did that, had a decent amount of people come, did another one in front of my brother's house in Westboro and had a good amount of people show up there too, and so it was like, oh, let's try a week long pop up. So we actually popped up in front of Dairy Queen in their parking lot, which is where we currently are now with the brick and mortar, because I knew, knew the guy, I know the guy who our landlord is, the guy who owns Dairy Queen. So we did that for for a week in the fall of 2020. Weather was beautiful, so went really well. We had a lot of people come out and support, and so it was like, okay, wow, it was that long ago.

Yeah, that's crazy. So it doesn't feel that long four years that pop up.

But, yeah, winter hit. We were just thinking about you know how can we keep this momentum going? Uh, we decided that spring slash summer in 2021 to do the farmer's market, um, all along. You know, coffee shop itself. We were like, maybe someday, maybe it's like a retirement thing, you know everybody wants to open a coffee shop it's not like a unique thought that we had, but it wasn't really on our radar something we would do soon.

But then, yeah, just doors kept opening. Like I said, I knew that the guy who owns the building, so, talking to him, my wife and I live in the neighborhood so we would always walk by. It was a laundromat previously. It um had been abandoned for three or four years in rough shape, but you know, these huge glass windows were like, oh man, yeah, somebody should put a coffee shop there. It's like.

We don't lie.

We are somebody we don't want to, but somebody should, um, and then, yeah, we just a lot of doors kept opening. I was kind of feeling some burnout with my work and so eventually, we just you lot of doors kept opening. I was kind of feeling some burnout with my work, and so eventually we just, you know, put it, put together a business plan, made sure we could get some, you know, small business loans and stuff like that, but decided to sign a lease. And that was fall of 2022. Um, no, that was fall of 2021 that we signed a lease and then summer of 22. So when we opened our doors, about eight months filled out yeah, that's crazy, so we just celebrated two years, about a month ago yeah, at what point?

from purchasing the coffee cart business to opening in 22, was it always kind of the dream that like hey, we could open a brick and mortar, or is it like a kind of a bang bang, like this this could really happen, or is it always kind of a slow process?

somewhere in between the two. Yeah, it was like, wasn't when we bought the cart? I, when people ask me, it's like man, I really don't know what kind of thought I was thinking when we bought the cart. I was like, let's just have a coffee cart. Yeah, I didn't put a lot of thought into it, which is maybe not a good thing, but I thought it was like a fun side gig thing.

Yeah, cool, yeah, you know it was. I had the experience running the photography business and so I was like just do some more gigs doing this. I say the closest thing we had to like a moment, uh was like one day I was, we were packing up the trailer to go to the farmer's market, you know, really early morning, packing up like five, 30, heading over to get set up. And on the way there I was like you know, it's kind of kind of getting tired of the the farmer's market grind. And it was like man, uh, which is funny because it's like so much less work the brick and mortar, but it's like I think we should. I think we should make a decision on the on the brick and mortar or not. And it was like maybe like something will happen today. It's like be a sign or something. Uh, you know, get into service that morning and run a couple hours.

And this, this woman still don't know who she was, um, probably in her seventies or eighties and she comes up and was like hey, you guys ever think about like opening a coffee shop or like doing this, but like bigger? And I was like yeah, guys ever think about like opening a coffee shop or like doing this, but like bigger, and I was like, yeah, I mean, we're kind of thinking about it. I'm not really sure. Like you know, we had the laundromat as like an idea, so that I didn't want to say that, though I was like, you know, if you were, if we did open one, where would you put it? I like posed the question to her and she was like, well, I think like over by that dairy queen would be really no way what, yeah.

So I was like yeah, I think that's a good idea. Wow, yeah, yeah, I think that's a really good idea. Wow, so that's crazy. That was probably like the closest thing we had to a moment of like okay I think.

I think that we're supposed to do this, um, but yeah, it wasn't. It wasn't when we bought the cart, um, um, it was. It was probably more on the like, slower, just a lot of things kept like pointing us to do this. And then, you know, I think I shared this last time I was on here, but having that PTs down there at the 17th and Washbury, that was like our place.

It was like our third place and so, uh, just always went there and hung out with friends. Um and so, since we live in the area, when that closed over covid, that was like another sign of like this neighborhood needs this, yeah and then you owned the cart business that overlapped before ptx closed.

Yeah, and so it closing was another sign. Maybe brick and mortar?

yeah, yeah, yep oh, that's awesome yeah, that was like the end of an era, yeah that was my staple all throughout college.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember meeting you there when you moved to Topeka. Yeah, exactly yeah, I was just, you know, doing the freelance work that I was doing. I was there just probably five, six days a week.

So yeah, we basically officed out of there, me and friends, and then it closed. Like what, where am I going to go now? Like what am I going to do, you know?

people who don't know 30 seconds. What did you do before you purchased the cart before circle coffee became brick and mortar?

Yeah. So I, you know, went to school for graphic design. I got a job doing that for a couple of years, um, a couple of different jobs doing that. Um started over at TK magazine, uh with with Tara Dimmick, um, and then got a job at an advertising agency here in town. Uh, kind of quickly learned that I wanted to like work with people a little bit more and kind of maybe do my own thing. So I decided, without really any clients or anything, to just branch off and quit and do freelance. Uh, it's like I have a camera, I'm going to learn how to take photos and video, and so I don't remember the year that was probably like gosh, 2015, 2016. Um, so I pretty quickly just started doing freelance photo and video.

A lot of weddings, small business stuff, uh, nonprofit work, uh, yeah, so so, yeah, I think that's the coolest thing about circle coffee from a business guy, from someone, someone who loves marketing. I know your history and how talented you are in that area. I love seeing circle coffees marketing because I know it's coming from you so you kind of get to put your past skills and you know talents that you have into a new business that's yours yeah that's really cool yeah, and that was another one of those things like talk about, like signs that we should maybe do something.

It was like it was a really good combination still is today a combination of a lot of gifts that you know and talents that I have been given. Uh, so it was, like you know, being in topeka, being in like a smaller city, there's not a lot of, uh, maybe, businesses that prioritize, like you know, making things look nice and like reaching I'm gonna sell whatever do you mean let's list off some places?

I'm just kidding. No, it's just like there's not.

You know, there's a lot of people here to help with that right. Yeah, right, you know we got, we got gabe over here now. But uh, a lot of people uh and you know there's a lot more people nowadays that are, you know, getting into that stuff because you can, you know, get followers and whatever.

Right, like the aesthetics of video and photo and marketing skills, yeah.

That you know it's. It's a really small thing, like, I think, people, it's overplayed a lot, but that is a huge thing to get a younger crowd to your business Right, yeah, absolutely. And it's not just like taking pretty pictures. You know, our approach has always been like. You know we're going to include our guests into the story of like what circle coffee is. Uh, so you know, I probably not here to talk marketing, but, um, there's a whole like different approach outside of making things look nice too.

So yeah, I've always heard, and you maybe have a better definition than I do, but the definition of a brand isn't your logo, it isn't you know what you're serving. It's how do people feel when they hear the name of your company? And I feel like circle coffee's got an incredible brand. You just feel good. How do you feel when you hear circle? To be honest, I am not. I think I told you this. I'm not a coffee connoisseur by any means. Very basic, uh. But I've got my order down now because every time I walk into circle it's the same girl I don't know her name takes my order and she knows it now yeah like a mocha latte whole milk, hot, please, okay, okay, justin coming right up and so I just think of good coffee.

Uh, warm, fuzzy atmosphere, and I always think when I go to circle I'm going to see someone, I know yeah, yeah always. It's even the running joke that I have with uh people in my office that if I have to go and get work done like I got serious work I need to get done don't go. I do not go to right, I know because I'm going to run into one, two, three, four, five, six people I know, and that work is

not getting done which is a good problem, to have right thing. Well, yeah, if you're doing what you do, I think the networking is maybe a little bit, maybe more important. Some days in the work you actually need right. Yeah, yeah, so what?

what kind of?

lessons, would you?

say what lessons would you say you've learned in the last two years of running Circle?

I think, you know, circle is what it is today because of the people that work for us. We have just an amazing team and I'd like to take credit for that. But I mean, especially when we open is just like who wants to work for us? And then you know, we picked the people that we thought were going to be a good fit and they turned out to be amazing people, um, which I can't take credit for. But, um, yeah, I think I think what I've learned is um, to, to, to always be looking for opportunities to give other people, um, like their opportunities to own something. Um, you know, yes, I'm the owner of the business, but, um, our employees take ownership of the work that they do.

Um, you know, we, I like to think we have pretty good like, uh, employee retention, you know, for being in the service industry, we have you know, we have a few people that you know started with us over two years ago and then a lot of our other employees followed shortly after, so been with us for a while. Um knock on wood, I guess, when I say that everybody's gonna leave, but uh, I think we have. We have done our best to um give people like a reason why they're doing what they're doing. I think that's huge. Um, starting with the why versus like the what, right?

now we're making coffee, we're making pastries and we're, you know, trying to do that efficiently and with excellence. But, um, why are we doing that? I think that's like where we've always tried to start with people as we onboard them to our team. Yeah, you know, our mission statement with circle is to bring excellence to our community through kindness and creativity. Um, that can mean a lot of different things, and so our team uh has each person is able to take that in, like put their own spin on that.

Yeah, Um uh, man, countless stories, I think, just like stories of of just extravagant kindness, like it probably happens daily or weekly within our shop. It's just like um we really another reason why we wanted to open. We just we saw like a big gap in the hospitality industry. I guess, um not to like put it on to pika, because I see this everywhere um, I think in general maybe this was a covid thing, it probably started before then, but just a lot of subpar experiences in the hospitality industry. Yeah right, um, you know, feeling like a transaction, feeling like a bother, trying to just, you know, give your money to somebody else it's so true, yeah, it's like, what are we doing like that?

why, why, why are we trying to have a business inside of a community where you're just going to make people feel like that, and so, um, that was a huge thing for us. We're like I don't, you know, we kind of have an idea of what our menu is going to look like. We don't know, like you know, where it's going to go from there, but we know for sure we're going to focus on hospitality, and so, um, yeah, you're talking about kindness. I think just the hospitality thing is, um, is what drives everything we do, and so, and then pairing that with creativity, like we're always gonna be putting in a little bit extra work into like the drinks and the pastries that we're serving.

Um, sometimes it goes unnoticed, but, like we all know, like those of us who are on the scene, we know that we're like putting in the work that needs to be done. You know, like whether we're juicing some some fresh juice to put in a drink, or like you know, the bakery crew does like unbelievable work, just top, really top-of-the-line stuff, and I don't know if people understand the work that goes into some of this stuff, but Just like there's a need for that and but she's like there's a need for that and you know the why behind that is because I think that the people in our community deserve that, and so I think I don't come back to the original question.

I think a big lesson that I've learned is like if you can point your people to like, inspire them to like a higher thing beyond the the what of what they're doing task, yes, funny you say that you know the hospitality is a huge, huge part of your business in which you preach to your employees, because I've experienced that at Circle and two examples, and maybe you even have some, because you go there quite often.

I had nothing but bad experiences actually, so you're ruining my moment.

I was hyping up, just have a live one, sorry yeah yeah, every time I go to order, uh, they always know my name and I go in there regularly, but it's not like I'm a you know two or three times a week kind of guy. I'm probably a two or three a month kind of guy and but they always remember my name. And one gal in particular don't know her name. I think it's Lindsay.

Lindy Lindy. Everybody calls her Lindsay, but I'd like to set the record straight. Set the record straight it's Lindy Lindy knows my order.

Yeah.

She knows my order. I go in there and she goes. This is what you're getting today. Yes, it is that's all I really like. But if you have, and what I also think is funny is you see a lot of your coffee shop at the patio and around the corner. You know the behind the counter. You can't always see everybody, but we always kind of go to our. I always go to my spot on the patio or around the corner. They always find me track me down. They know they don't. I don't have a number or anything. They just know where I am taking my drink. They just remember. So I just think of those two things that really show what you're preaching.

Yeah, and those things that knowing people's names and and running drinks out are not necessarily policies that we have.

Yeah, people just do that because they care yeah, wow, that's cool yeah um wow yeah, we talked about this, uh, in our like early on training with our like people run and register, talk about the idea. I read this in a book a long time ago, but it's like trying to remember the four things that every new human gets when they're brought into this world. It's like a smile, eye contact, physical touch and something to eat. So, like you boil it down, these are really like core desires that we have. Wow interesting we're not, maybe not gonna give you the physical touch.

You know we'll, we'll dap you up or something over, and then put your hand on there.

Uh, excuse me, yeah, but we can smile, we can give you eye contact and we can give you something to eat or something to drink, and so these are like you don't?

I mean people don't.

I don't think about this when I go up to a register and I'm like, uh, these are like really basic needs that I have that unfortunately, are not getting met a lot of times right, yeah and yeah, just kind of like preaching to our team, like the reality of how many different people are coming through our doors and how many different stories that people have, and it's such a beautiful thing like running a coffee shop, because we're oftentimes like either the first interaction in somebody's day, one of the only interactions in somebody's day, it's like that's really powerful, yeah, yeah. So, uh, we don't bat a thousand like uh, we're not always gonna have, like you know, perfect service, but like you understand the weight of like how important that little 30-second interaction is, then that um is gonna inspire you to like treat that, like just protect that and hold it, really hold it well, yeah absolutely, that's right are there any unique side?

you're a business guy and you know you did freelance for a long time. Um, are there any unique challenges to owning a coffee shop business versus another business or anything you've seen maybe within the hospitality service industries or anything particular about coffee and stuff?

Challenge. I mean, I would say challenge is you don't make a lot of money. That is challenging for my bank account, right? Yeah, I think there's this. I'm not trying to be a victim here, because we've had incredible support from the community. I think there's just this perception that because our parking lot's full and because we have a line to the door most mornings, we're doing really well.

There's just, you know, the reality of the service industry in general is the margins really thin. So, yeah, um, you know we could be in a much worse spot. I'll say that. But, um, uh, so I'm not ungrateful by any means, but just, you know for where, for how successful we have been, you know you would think there would be, like, sure, a little bit more, um, and it doesn't even come back to like, yes, I want to provide for my family and I want to send my daughter to college, should she choose to do that.

But, um, you know we want to, we want to continue to provide more opportunities for our employees. Uh, you know, it's like we've just been really thankful to have people that have caught on to our vision of what we want to do and what we want to offer to Topeka, and so we've had people stay because of that specifically. And you know we try to pay our employees, keep people knowing that. It's just not, like you know, unless you are living with somebody or, like you know, in a really good situation, it's, it's hard to have a sustainable wage in this industry.

Not impossible, but it's difficult, can we?

can we talk about? I've been eager to talk about this with you. Who did you vote for? No'm just kidding, I'm kidding, uh, no, but I have been eager to have, uh, I know, I know you've read the book, because I actually found out about this book sort of through you, through lindy. Actually. Okay, uh, but unreasonable hospitality, yeah, what do you? What do you think about that book?

It's a great book. As somebody who doesn't read a lot, you know, I'd like to say I read more than I do. Yeah, it's just a book that as soon as I opened it it just gripped me. Just having stories of you know so Will Guidara, I think, is how you pronounce it. The guy who wrote it Works in New York City, works for Union Square Hospital. How you pronounce it. Guy who wrote it um, works in in new york city, works for union square hospitality group. Um, works with a lot of restaurants. I think he, during the book, is mostly focused on his time with 11 madison park, the restaurant out there. Um, I had read danny meyer's book setting the table, oh really um who read that first and was like I enjoyed it.

Will's book, I'd say, is even better. Uh, this is true. I don't know if you guys have heard uh of the show the bear or seen it. Um, that's what I wanted to ask you about next sorry I've been so pumped to talk about this.

I'm only I still have a few episodes left of season three, but, um, I would say, kind of like both of those things together unreasonable hospitality and maybe that show as well, inspiring a younger generation to care, right um, for, especially his book, not just a younger generation like all generations, right um, there's a lot of. There's a lot of, you know, you see this in the show but a lot of toxic, uh things about the Um. But there's also a lot of beautiful things about the industry and so, um, taking um something like serving people food and beverage and like turning that into like magical experiences, you know which he talks about a lot and just unique ways and yeah, it's just, it's incredible. So I think, uh, uh, I read through that with with lindy, who's our gm, but, um, she's actually our head of hospitality, um let's go, and she knows my name and she knows your name.

You don't know her name. Now you do that's right now. You do um, but yeah, I think um. Yeah, it's just, it's a great book um, yeah man, I could probably talk about it for a while, I mean.

I could too. We've kind of talked about it because I so I heard about it from Lindy. I don't, somehow it came up. Like every time I'm in there I just can't help. But we get into some conversation about something, and she mentioned that you guys, you and Lindy, were reading this book about hospitality. I didn't even know like what it was called but it just stuck.

I was like a book about hospitality. That sounds really interesting. So just like was in the back burner my brain, like I need to like ask her about what that was at some point read it. And then, like six months later, I heard about this hospitality book from like three other random people and I think one of them was like a podcast. Like man, this book is incredible. And I was like that's gotta be the same book that she mentioned. Yeah, so I read it. It was gripped from the beginning. You know, just incredible. I it's almost like kind of a leadership book, which generally are not like exciting to read.

Uh, and this was just gripping the whole time so actually, and it was so good, I felt like I need to read this again so I'm almost done with it for a second time.

and then I had heard about the bear, just cuz I'd seen it on Hulu or wherever it was and wasn't really that interested, because I heard it was just like super intense. And someone told me it was like the movie whiplash, which I did not like. The principle is good. I didn't enjoy the experience of watching it. So I was like I'm not watching the Bear. But then you posted so it was like the second time like somehow the book kind of came from you and then you posted about the Bear. I was like wait, the author of Unreasonable Hospitality is involved in that show, the Bear. Like I need to watch that. Yeah, and so I finished it. Fortunately I had some long flights, had some long flights and so I watched it all and I was like this is the best show on the internet right now.

It's so good. It might be. Yeah, I don't know. I like I said I'm not done the season three.

I haven't been as let me tell you exactly yeah, please, I haven't been as thrilled with the newest season, but it definitely slows down a lot yeah, um, but yeah for stressful, but then like, get into the story, the, the character development, it's, it's amazing. Oh yeah, I don't, I think will. Uh, recently that was like a season three thing, but you know there's the clip in season two of cousin reading unreasonable right, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, and they mentioned like 11 madison park in like the first or second episode.

They mentioned a lot of the like side stories from the book kind of get referenced like in the show. Yeah, even before. I think I think Will's involved in the third season maybe, but yeah, yeah, even earlier, yeah, so I was, I was pumped, so maybe Will's the reason why it's not as good. But yeah.

So hopefully he's not involved in season four, right?

Right yeah, speed it back. Speed the story back up. Yeah, yeah, but uh, no, I think the book's great is for us.

It's like you know, it's just like we're eating it up because it's our industry, but yeah, it's exactly why you could apply it.

Oh, yeah, anything. Yeah, I think how I? I think I first found out about him before reading the book through some podcast. I was listening to you and I remember him, uh, telling a story of like talking about his book but like applying it to just a random. You know, it's funny that you're here. It's like I think his example was you know, if you're a real estate agent and uh, you know, the the cliche thing is sorry if you do this, but, like you know, buy you a bottle of wine or something. When, when you buy the house, you know, know, it's like that's probably like the biggest purchase that person's ever going to make, um, and so it's like, how can you take? Because you're with that person, you're learning about them as they're searching for a house how can you be hospitable to them?

yeah, I think the example he gave was like he had a, a realtor friend who you know they, as they were looking for a house, the wife was like really keyed in on I want a room to do yoga, and like there was one other thing I'm forgetting, but, um, when they went to close, I think he brought her like a yoga mat and something else, uh, and it was like a personalized. Yeah, like that's hospitality, like he talks about this in the book, but, um, service is black and white and hospitality is color, right. So, yeah, the black and white thing would be the bottle of wine, yeah, and the hospitable thing would be the personalized gift.

Not that you know it's. No, I know exactly it is hard to do. But you're exactly right. Hospital providing good service is easy and I always tell people referrals aren't built upon doing the job you're supposed to do.

You know, if you want to get referrals, you want repeat customers, you have to go above and beyond, you have to be hospitable, you have to do things that they didn't think you were going to do um and that's one of them one of the things that I try and do, and there's, you know, there's a multitude of things that can do to be hospitable, but, um, anytime I am going to meet someone somewhere, you know, whether it be a showing, a listing appointment, whatever if I'm stopping for coffee, I'm asking them if they want coffee you know, and a lot of times they don't want anything, but it sure feels good I know it does when they get asked, and especially if it's for the second time and I like, hey, I remembered your order, I didn't even ask you, I just brought it dude, it does feel good to have someone bring you coffee.

Yeah yeah, whether it be coffee, a drink of any kind, and it's, it's really, it's not even the coffee, it's just. I think it's being known that that.

Second, time someone thinking about yes, when I just show up and you know I have your order from last time. I just remembered it or now imagine if, when you came and you handed them the coffee, you gave them eye contact, physical touch, and then you gave them something to drink.

That's right, and then they fire me on that. Yeah, yeah, and they're like he touched me.

That's funny, that's amazing. Well, yeah, I just, I like I heard about the book round about through you and then the show, and I just I found I've been so inspired. I'm not in the hospitality industry, you know, I run a church, but the it wasn't. It was the hospitality was inspiring. But it was for me the element of and you mentioned it earlier of like giving people ownership in a way that gives them a chance to expand on the vision in their own way, so like it gives them a chance to be creative and buy into what you're doing. But it's not just like, hey, do this task, employee, you know, it's like, you know, and you see this in the bear with like the pastry chef, you know, and then eventually, cousin, you know, and it's just.

Those are the most amazing parts of the show to me, where it's like or Tina eventually buys in and she's like OK, this is pretty cool, you know, like she goes from the most negative person to like, ok, but this is pretty awesome, like how can I help, you know? And I was like that's what I'm, that's like, that's what I want to do. I want to see people you know, come into, you know, a vision bigger than themselves and own it and grow as a leader. And it was so inspiring and so it was. It was just exciting like seeing you kind of grab onto that and you were already doing so much of that anyways, but yeah.

What's an example of a circle where you're giving one of your employees ownership on something?

I think just giving people the freedom to express themselves in their own way through the hospitality that we offer, that's kind of vague. But we give people guidelines and like here's generally how an interaction at the register should look. Everybody who walks through our doors is not going to, should not have the same hospitality. Like some people are not really looking to have a conversation. Some people are really looking to have a conversation where you kind of have to be like all right, your order's gonna be right, you gotta get moving, giving people a framework but then letting them put their own twist on that, and then it's just maybe practically just giving people some responsibilities. That you know.

A really big trap that business owners fall into is I gotta do everything because it's, you know, my baby or whatever, and that's just like there's many reasons why that's bad. But specifically with employee buy-in, like um, it's, it's such a win-win because like I get stuff taken off my plate and people feel like they're contributing, because they are, uh, to what we're doing, just having a little bit more responsibility they're going to use their own creative gifts and ingenuity to come up with something which is rewarding in and of itself.

Yeah, yeah, and like you were talking about, with uh, new perspectives, like I know he talks about that in the book, but um, circle is what it is because of it's, it's. I mean, yeah, like uh, jackie, and I laid the framework, probably, but um, circle is, you know, in my I try to be as as unbiased as I can because we do a lot of traveling like circle, one of the best, best cafes I've ever been to, um, one of the best coffee shops, I would say, in america, um, that's right, it's a brag thing to say as the business owner, but, um, it's not that way because of like what, what I've done?

um, I, I helped for sure, but it's that way because of our, the team that we have in there daily, like putting so much work into the what they're doing, uh, and offering like their own perspective, like I think I have my way of serving people like, um, if there was a bunch of clones of me, like that's not, it's I, I it wouldn't be my favorite place to go. Um, and so I just know, like I'm gonna get a little bit different um hospitality from from each employee and that's, that's so beautiful.

Um, well, in that way, even you get surprised by what your own company can accomplish. Yeah, because it's not just five clones of you doing everything the way you would do it. You get other people like I actually thought about this other way, like oh yeah, that's I never would have thought about.

That's great, you know sure where do you see circle headed? You know is uh, uh, is it 16th and medford is 17th and medford is that? You know the place forever. Is you know what is the? What's the 10-year goal?

I heard recently everyone should have five in the 10-year goal. It's like I don't. I don't know what I'm doing next week, but I hope. Specifically 1710 Medford. I hope that that circle coffee for as long as I'm alive I mean selfishly, I I want to experience that for the rest of my life.

Are you going to rename it 17 Medford park Maybe?

Yeah, that's pretty good, it's pretty good as far as, yeah, the future, I don't know specifically, with circle, there's there's a lot of directions we could go. It could be second cafe. Um, I don't, we don't have any plans to roast our, our coffee in the near future, but that could be a thing. Um, I think, in general, I would take our, our mission with circle, which is to bring excellence to our community. Uh, I think that can. That can lead to a lot of different things. Specifically, we wanna see that area grow, as long as some buildings become available. We would like to do more specifically in that area. There's a lot of pockets of Topeka. The area of excellence, is that what you mean, that area of our neighborhood?

Oh, the geographical area, that geographical area.

We wanna grow in that area. You know that's a lot of that. It's just maybe selfish. We live over there, but, um, you know Topeka as a whole there's a lot of different areas that that need some loving. But, um, I think for a while it was like you know, how can we expand and reach every little corner of Topeka? And um, that might be the goal eventually, but I think right now we're just focused on how can we build our neighborhood to be something really incredible yeah, um, you asked me.

I don't remember this. You said could a thriving coffee shop increase home values in our neighborhood? If we do what we did, if we did it well, could that increase the values of the neighbor? And I think I told you, but I think I told you no and I'm here to tell you today.

I was absolutely wrong. Yeah, I have home buyers who ask me I want to be over by circle coffee, yeah, and so that's a great testament to your business, you, what you've done, and I thought that was super cool. I remember you asking that question a while back and I remember thinking, no, I don't think so but absolutely it has.

can you say, can you imagine someone saying that about like pizza hut, do you have any homes by that McDonald's over there?

I really want to, that is high praise, not from me, but just from the community of you know I want to live by that place. And that's cool and that has to go beyond. You know good coffee, you know it's. Yeah, you have great coffee, it's great. But no one wants to live next to a place just because of good coffee. It's because of the atmosphere. Yeah, kindness and creativity that you brought to that neighborhood yeah, that's cool.

That's cool. Yeah, we're, we're very invested in that area. Um, I probably shouldn't like publicly say this, maybe because it'll just get worse, but like, uh, those home values are only going up, um, in that area. Um, if I had to guess, um, if I had a lot of money, um, I know how I would spend it. I'll put it that way Um, I know how I would spend it in real estate, um, so that's cool that you know, people are are seeing what we're doing and wanting to to get near it. Um, you know, I'm I'm thankful, thankful, that we already have a house in the area. Um, I'd like to have a few more, maybe first thing that comes to your mind.

Go for it, johnny how many potholes did you hit on your way here?

it's pretty short drive, so like three yeah that's.

That's a pretty decent I mean. It's only three blocks, I think, from your neighborhood. So it's only three blocks, I think, from your neighborhood, so it's like one per block we recently had a whole new pavement situation happen in our area.

But yeah, still a few.

Yeah, that's a pretty decent pothole per block ratio. Have you ever been able to get to a destination without running into construction? Yes, in Topeka.

Yes, I do pretty short drives drives. So yes, but it's rare yeah, yeah, it's rare.

Yeah, it's true, uh favorite. Do you play golf? I don't okay do you what's like? Do you have any hobbies outside of you?

know I enjoy it's pretty like hipster trendy, not hipster trendy. Pickleball is my thing right now okay, yeah, what's the?

where's the best place to play pickleball?

right now it's hughes park right eighth and like east of gage um, there's a, there's new courts coming to speak.

Yeah, I heard about that.

Lights too, with lights over on your ish, those ones yeah, yeah, I think my wife is gonna be not loving that, because I can play later into the evening, right, yeah?

Yeah, yeah. Like you're the one keeping you there later. Yeah, she's like, I want to go home.

Oh no, no, she's already home. She's like when are you?

Oh yeah, put the baby down and then you go out, right yeah.

As long as you have a baby there and you can check them on your phone. Yeah, this is good advice. Yeah, that's right.

Is that how that?

works. That's mom approved right there. Do you have a favorite pizza place in Topeka? No.

Do you want me to expand on that?

No, Okay, you can't. Do you like to expand on that?

Please do, I'm curious.

Well, we were talking with Aaron Zintner about how Topeka needs, basically what circle is, but for pizza. Yep, we've heard that, or? What like Thursday club is.

Tell us about that About what? Oh, whatever's on your heart.

I love pizza, man, I do too. I think there's a lot of uh, there's good pizza in Topeka. There pizza in Topeka, there is like a specific style of pizza in Topeka and that's usually like the more like bar style pizza, thicker pizza, which a lot of people love. That's why people like places are in business.

Right.

I think there's. There's opportunity for different styles. Uh, pizza in Topeka, believe it or?

not there you go yeah. There you go, it you go it sounds like uh, yeah, there's, there's something there. Uh, what are on that note? Actually, what are some businesses or restaurants or services that you feel like topeka needs?

well, we're wrapping. How much time do we have?

just the first couple that come to your mind. You know like, say, some guys out there and it's like I want to do something but I don't know what to do. What are the needs?

specifically like service industry, like restaurant like store restaurant. You know activity I would say, like retail, we need retail downtown. Um, there's already a lot of reasons why that it doesn't exist, so I don't have the solution there, but we need reasons to walk downtown. There's restaurants down there, but there's really no reason to walk beyond one block right. So we need retail downtown. We need, we need restaurants. We need, like owner-operator type restaurants where someone, yes, is going to not only care but like, uh, really prioritize excellence.

Yeah even if that's, you know, like a hot dog stand or all the way up to you know a nice restaurant, uh, you can do all of those things with excellence, right, and you can also just like choose to do like whatever the stock option is. So we need, like, we just need people with like unique takes on. Uh, don't even be unique. Go to kansas city and copy something and bring it here. That's, that would be the advice I would give some people. But uh, yeah, we need less stock and more, uh, heart and soul, right that's a good way to put it.

Yeah, I agree. Uh, I assume you've done a lot of projects like building projects over the last couple years I've watched people do them. Uh, you mean like, if you're like mid-project and you know, maybe you're not doing it, maybe you're the gopher. Are you going to home depot los hermanos? I'm a home depot guy let's go come on.

Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's mine just because it's closest, yeah, dude, saturday morning cup of coffee going home depot like that's peak it really is.

Yeah, so now you're a dad, you're a kid. That's peak dad saturday morning, right there I'm humming the theme song like as I'm walking, absolutely. Shunga Trail, or Burnett's Mounds, shunga.

Yeah, I haven't been out in a while, but I like riding my bike out there. You know you got to dodge a few things, right yeah?

Homeless people.

Yeah, yeah.

It's awesome. And then what's your go-to?

date night spot with the wife um we, you're allowed to say that I would say, jongs, if we could get a reservation, uh, we have to, just, you know, schedule it far in advance. We love jongs. We like going to wheelbarrow. Hopefully some more spots coming, you know yeah, yeah, yeah that honestly. Yeah, I don't know if you want to talk about thursday club. It's like thursday is our date night, so we often just oh, that's awesome, we get in our car and we're like where do we want to go?

and it's like I don't know. There's a lot of great spots we could go, but you know we frequent those spots and so it's like where's the new spot?

it's like I don't know. So you want to just last last thing tell us about us, about Thursday club man.

Yeah, yeah. So Thursday club uh, we just opened the doors, I guess, for that inside a circle coffee I've been going for about a month now. Um, it's a pop-up smash burger and cocktail bar. Um, that's open Thursdays five to 10, fridays and Saturdays five to 11. Uh, I could get into like why the history of the Thursday?

club I you posted something that was like from a file cabinet about some old ladies and that's all I know about Thursday club. I know nothing.

Great, yeah, I would love to share. Um, yeah. So we knew we wanted to do some evening hours at circle. We knew we kind of wanted to have like a kind of a casual neighborhood bar type vibe. Um, so started thinking about you know what would have some local significance, what kind of name, what kind of vibe would we be going for? Um went to the library, went to the topeka room, second floor of the library. If you didn't know that, all sorts of I didn't know that.

I need to know that I need to go there, that's drawers about specific topics.

It was like a drawer on restaurants you can look up like old menus wow, it's pretty cool. Um, there's all sorts of. There's basically two different rooms that you can go into, and I didn't I probably scratched the surface of what's in there, but there's a. There's a drawer on social clubs, um, which uh kind of piqued my interest because you know it's like oh it's kind of what we want to do is provide a place for people to be social, right, uh.

So I started flipping through that. There's all sorts of folders. That was like the thing you did back in the day is join a social club or join a whatever club. You wanted to hang out people. Uh, someone can fact check me on that.

Uh, I wasn't alive, but it kind of seems like the thing to do with their almost the whole thing I had, almost I was ready to leave and then I found the one of the thursday club, open it up and there's this, uh, basically like a five, six page write-up about the thursday club from one of the members of the thursday club and read it and was like immediately hooked, like this is the name, wow, I can run by them. But uh, yeah, it started in 1965. It was just four women at randolph school, um, that were like pto members, um, and they wanted to start a sewing club and so, uh, they one of them knew how to sew, the other three didn't. So it's like, let's start a sewing club and I think pretty quickly it blossomed into more of a social club. I think it was. I want to say it was specific to women that lived in, like the collins park area.

There's actually a bench over there that says you know, remembering thursday club oh, really wow but uh, yeah, I don't think it was ever more than maybe like 10 12 members at a time, um, but they met and they actually continue to meet to this day every thursday. They've been meeting every thursday for 59 years they still meet outside of major holidays they still meet. So now they're.

They're on to second generation members do they know about your thursday club? They do so I.

I met up with with one of them, a woman in kathy, uh, and I had to, you know, ask, make sure it was okay that we used their name. But uh, yeah, she, her mom, was an original member of the thursday club. Wow, she's a member. That's wild. And she was like, well, I have to run it by them and we're exchanging facebook messages and she's like they're I have to run it by them and we were exchanging Facebook messages and she's like they're all excited about it.

Wow, I need to get them to come in. They haven't. I don't think they've been in yet, unless I missed them, but um, yeah, they. They meet Thursdays for lunch at 1 PM. Uh, yeah, it's so. We just I was immediately hooked to the story. There's a lot of uh uh. You know we kind of shared this story on our on our social media and some of the quotes on there. But just really grab, uh, grabbed by the the story of like just dedicated friendship, yeah, people that are willing to like just be so consistent that they'll meet every single week for years.

You don't really see that nowadays so true and that was, like perfectly described what we were trying to do. Um, you know, we want people to gather and spend time with each other and, you know, maybe you're selling, maybe you're starting some other kind of club but, um, just like consistent time with each other. Um, that's just like summarizes why we're wanting to extend the hours of circle, you know it's a different thing, but it's different vibe and um.

But yeah, it's just a really cool story, so that is cool wow, what made you want to start something else instead of just expand circle?

um, yeah, it's a good question. I think we're just like you know this is. This is a reason why, you know, when soliloquy ended, I was like man, I really want to have something in there because it's such a good test bed for a lot of different ideas, right, and they got to do some food trials and stuff and those always went really well. But you know, to expand what Circle's already doing, we feel like we're having to make a pretty solid commitment to the like, we don't want to say.

Well, circle is this now and then we're going to dial it back, oh yeah, because it's changing the brand. Basically, yeah, yeah, so we want to keep circle like. We just want to be consistent in what we're like um presenting ourselves as, and so we hope that thursday club is is around for a long time and um can be in the neighborhood for a long time, whether it's in circle or in a different building, some capacity, whatever, but maybe one fuzzies. Let's talk about fuzzies Like the Patreon subscriber episode.

Yeah, this is the the paid version now of the podcast. That's what we need man, we need a no holds bar, All right let's really get into it now.

You'd make some money and I would lose some.

Lose friends, lose some friends.

Not friends, but yeah.

Lose acquaintances.

Lose acquaintances, but I really do my best not to be a hater. I just think there's so much opportunity in topeka, um, and I think there's. It's just so ripe for opportunity.

I agree, that's true, um it's the wild west, I think in kind of a good way, like there's so much opportunity in topeka.

It's amazing, yeah, yeah so we hope that other people, especially young people, but anybody sees what we're doing and says I want to try to do something too. It doesn't have to be a restaurant, could be whatever, but we need people to stay in Topeka, to actually have a future, like want this to be somewhere that my daughter wants to stay if we're still living here. You know, you know I understand why people leave. I think you know this is we didn't. There wasn't a question that led to this. But yeah, I think I think one thing I really try to be positive about is being negative just doesn't be. Negative without action doesn't help anything.

But I think, only being positive is also being disingenuous, right.

We talked about that being negative just doesn't be negative. Without action doesn't help anything.

but I think, uh, only being positive is also being disingenuous, right we talked about that yeah yeah, it's true, I I get annoyed at both kinds of people where it's like obviously you have the topeka haters, who doesn't matter what's going on, they're only negative all the time. And like I mean, the last time we were on a podcast you jokingly said like, just like, why don't you move to scranton, or something? You know like like there's lots of small towns, why you stay?

you don't like it?

yeah, yeah, uh, but the opposite is also and I don't have as many friends who are like this, but I have a few that I can think of, who won't say anything negative. You know, come on, bro. I mean, let's be realistic here.

You know you can't fix it if you can't acknowledge what's not good. It kind of discredits everything you're saying. If you have nothing negative to say, you don't have anything real to say. Yeah, yeah I don't know if I can take you seriously on anything.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's like that, you know, we when we were opening circle, it's like you have your friends that you pitch them any idea. And then I'd be like, yeah, yeah, you should do it, Right, right, yeah, I didn't really feel confident about opening circle until I had some people say, actually I don't know if you should. Wow, it's like okay so I'm getting both sides.

And the people that are warning me are still like kind of on board with it. Okay, yeah, yeah, you need people. That's a different thing. You need people that are going to say no, because that leads to a lot of questionable business strategies. But I think, yeah, we need people that are going to be honest but, like you know, it's really discouraging getting on the message boards or whatever and the threads but we need people that are going to be honest about the things that are wrong and actually just try to change them.

And do something about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, because griping doesn't help anything.

Yeah.

Yeah, david, thank you for being here. Thanks for having me. Yeah, that was another episode of Topeka Insider.

Topeka Insider Cool.

We didn't even tell him the name.

Yeah, you said it from the beginning.

He goes oh, that's what we're calling this, right, that's right Topeka Insider Cool.