`Grounds For Enjoyment` (GFE), die Firma von Cliff Young, scheint wirklich
ein Juwel zu sein, da 3 von 5 Läden / Kiosks 2001 einen Preis der SCAA
(Specialty Coffee Association of America) bekommen haben und sicherlich
auch sehr gut laufen !!! ... Das zeigt natürlich auch die Qualitäten von
Cliff Young, der ein echter Kaffee-Fan zu sein scheint !
(siehe Link in Posting #62)
With the philosophy that "We are only as good as our coffee," Young believes
that coffee is great when it`s fresh, so the shops` shelves don`t carry any
beans that have been roasted for longer than 10 days. And there is no tampering
of dates on the labels, he declares.
Besides advocating high quality standards, Young is also fully committed to
staffing shops with very well trained and friendly people.
He prides himself in having in his current payroll five of the original team
of six people that worked for him when his first coffee cart was set up in a
regional hospital. "And the sixth one left to go to the Army," he said, noting
that he couldn`t compete with the benefits` package.
Taking care of employees is also economically-sound as it prevents high
turnover and constant training, Young says. That mentality will spread over
into Peabodys, with his "core team" taking the lead in training of personnel at
all the stores.
To illustrate how serious he is about the investment in employees, Young said
that Peabodys had to "talk my core team into" the merger.
The return on that investment is immense, he says. "When Starbucks opened a
store in town...people started wondering how we would compete with the Big
Green," he said, alluding to coffee retailer giant Starbucks Co.`s (SBUX) logo
color.
"But my sales rose by 18% - they (Starbucks) are good for business, they make
people think about coffee. But they cannot beat me in my service," he said.
