I’d argue that the successful retail coffee experience is a custom blend of novelty and nostalgia.

A ratio of adventure and coming home.

Everything that could be, everything that has been, in a single experience. And if you deliver on it, you will be successful. Here’s an example, from my recent summer road trip (a boomerang from steamy Kansas City to glowing Portland by way of Post Falls, then down to Redding and back home through Reno).

Extracto Coffee, something like 80% nostalgia

I revisited Extracto Coffee about four times last week, since we were staying just down the road and since my little family has been going to Extracto for almost as long as we’ve been a family. Owner Chris Brady has been to Ethiopia with us several times; now we sit across from each other at Great Notion Brewing and talk about our latest hobbies. And his daughter Esme, who’s now twenty-one, bustles behind the bar dispensing sage advice and excellent coffee with a seasoned hand.

Extracto owner Chris Brady with us in Ethiopia, c. 2017

The espresso at Extracto tastes exactly like it should.

It tastes like the coffee in my cup the day I had the first phone call with my now-investor, back in 2018, after dropping my kid off at school. It tastes like the short story I wrote about motherhood and loss, inspired by an interaction I saw between an Extracto barista and her customers in 2019. It tastes like friendship. (I know the blend components, but that’s a secret. And even if you figured it out, how could you replicate the long hot days roasting on the clanking, indestructible, magic UG once owned by another of my favorite customers, DOMA?)

Extracto has this nostalgia thing nailed. There are definitely moments of novelty, and in reality Extracto has been adept at molding to the intense change felt by every Portland resident the past 5 or so year, but the Brady family have also figured out what their customers want, and they make sure those customers get it… every single time. 

Chris’s customers expect the espresso to taste a certain way, and it does. They expect seasonal offerings to hit at certain times of the year—and they do. They expect the same kind of service, and they get it. They come for a particular feeling, a certain flavor, and as long as Chris and his team keep delivering, they’ll keep experiencing “weekend numbers on a Tuesday,” as they currently are. It’s a perfect example of a brand that delivers on its promises. And I know that I'm one of thousands of people who have a location in my heart's map named "Extracto Coffee".

I genuinely had too many fantastic pictures of Chris in Ethiopia. This is in Harar, c. 2018.

Feast Coffee, about 50% novelty

Drive 6.5 hours down the 5 from Portland to sun-soaked Redding, navigate the most confusing two-street tangle you’ve yet encountered, and walk in the door to Feast Coffee’s cafe, Evergreen. Color, textures, and excellent smells beckon you as you pass an extremely-curated merchandise shelf to stand at the register and examine the seasonal drinks menu.

If you, like me, have an absolute delight in the marriage of heavy cream and coffee (lactose intolerance be damned) and you, like me, are a softie for a rippled stemmed cocktail glass, you might order the summer special called “Peaches and Cream”, after which you’ll be seduced by the gummy peach ring garnish and the drink itself.

Feast owner Eric Schuler on the far right, at a Portland cupping event in 2023.

Novelty. Unexpected, joyous experiences that have customers reaching for their wallets.

Feast does nostalgia too: my dad had a bag of their “Milk & Honey” espresso blend on his (well-appointed) home coffee bar this week. Eric Schuler, Feast’s owner, sources coffee carefully from people he respects, and visits them regularly on their farms. Recurring single origins and standby blends are the foundation for the constant re-invention of the menu.

Feast’s Nostalgia-Novelty ratio is approximately 50-50 in my personal assessment.

And that suits Redding’s population, a mix of lifers and long-term visitors to the nearby mega-church, Bethel. They feel both safe (thanks to the nostalgia) and intrigued (novelty).

Which points us to an important concept.

Regardless of the novelty-nostalgia ratio, success in business comes from keeping your promises.

I’m not talking right now about keeping promises like honoring handshake agreements and if you tell a producer you’ll finance his wet mill, following up with money. Obviously, those are the bedrock of success.

I’m talking about the implicit agreement between buyer and seller: give me what I want, and I’ll pay you for it.

Any business that gets it right (and charges the right amount) will thrive.

Extracto and Feast both do that.

The surprising thing is how hard it can be to figure out exactly what our customers want! There are entire industries devoted to this kind of research, but most small businesses start out with a rough idea of it and then iterate until they find the magic combination. Cross your fingers and hope you catch the wave when customer expectations change.

And watch out for the comparison trap of looking to other retailers for cues: they aren’t your buyers!

What’s the Novelty-Nostalgia mix for Swift?

Still figuring that out. Nostalgia requires time, because it’s all about delivering what you’ve delivered before. It’s kind of obvious that as a newer business, Swift is still in the “mostly-novelty” stage.

However, as you’ll have read in former Unfiltered essays, Swift is the most nostalgic of all for me and for my past customers, team members, and producer partners. However, Swift is NOT Catalyst Trade or any other former iteration of my personal business endeavors in coffee. The question becomes: what is familiar from Emily McIntyre and her universe of beloved coffee people, and what is new?

Let’s figure that out… together.

One of the multiple ways we approach sample roasting, to ensure we understand how different heat applications will impact the flavor and quality.