Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Bailey Fisher: Our Italian blend came out of a mess up. Scott was roasting way back in the day. He was roasting a blend and forgot about it, walked away, came back. Oh, you know, dang it. Drop it out comes and bruise it. Wow, this is good. Yeah, Good smoky flavor, good chocolate flavor.
Try with some customers. They loved it.
[00:00:18] Taylor McAlpine: Hey, y', all, it's Taylor with local lbk. We're here recording another episode of In Good Company, sponsored by the Caminderado family. Today's guest is Bailey Fisher with Daybreak Coffee Roasters. They are based here in Lubbock and were founded in 1991. Scott was the original owner, still involved with the business, and has brought on other partners, which is where Bailey Fisher and his father now enter the picture. So let's dive into the conversation where we learn how cafes transitioned into wholesale coffee and now includes service and equipment. And learn how roasting is a lot like business operations. Experimenting, testing, fine tuning to make sure you end up with a really good product. Come learn with us, because when you're with local lbk, you're always in good company.
Hey, Bailey.
[00:01:09] Bailey Fisher: Hey, Taylor.
[00:01:09] Taylor McAlpine: How are you? Doing well. How are you today?
[00:01:11] Bailey Fisher: I'm doing good.
[00:01:12] Taylor McAlpine: Glad you can make it.
[00:01:13] Bailey Fisher: Me, too.
[00:01:14] Taylor McAlpine: So we are here at the BMW dealership driving one of their wonderful vehicles. You'll be able to see some of that in the intro in a second, but want to welcome you to the In Good Company podcast.
[00:01:23] Bailey Fisher: Thanks for having me.
[00:01:24] Taylor McAlpine: Love having you here. So, figured out how to drive it this time.
[00:01:26] Bailey Fisher: That's good.
[00:01:27] Taylor McAlpine: So if you don't mind, tell our guest a little bit about you.
[00:01:30] Bailey Fisher: Hi, I'm Bailey Fisher.
I am the husband to Emily Fisher. I got two beautiful daughters, Carly and Cynthia, and I'm the production manager over at Daybreak Coffee Roasters.
[00:01:41] Taylor McAlpine: How long you been over there now?
[00:01:42] Bailey Fisher: I've been over there for four years. All right, so I'm still a baby.
[00:01:46] Taylor McAlpine: Still a baby. And then from my understanding, your dad's been over there a while.
[00:01:50] Bailey Fisher: That's right. He's been over there just about 10 years.
He got brought on as a service tech and then jumped into ownership.
[00:01:58] Taylor McAlpine: Okay.
[00:01:59] Bailey Fisher: Yes, sir.
[00:02:00] Taylor McAlpine: So 10 years, and then how long has the business actually been around?
[00:02:03] Bailey Fisher: We opened in 91, so this is our 35th year.
Scott brought Daybreak to Lubbock in 91 because he was looking for a job and opened up a coffee shop and roaster, and we were the first one since the forties. I won the other day. No way. From the forties to the nineties without a roaster.
[00:02:20] Taylor McAlpine: That is crazy. Okay, so let's give the whole story. How did Daybreak get started?
[00:02:25] Bailey Fisher: Yeah. So Scott Gloina is our owner and founder. He had left the Air Force, was looking for a job, saw Anita Lubbock for a coffee roaster, brought one here, and then he opened up a couple shops throughout the years. He started working on coffee machines. He started roasting coffee, selling to people around other coffee shops here in town, and then eventually sold all of his stock, sold all of his shops so that we could be a service coffee equipment company, and then wholesale coffee and some retail customers.
[00:03:00] Taylor McAlpine: So love it.
[00:03:01] Bailey Fisher: Yeah.
[00:03:01] Taylor McAlpine: How many shops did they have?
[00:03:03] Bailey Fisher: They had three. That's what I remember at its peak. Yeah.
[00:03:07] Taylor McAlpine: What were those locations, if you remember?
[00:03:08] Bailey Fisher: So we had, from what I remember, there was Kingsgate over on 82nd. There was over at 19th and Quaker, and I can't remember the third one. I think it was on Tech Campus.
I don't know exactly where. They're still at Daybreak on Tech Campus. They just use our name. Oh, neat. In the market.
[00:03:25] Taylor McAlpine: Okay.
Well, how cool. I grew up going to the one on 19th, so I've got memories going there.
[00:03:30] Bailey Fisher: That's awesome.
[00:03:31] Taylor McAlpine: And so when did your dad come into the picture then?
[00:03:34] Bailey Fisher: He came in about 10 years ago. Scott was looking for a partner to hand the company off to someday, and dad was managing Red Mango here in town.
[00:03:42] Taylor McAlpine: Okay.
[00:03:43] Bailey Fisher: So they had done some interactions together. Scott was selling us some stuff and asked who wanted to come on. So that was the story.
[00:03:51] Taylor McAlpine: So were the shops already closed at that point?
[00:03:53] Bailey Fisher: The shops were already closed at that point.
Dad grew up working with his hands. His dad's a mechanic, my grandfather. And so he fit right in coming in and fixing coffee machines around Lubbock and Eastern New Mexico. And he runs that side of the company now. He's phenomenal at it.
[00:04:10] Taylor McAlpine: Okay. Love it. I was about to say, when I stopped by the Roastery one time, you were telling me about the service territory y' all have. Y' all are everywhere we are.
[00:04:18] Bailey Fisher: Yeah. So we sort of Starbucks machines.
Our basic area, rough outline is Albuquerque, Pecos, Pampa, and Abilene.
[00:04:26] Taylor McAlpine: Oh, my goodness.
[00:04:27] Bailey Fisher: And then we also do some machines for United Supermarkets in the Dallas area.
[00:04:31] Taylor McAlpine: Okay, got it.
[00:04:32] Bailey Fisher: So they're always running around doing all the things.
[00:04:35] Taylor McAlpine: And how big of a team do y' all have at this point?
[00:04:36] Bailey Fisher: We only have 11 people on our team.
[00:04:38] Taylor McAlpine: You do all that with 11?
[00:04:40] Bailey Fisher: We do all that with 11. And the service side, there's five of them.
And then I have me and four people underneath me on the production side. And then our business manager, Heather, kind of sits in the middle and takes all the calls and makes sure people know where to go.
[00:04:55] Taylor McAlpine: Love it. Okay, and then where is your dad? Now that he's a partner, what's he doing with his part of the business?
[00:05:02] Bailey Fisher: Yeah, so he runs the service side. He has say over everything, and he has his hands in a little bit of everything.
But the service side is his passion. So he comes in the morning, gets all the different calls, where we're going from, outlines all of our service tech, sends them out, makes sure I'm not messing up stuff in the back, and then leaves and comes back later on.
[00:05:24] Taylor McAlpine: Cool.
I feel I've got a little bit of a background on the coffee scene, and I feel like a lot of people in West Texas don't think of West Texas as a coffee scene.
[00:05:33] Bailey Fisher: Yep.
[00:05:34] Taylor McAlpine: What's your take on that?
[00:05:36] Bailey Fisher: I think Lubbock has a great coffee scene.
We have five major roasters here in Lubbock right now, and they all do phenomenal work. What's really cool about Lubbock, Texas coffee scene is every roaster kind of has their own niche.
Different roast profiles they go to, you know, whether you're light or medium or dark roast and how long they roast, and totally different flavor notes they're going for.
But we all, because of Lubbock and how well we're supported, have a big enough target market that we can thrive and survive. And I love going to all the other four and trying their stuff.
There's even some where we sell the exact same coffee. Roasted. Totally different.
[00:06:17] Taylor McAlpine: Really?
Same source and origin.
[00:06:19] Bailey Fisher: Same source, same origin.
And so I'll go often and try it out. Wow.
I'm getting some notes on this. I had no idea could be there.
So I have a lot of fun checking out the coffee scene here in Lubbock. Thriving.
[00:06:33] Taylor McAlpine: And then with your role, you are head roaster, correct?
[00:06:35] Bailey Fisher: Yep. Yes, sir.
[00:06:37] Taylor McAlpine: What was that learning curve like?
[00:06:38] Bailey Fisher: You know, it was good. So I. I came onto Daybreak as a delivery driver. I was in ministry. Thought I was gonna do that the rest of my life, and ended up stepping out. Needed a job, and there was a position open.
Came in, started delivering. We would try coffees in the morning that were roasted.
So we would sit there, and I would start to pick out notes.
So that got me interested in roasting. And what does that look like? And, you know, it's so much fun. It's so much fun to roast coffee. It's. It's a science. And an art get in it. And it's super analytical. I go to this degree. I can have the malware process be this long.
But also, you can do all the things right. If you taste it, it's not good. It was all for nothing.
[00:07:19] Taylor McAlpine: Yeah.
Well, you all have a big machine.
[00:07:21] Bailey Fisher: We do. We do. We have a Diedrich, and it rose £75 of coffee every.
We do, like, three batches an hour.
[00:07:30] Taylor McAlpine: Okay.
And so I imagine you don't do your testing on that, right?
[00:07:34] Bailey Fisher: We don't do our testing on that. We have a little small nucleus link sample roaster, and it roasts everything super light. So we get it. We taste. You know, there's a defect here.
What is this weird taste that we see? Or. This is awesome. Let's roast it.
[00:07:50] Taylor McAlpine: Well, talk us through the process. So you get a bag of green beans, and from the source, what do you do after that?
[00:07:56] Bailey Fisher: Yep. So I'll take about 100 grams, home roast it on our sample roaster a couple times, and get different, slightly different roast profiles. We'll bring it in, we'll let it sit for about a week so that the gases within the coffee begin to settle and you get your flavor the way you want it to.
We'll try it out. If we love the notes, you know, we'll pick out, maybe there's a chocolate note here or a berry note here or a citrus note here to decide what profile, how dark we want to roast it. The lighter you roast it, the more citrus, more berries, more white sugar notes you get. The darker you roast it, the more chocolates and caramels and molasses and brown sugar you get.
So we see what we can pick out when it's light roasted and then dark. And remember, profile we want to try it at.
If we love it, we sell it. If we don't love it, we try again.
[00:08:45] Taylor McAlpine: Okay.
[00:08:47] Bailey Fisher: And then hopefully we can make a product that our customers love, and we'll start sending it out to coffee shops or to our customers at homes and see what they think, get it in their hands. And so.
And then we'll also. Sometimes we'll have a coffee. Man, it's just missing this one thing. Maybe it's not. Maybe it doesn't have a good enough body. Maybe. Maybe it's missing this light note that we want. So then we'll pair it with another coffee to blend it, or that's how we get our blends.
That's a lot of our process. It's a lot of testing stuff out, trying and failing and failing again. And Failing again and trying to make the best products we can.
[00:09:24] Taylor McAlpine: I feel like what you're describing with coffee roasting is the experience of any small business though, of it's trying something new, experimenting and seeing how the market responds, seeing if it tastes good.
[00:09:36] Bailey Fisher: Well, you know, Lubbock's such a great place to be a small business because Lubbock supports locals so well that you have the freedom to try and lose a couple dollars here and try again, lose couple dollars here. Because when you're putting out the best product, Lubbock's gonna see that and they're gonna love that and they're gonna come back and support you tenfold.
[00:09:54] Taylor McAlpine: How cool.
[00:09:55] Bailey Fisher: And so there's not a lot of markets where you could have that freedom to kind of fail as much as you need to, but Lubbock's one. So that's a fantastic place to have a small business and do that process.
[00:10:07] Taylor McAlpine: I was about to say, being around since 91, I imagine you've been able to build a long term customer base and they go through all the steps with you.
[00:10:13] Bailey Fisher: Oh, my gosh. Yeah. United Supermarkets and Texas Tech are some of our biggest customers. Long standing customers.
And then we also have cough shops around the city.
Jmb, you know, Kicking Coffee, Yellow City Hebrews, and I'm probably missing a few.
We also have some around, you know, eastern New Mexico. We have a coffee shop in Dallas. But we, we tell them all the time, hey, we try this out. Here's two different roast profiles. What do you think we'll get different answers. We'll get, you know, hey, I, I really don't like that one at all. This other one was awesome. Let's try it out.
And they're so creative, right? We're creating the product. They're the ones.
[00:10:51] Taylor McAlpine: For them, it's an ingredient.
[00:10:52] Bailey Fisher: Yeah.
[00:10:53] Taylor McAlpine: For them, it's from there. They build on it.
[00:10:54] Bailey Fisher: Their customers will tell them, hey, that latte didn't taste the same. I like this one better. This one tasted better in a cortado. This one tastes a better drip.
So it's really fun. Cause you're working. It's not just us. We don't have a storefront. And so we really get to work with our coffee shops and our customers to say, what do you think? How can we better serve?
[00:11:12] Taylor McAlpine: You love it. And then with United, your product ends up a lot of places. So it's not just a local customer base.
[00:11:18] Bailey Fisher: Yep.
[00:11:19] Taylor McAlpine: You've got. How are you throughout all of the Albertsons territory or how's that work?
[00:11:23] Bailey Fisher: We are last I heard they just said. They just said that merger. So I don't know how far now we're going into New Mexico, but we were in all of the eastern New Mexico United.
So Hobbs and Lovington, that new store that just opened up Roswell, all those places. And I'd heard they were starting to test it in the western New Mexico.
[00:11:44] Taylor McAlpine: Okay.
[00:11:44] Bailey Fisher: And trying those. Trying those stores out, see how they do.
Eastern New Mexico and west Texas are so intertwined that it's an easy.
It's an easy partnership.
[00:11:53] Taylor McAlpine: Then how about over with our friends in dfw? Yeah, that way.
[00:11:57] Bailey Fisher: They got our coffee down there. We're the Ariba coffee brand at United, so we private label for them, and they've just been a phenomenal partner. I love going in all of our team. They'll go in and they'll tell me. They'll say, hey, you know, this coffee down the shelf, it was the last. The last southern pecan, and we. We roasted it a month ago. How awesome is that? They're getting that fresh coffee.
[00:12:18] Taylor McAlpine: Oh, my gosh, that's awesome.
[00:12:19] Bailey Fisher: They know what they're doing. They're selling well, and they support us really well.
[00:12:23] Taylor McAlpine: Is that your most sold flavor?
[00:12:25] Bailey Fisher: Most sold flavor, Southern pecan. I'm at United Southern pecan, and then breakfast blend is the most sold non flavor.
[00:12:32] Taylor McAlpine: All right.
[00:12:33] Bailey Fisher: They go through bukus of those. It's a lot of fun.
[00:12:35] Taylor McAlpine: Cool.
So from there, now that we're on the loop, we already established how the company got started, how your dad got involved, how you got involved, a little bit of the role you carry with the roasting program.
How are y' all involved in the community, man?
[00:12:50] Bailey Fisher: I. One of my favorite things to encourage with my team is I want you to be involved. I want you to be volunteering. I want you to go to all the events you can go to. And so the way I partner with my team is, hey, however early you need to get off, answer is yes. If you've got worship rehearsal. So many of my team are involved in church, whether worship teams or greeting teams or helping out with the kids. We've also got team members who help with, like, little league basketball teams that are heavily involved in the community.
And then we also love to partner with local charities, you know, the Salvation army or Caleb's Closet, different churches around town to where, hey, if we. If y' all have an event coming up, let us know. We want to help you out, maybe provide coffee for this, give you some discounted coffee. And then we also love to partner with schools for Fundraisers, we have a lot of. Lullakai does a really cool fundraiser for the soccer team every year.
[00:13:48] Taylor McAlpine: Oh, neat.
[00:13:49] Bailey Fisher: They sell. We sell them daybreak coffee at a discount. They sell for however highly want.
So we love being a part of the community.
The community has blessed us. We'll never be able to bless Lubbock as much as it's blessed us.
And so we try our best to be as involved as we can.
Try to say yes every time.
[00:14:07] Taylor McAlpine: And a part of the conversation I forgot to dive into of with you and your dad working together, as well as some other partners, how do you all navigate those dynamics?
[00:14:15] Bailey Fisher: You know, it is so much fun because we're all totally different personalities. We're all totally different ages, so we see the world different.
I think the key to being that close in relationship and doing business together is knowing the strengths, what the other one has to offer, and then leaning in to where you're not as strong.
So Ryan Walker, he's the youngest partner, and then I'm younger than he is and I get looped into some of their conversations. There's also times when we bring these fun ideas. Hey, let's try this. You know, you knew the unique thing that's happening. And Scott and Dad will often come back like, hey, we tried that. It didn't work.
[00:14:56] Taylor McAlpine: Here's why.
[00:14:57] Bailey Fisher: But let's try.
[00:15:00] Taylor McAlpine: Or maybe we tried it 20 years ago.
[00:15:01] Bailey Fisher: Maybe, maybe we try it again. Or let's tweak this one thing.
And so Scott and Dad have so much wisdom when it comes to doing business. For years and years in the Lubbock area, they know it works and what doesn't work. And Ryan and I are kind of bright eyed and bushy tailed. And so we see the newest thing and want to try it out. We have a lot of fun.
They give us a lot of input. They give us a pretty long leash.
So I think they do a really good job of leading young leaders.
And I think that's so key.
Stephen mentioned it on the podcast y' all released just recently that third generation is a generation or a company fails.
We talk about that all the time of like, okay, if we're not gonna screw this up, let's learn now why y' all aren't here.
[00:15:52] Taylor McAlpine: Well, in my head, I was gonna ask y', all, what are some of the experiments that have gone wrong?
[00:15:57] Bailey Fisher: Yeah.
[00:15:57] Taylor McAlpine: And how have you adapted and learned from it?
[00:15:59] Bailey Fisher: So we tried this one this week where this is happening on the east and west coast where you take some green beans and you soak them in liquid for a few days.
So we did this with apple juice and orange juice. We did an ipa.
[00:16:12] Taylor McAlpine: Oh, yeah.
[00:16:12] Bailey Fisher: And then you let it dry and then try to roast it. And the whole. The whole thought process is you can get a natural flavor. You can get a natural tasting coffee not washed for a fraction of the cost, and you kind of have some control of what it tastes. The hops you use, you can do local stuff.
Tried it now. It was not good.
[00:16:33] Taylor McAlpine: Okay.
[00:16:34] Bailey Fisher: Didn't taste the way it should, you know, but we had the freedom to do it.
And so there's also been times where we had a customer come to us, and he's a rancher out in Silverton.
He said, you know, I tried y' all smokiest coffee. It's not smoky enough. Mm. He said, well, what if we. What if we cold smoke this for you? Almost as a joke. Let's try it out, see if it gets a smoke and see what your limits are.
He takes it out to his people, and they love it. And now it's selling like crazy.
It's on our website. It's called Chuck Wagon.
[00:17:07] Taylor McAlpine: Okay. I was about to say, is it cowboy coffee? No, it's.
[00:17:10] Bailey Fisher: Yeah, they use it as cowboy coffee, but it's called Chuck Wagon.
We take. We roast our coffee dark. We go and put it on the grill and cold smoke it. It's real smoky. It has a lot of those umami flavors.
[00:17:21] Taylor McAlpine: Okay.
[00:17:22] Bailey Fisher: But, man, those ranchers love it. They eat it up.
[00:17:25] Taylor McAlpine: How cool.
[00:17:26] Bailey Fisher: So it's just different. It's the exact same trial and error, but one more.
[00:17:30] Taylor McAlpine: And then from there, it sounds like the leadership has given you all the freedom to, hey, let's give it a try.
[00:17:35] Bailey Fisher: Oh, yeah. So much fun. And, you know, whenever you're leading businesses together, you need to find what you have in common, so you can always come back when you disagree. What do we have in common? What do we love about this?
[00:17:45] Taylor McAlpine: What's the shared mission?
[00:17:46] Bailey Fisher: What's the shared mission? Yeah. And we all love providing the best coffee we can to love it. Texas, Right? And so to do that, you don't want to become stale. You don't want to become stagnant.
You don't want to just follow the trends of the market because Lubbock's unique.
And so we will regularly come back and, hey, is this aligned with providing the best coffee we can?
[00:18:05] Taylor McAlpine: Yeah.
[00:18:06] Bailey Fisher: And if it does, we tried. If not, we don't.
[00:18:09] Taylor McAlpine: It's so interesting the way you describe that, because in my head, growing up, going to the 19th street location all the time. That was the experience of Daybreak. But the operation is actually so much more and bigger than that. Has it been hard for Lubbock to realize who you all are now, if that makes sense?
[00:18:25] Bailey Fisher: A little bit. So when I came on to Daybreak, started wearing their gear around town, people would stop me just randomly inside of a store. Hey, let me tell you a story of how Daybreak changed my life. I met my spouse there, used to take my kids there. I grew up going there when I was young.
Man, I wish I would open up again. I wish I could get Yalls coffee somewhere. I'm like, oh, you can we start talking. And maybe a lot of them. I've been buying United's coffee for years.
Well, yeah, you've been buying Daybreak coffee. You shouldn't know it.
But honestly, we love that.
We don't feel a need for us to be really known. We feel a need to partner with our people.
You know, we're successful when our coffee shops are successful, our partners are successful, our customers are successful.
And so if somebody can walk into J and B and drink Governor's cup and love it to death, and, yeah,
[00:19:18] Taylor McAlpine: I want you to go to J
[00:19:19] Bailey Fisher: and B. I want you to experience that. I want you to build that community there.
I don't really need you to know it's favorite.
[00:19:24] Taylor McAlpine: Right.
[00:19:25] Bailey Fisher: As long as I'm putting out the best product I can, I'm good.
[00:19:28] Taylor McAlpine: Well, I imagine you all get to see a lot of your vendors go through change because you mentioned jmb and so Tyler and his wife coming through now.
[00:19:34] Bailey Fisher: Yes. Yeah. And it's. It's a lot of fun for us because, you know, they're.
We see them as a partner in building community within Lubbock, Texas. And so when they go through changes and they're experiencing different things, we get to come alongside. Say, how can we help? What are y' all doing? Mm. Hey, we're struggling in this area. This area. Yeah. We'd love to come. Let's come alongside you. Oh, you need. You want to try this new kind of espresso? That's great. Let's figure it out. Come on in.
And so it's really fun. One of my favorite parts of the job is partnering with the people around town because they're the ones on the front lines. They're the one. You know, you walk into a coffee shop and you can have the best day, the worst day.
They're the ones that get to be that whatever you need that day. I get to play the role of helping them help. Love it.
And they reach far more people than I would ever be able to.
And so it's kind of cool to sit there and think exactly how far the reach is.
[00:20:34] Taylor McAlpine: And do y' all have a map anywhere that shows how far your product has gone?
[00:20:40] Bailey Fisher: We used to, but we've started.
We've started getting orders from places we never thought were possible, so it's been harder to keep up. We just sold to a coffee shop in Palm Beach, Florida.
[00:20:49] Taylor McAlpine: No way. Okay.
[00:20:50] Bailey Fisher: That they heard they had us somewhere and heard we were good and made an order, and now we got a coffee shop in Florida that's doing different things. And so we have shipped to all.
All 50 states and Puerto Rico as well. And so it's almost impossible for us to know how far they worked on, how people have tried it, but it's not us, so it's really cool.
[00:21:16] Taylor McAlpine: So as y' all start thinking about new level of leadership, next generation, what are some of the obstacles that you see that you might need to be addressing?
[00:21:25] Bailey Fisher: Sure. Yeah.
So, like we talked about it earlier, we all have such different personalities.
If the leader of your, you know, attitude reflects leadership. So we sit on the office all the time.
So who you. Who your leaders are at the top, as that changes, your team below needs to change to reflect their strength and weaknesses, their passions. How you. How you set up your business systematically needs to change.
And so even dad and I.
Dad is much more analytical, mechanical, a little bit laid back. He laughs all the time where he's like, why are you stressed out? This happens in five years. I'm like, because it happens in five years, we need to go.
So because of that, there's obstacles in that. The business.
Scott and dad have the business set up perfectly for them, and it's running really well. We're slowly integrating little things.
[00:22:18] Taylor McAlpine: Mm.
[00:22:20] Bailey Fisher: But, like, they're with. With organization and detail and the way we operate and the way we see the world, it's really setting up new systems to help our people and help our team do their job the best.
So we communicate a lot.
You know, come and say, hey, I'm having.
Having this issue. I want to get this far ahead. I want to keep the coffee. I don't want to sell coffee that's older than two weeks old. How do we do that?
And so it's learning what we've done in the past and implementing it to the future.
[00:22:49] Taylor McAlpine: Okay.
And my brain's going through so many questions now. You're good. I'm trying to pace them all.
One of the notes I wanted to take from that is I feel there's a lot of small businesses that are getting ready for that next generation to step into it.
[00:23:05] Bailey Fisher: Yep.
[00:23:06] Taylor McAlpine: And for a lot of them, they don't have the blessing of already having these step or they might be an established business, but it's the first transition. Y' all have already seen a couple transitions within the organization. What are some notes you would share as people prepare and plan for it?
[00:23:20] Bailey Fisher: Yeah. One of the biggest benefits for us is that Scott started early.
He didn't sit there and say, well, I'm thinking in a couple years, let's hire. Now I'm looking 15, 20 years down the line. Hey, Jeff, do you want to come on? You get another five or so years down. Hey, Ryan, do you want to come on?
And so we're nowhere close to dad leaving. He's probably got 10, 15 years. But we start having the conversations now of, hey, when I step away, what are things you want to have in place When I step away, you're going to struggle with this. How can I help you learn that now? So now we have a 10, 15 year Runway to learn. And that was so beneficial for dad because there were parts of coffee he didn't know. Yeah, it wasn't in coffee.
So now he's fully equipped, he's ready. And it's not a, it's not. There's no pressure on Scott to say, well, I have to stay on this much longer until you're ready. So no, no, whenever I'm ready, whenever the Lord calls me out, it's time to go.
And so it's, it takes the pressure off, takes the stress off.
And for the person leaving it, that's your baby. You want it to do well so you're less worried.
So for the small businesses out there, I would say start early. It's never too early to start planning for the next season.
[00:24:36] Taylor McAlpine: That's huge.
[00:24:37] Bailey Fisher: And so, and I think, you know, I think, you know, okay, you know, maybe I don't want to work past 62. Maybe I don't want to work, or maybe I want to slow down and travel a little bit more when I get to this age.
Well, you want it. You want the opportunity and the freedom to do that.
So start that plan early, talk to your people, invest in them, and it makes that transition so much easier. And for us, it's been so much more life giving when it comes to coffee roasting. Scott has an infinite larger knowledge base on coffee than I ever, I don't know if ever Will, but than I do right now. I'm thinking years and years and years to get where he's at.
But we've gotten to this point where we can kind of collaborate, and he'll taste one thing, I'll taste another, we'll disagree, try them both.
And it makes both of us better because he's invested early.
And so start investing early.
It'll reap benefits.
[00:25:33] Taylor McAlpine: That's huge. Thanks for sharing that.
[00:25:35] Bailey Fisher: Yeah, of course.
[00:25:36] Taylor McAlpine: Next part of that question is
[00:25:40] Bailey Fisher: the
[00:25:41] Taylor McAlpine: theme of an experiment has come up multiple times for your roasting, for trying things in your business. Learning and growing, planning ahead. It's effectively creating a hypothesis.
And so, like, hey, if we want this outcome, what are the things we need to do now to end up with that result? Yep.
And so with that, what are the things that y' all are playing with now to evolve into where you want to be 10 years from now?
[00:26:01] Bailey Fisher: Sure.
So a lot of that testing, experimentation is just part of who I am.
I'm in a. I always want to be the dumbest person in the room. I want to have people around me that are smarter, that know what they're doing, and I never want to assume that I know best.
So because of that,
[00:26:25] Taylor McAlpine: like, one of
[00:26:26] Bailey Fisher: the things I love to do as a leader is I love to delegate. I love to have my team feel confident and have ownership in what they're doing me, support them and trust them in that.
And so we've tried different things around systematically with how we've positioned our people.
Hey, I want you to focus just on our retailers, and I want you to do that. Why don't you take ownership? I want you to change how things are organized in the warehouse. I want you to change how much of something you want me to order to better set up for you. And I'll come back weekly and ask you, hey, where have you failed? How can I help you succeed?
What did I not know? What have you? What can you teach me?
That's just part of who I am. And we really have a team right now that thrives off of that. And so it's a really good match at the moment.
[00:27:13] Taylor McAlpine: That's huge. When company can treat failing as validated learning. Like, it's not wrong to fail. It's expected.
But what do we learn and how to improve and adapt from there?
[00:27:24] Bailey Fisher: Well, you know, I think there's a philosophical difference between viewing a mess up as, like, failure and we're unsuccessful or failure as a part of an opportunity to succeed. Right.
[00:27:38] Taylor McAlpine: Is it identity or is it process?
[00:27:40] Bailey Fisher: Yeah. Is it identity or is it process? And so whenever we miss the mark in any way, we always want to evaluate. Okay, why do we miss the mark?
And then what can we do better? How is this. How is this an opportunity to make a better product?
Some of our. We have a. Our Italian blend came out of a mess up. Scott was roasting way back in the day. Roasting. He was roasting a blend and forgot about it, walked away, came back, oh, you know, dang it, drop it. Outcomes and bruise it. Wow, this is good.
[00:28:15] Taylor McAlpine: Yeah.
[00:28:15] Bailey Fisher: Good smoky flavor, good chocolate flavor.
And try with some customers, they loved it. So you could have said, man, you
[00:28:22] Taylor McAlpine: know, I just could have gone straight in the trash.
[00:28:24] Bailey Fisher: I could have gone straight in the trash. You'd have never realized that that was an opportunity for something better. And I'll hear stories. That was 20 odd something years ago.
I hear stories every once in a while now of, hey, where can I get that Italian blend? I've had it here or here at this coffee shop, and I just love it. And I get that at home all because of a mess up.
[00:28:40] Taylor McAlpine: Love it.
[00:28:41] Bailey Fisher: Yeah.
So what is it?
[00:28:44] Taylor McAlpine: Benjamin Franklin said he figured out 99 ways to not make a light bulb.
[00:28:47] Bailey Fisher: That's right. That's right. That's what it's all about. And I think so much of being a successful small business has to do with mindset rather than it has to do with results.
How are you setting yourself up for whenever things go awry? It's not if. When they go right.
How do we set ourselves up to do better and learn? Right.
And so I don't know. I think that's one of the things Daybreak does really well, and I would give that advice to so many people is look forward to failing, because some of the most beautiful things come from it.
[00:29:26] Taylor McAlpine: Love it. Yeah.
So now still looking forward a little bit. What are the things you're excited about coming up for Daybreak?
[00:29:34] Bailey Fisher: Oh, man, there's so much. So we're. We're at this really fun intersection to where we're getting a little bit too big for our team. Right. We need to start looking at adding more people, but we're not there yet.
And so when we've talked about, talk to our team. Okay, cool. Where are places we can stretch, where places we can grow?
We have so much of our team that is just investing back into the company and really becoming ambassadors for the company.
And so I'm excited for that growth. I'm excited for adding new members to the team, But I'm also Excited for how our team are becoming leaders. So they're taking accountability.
So we've got that coming up. We're trying all kinds of new stuff, new partnerships with coffee shops around town, but then also New Mexico and Dallas. We went to our coffee shop in Dallas and learned like Laura Bush shops there.
Casual, just casual, you know.
So I'm excited for the ways that our current team is investing back into Daybreak so that we can grow and develop more leaders here in the future.
It's really fun to see.
[00:30:48] Taylor McAlpine: I really appreciated when we had Stephen on the podcast and he was talking about treating his team like entrepreneurs. That was huge.
Total mind shift, mindset shift. And so when you let them have that ownership, letting them have the margin for failure and growth, a lot of cool things can happen.
[00:31:04] Bailey Fisher: Yeah, well, you also learn their strength so much better.
I can better lead you when I know what you're good and what you're not good at and where you thrive.
And so earlier this week, we had a machine break. And normally that's like a machine in the back.
Normally our service tech would come back and fix it when they had the time, but they were busy.
And so my packager, he was packaging tea and I'll go away for lunch and I come back and it's up and running again. And I'm like, what's going on? He goes, oh, no, I fix it, don't worry about it.
Sit there and start talking to him. Well, he has this history and mechanic and he used to work on cars with his dad and so this is a skill he had. Okay, now how can I invest in you? How can we, what are things that we can teach you and develop you in that? Because that's what I didn't know that I've been, I've been saying I'm not going to use that skill because I didn't know it was there.
And so, yeah, when you can identify those things within your team, I think it makes, I think it makes work more fun and more life giving.
And that's what it's all about.
[00:32:06] Taylor McAlpine: Oh, completely.
[00:32:07] Bailey Fisher: I don't want this to be an 8 to 5. I want this to be somewhere you enjoy coming and that blesses your family, blesses your community.
[00:32:13] Taylor McAlpine: When I was a coffee shop manager for a while, one of my favorite things to ask once we had gone through the application hiring process and we were starting with onboarding of like, hey, are there any other skills or interests that you're already doing or wanting to grow in that you would want to do on behalf of the coffee shop. And so that let them experiment, build, resume, build experience, but do it all within the safety of the shop. So.
[00:32:36] Bailey Fisher: Yep. Well, and that's one of the things that's really fun right now is within Lubbock in general, there are so many creative minds and small businesses that are starting and they want to do stuff together, which I think is really unique
[00:32:52] Taylor McAlpine: to Lubbock, the amount of collaboration between small businesses.
[00:32:57] Bailey Fisher: We had an opportunity last fall with brewery lbk. I remember where we were in there.
It was late on a Thursday one day. We were debriefing stuff that happened at work and just kind of threw out there.
Hey, have y' all ever been interested in a coffee beer? And they were so excited. Heck, yeah. We want to do a coffee beer. Started. It was super simple, super easy down the road.
Well, you know, how do we want to do the bottle? We'll put your logo, Put our logo, do this. It'll be super fun, using everybody's strengths for label design and for. I don't know how to brew beer, but we can provide the coffee, they can provide the hops. Do all these different things, made a product.
That doesn't happen a lot of these other big cities where you have.
It's a competition for the market share.
[00:33:42] Taylor McAlpine: Right.
[00:33:43] Bailey Fisher: I just don't see that in Lubeck.
People want to do life together and they want to thrive together.
It's so much more fun and such a better product when there's collaboration.
[00:33:57] Taylor McAlpine: That's a great segue. I was going to ask you, how would you recommend people that want to get into the coffee scene or be associated with Daybreak? What's the best way to engage?
[00:34:05] Bailey Fisher: I would say start drinking coffee. Okay, it sounds simple, but try something new every day. Go get. You know, go to the roaster here and get a bag. Go to the roaster here, get a bag, try it out. What do I like about this? Write it down. Come back a week later, that same coffee. What do I taste now? Look at your notes.
Coffee is so unique because for a long time, it's been viewed as this, like, quick hit of caffeine.
But there's so much nuance to it. There's so much specialty to it that you can sit there and you can try a coffee today and try it in a couple hours with something totally different.
And so drink coffee. Write down what you think, and then drink some more.
[00:34:48] Taylor McAlpine: I was about to say, just like beers, wines, and whiskeys, there's a palate to be developed, and the profiles are sophisticated.
[00:34:54] Bailey Fisher: And what's so interesting is a lot of those palates are similar.
When I started roasting, one of the pieces of advice I was given was, hey, every once in a while, start drinking whiskey neat. Little bit here, a little bit there, but then identify, oh, I'm drinking this whiskey. I can taste vanilla in this. Now all of a sudden, when you go to coffee looking for vanilla, now I can taste it. Or maybe you can't. Maybe somebody has a. Has an orange note in their coffee. You can try it in an ipa.
You get that orange note, you're like, wow, now I can go back to that coffee and identify it. And so they're so intertwined.
And what's also, I think, important in that is there's. You're going to have the people who. They can taste the coffee and they get kumquat from Asia and they just know it. Right. That's where it's from.
But you also, you may go taste a coffee and say, I know this one's good, this one's bad. That's just as valuable.
And so there's so much thought process, and I have to be able to pull these unique notes to know my coffee, know my stuff. But if you know good coffee from bad coffee, you're just as valuable in the coffee world as someone who can pull the random notes from the random
[00:36:04] Taylor McAlpine: islands and simultaneously drink coffee the way you like it.
[00:36:09] Bailey Fisher: Oh, yeah.
[00:36:10] Taylor McAlpine: Find what you like and appreciate it.
[00:36:12] Bailey Fisher: Yeah. My wife loves vanilla creamer, so we'll be sitting at home, hey, what are you tasting? This tastes just like vanilla creamer. And it's so good.
So drink it the way you want.
And that's one of the coolest things about the coffee shops in Lubbock, too, is, you know, each one uses a different style of espresso or use different milk, and they steam it differently, have different ratios.
So try it out. Find a coffee shop that agrees with your palate.
Continue to go back. Continue to go back, have conversations. What do you get from this?
Because it's okay. It's okay if your experience and my experience aren't different or are different.
That makes the experience even better that we have each other's experiences.
[00:36:55] Taylor McAlpine: Right. Love it.
And we're getting close to the dealership again, so we're about to end our fire round. You ready for it?
[00:37:01] Bailey Fisher: Yeah.
[00:37:02] Taylor McAlpine: Favorite place to go on a date night.
[00:37:05] Bailey Fisher: Triple J's.
[00:37:06] Taylor McAlpine: Triple J's. What do you get?
[00:37:07] Bailey Fisher: I get a big Bailey with sweet potato fries because my wife likes them. And I get mashed potatoes.
[00:37:13] Taylor McAlpine: Perfect.
Favorite thing to do with the family.
[00:37:16] Bailey Fisher: We love to go to two docks with chalk and so we'll play Tic Tac toe on the walls and color and enjoy local music.
[00:37:24] Taylor McAlpine: That was just a two docs last night, so love it.
[00:37:26] Bailey Fisher: So much fun.
[00:37:29] Taylor McAlpine: Where do you take people when you have guests come to town?
[00:37:32] Bailey Fisher: When we have guests come to town.
One of my favorite places right now that I've discovered is Stone Ground Pizza. They're a food truck.
[00:37:39] Taylor McAlpine: Okay.
[00:37:40] Bailey Fisher: I find where they're at and we go. They'll set up outside. Outside of a business or at a park and go experience the business. You just want to experience both Stone Ground and other place. But their pizza is so good.
[00:37:51] Taylor McAlpine: Oh, cool.
And then I think we've got one more. What is it?
One of your favorite annual traditions or events in town.
[00:38:04] Bailey Fisher: Favorite annual traditions. I love this is Slayton, but I love their banana pudding festival.
[00:38:09] Taylor McAlpine: It is so good.
[00:38:09] Bailey Fisher: Oh my gosh.
My family's from Oklahoma and every time we post pictures, all the comments are, why doesn't Oklahoma have this? Why can't we do this? Well, Slayton, Texas does. It's a good time.
I got one question for you.
[00:38:22] Taylor McAlpine: Is that allowed? Go for it.
[00:38:23] Bailey Fisher: What is your favorite coffee?
[00:38:25] Taylor McAlpine: Oh, man.
I know just about every coffee shop in town and so I appreciate them all for what they do.
Where you'll see me most regularly is probably Monomyth.
[00:38:37] Bailey Fisher: They're phenomenal.
[00:38:38] Taylor McAlpine: But I go 92. I go sugar Browns. I go Goldstripe.
[00:38:42] Bailey Fisher: That's awesome.
[00:38:43] Taylor McAlpine: Anywhere that leans third wave style.
Personally don't do the drive throughs, but that's cause I wanna sip my coffee while I'm sitting down and getting work done or having a conversation.
[00:38:54] Bailey Fisher: One of my favorite things about coffee shops in Lubbock that other places in the world are striving to reach is there's this need in community for a third place. A place where you can just go and not be what role you play at work or at home, but just go and be Taylor. And coffee shops in Lubbock have done such a good job of creating a space for you to go and just be Taylor.
[00:39:18] Taylor McAlpine: The coffee scene is very special to me, so it's fun to be able to have this conversation with you. So we're back at the dealership. Thanks for joining.
[00:39:26] Bailey Fisher: Thanks for having me. It was great talking to you.
[00:39:28] Taylor McAlpine: Loved it.
[00:39:28] Bailey Fisher: Yep.
