Pool Six Coffee Roasters is located in Winona, Minnesota, on the Mississippi River, between the lock & dams at Fountain City, WI and Trempealeau, WI. Though our name is new, our business isn’t. Pool Six represents a rebranding and reimagining of our roasting business. We’ve got 30 years of retail experience, 20+ as owners of retail coffee operations (both cafes and drive throughs) and have been roasting coffee since 2017.
What does it take to run a successful coffee shop or drive through? What does it take to get through every day--the fun customers, the not-so-fun customers; the joys and headaches of day-to-day operations; and the constant worries about sales and costs, labor expense and labor turnover. Some days you just need someone to call and talk things through, to bounce ideas off, and to figure out how to move forward in the most efficient, profitable manner. This is what we’re talking about, after all. A profitable business. There are so many things we all love about retail business—the charm of a store, the relationships with the customers and with the staff. But if we’re not making money, then what exactly are we doing?
We understand that paying attention to profit margins is as important as paying attention to coffee quality. We know what the struggle is like, and we understand where you make your money, and where you don’t.
The fundamental element of any specialty coffee shop is good, affordable coffee. To be successful, every café or drive-through needs a quality, consistent, dependable coffee, which after all can account for up to 90% of your sales. There are three parts to every successful coffee enterprise--Price, Quality and Support
Though all three are important, we want to touch on support first. What are you going to do if it’s Sunday, you just had an unexpectedly huge weekend, and you have just enough coffee to get you through maybe Monday morning, and that’s a big maybe. Or you’re a new store, and you’re trying so hard to be responsible with how much supply you bring in. You don’t want too much, or too little and every dollar counts with a new operation. You’re four days out from your regular coffee delivery, and you find yourselves with one bag on the shelf. You’re a new store, right? You really want to impress the customer during those first few months of operations. You can’t just not have coffee for two days.
These scenarios are all too common, but know, Pool Six will be there for you if this happens. Too often have I heard from roasters, “Well, they should have ordered enough,” or “I’m not going to work on a weekend just because they failed to plan ahead.” Part of our job as your roaster is to help you plan ahead, to help you predict when the big weekends will happen, but most importantly, to have your back when the unexpected happens and you need help.
Price is important, and margins are important above all. With cost of goods at all-time highs, it’s more important than ever to use quality coffee at a price point that still allows you to make money. Remember, that’s why we’re doing all this work. We know all too well that the cost of green coffee fluctuates throughout the year. That’s why we’re committed to sourcing our coffee not only responsibly, but with sufficient planning to minimize these fluctuations. Our goal is to give you a price that you can count on. If you don’t know what your costs are going to be, it’s quite difficult to price your products to reflect the margins you need to make money. At Pool Six, we understand that you should be focused on building your brand, not us building our brand through you. Because we don’t have retail stores as well, we’re not going to use the cost of the coffee you buy to help support our own retail growth.
Quality—when we talk quality, we’re really talking about two things--quality and consistency. If on average your coffee is good because one week it’s excellent and the next it’s complete crap, you will lose customers. Any coffee operation depends on repeat customers, and what repeat customers want more than anything else is consistency. They want to know that when they come in, they’re going to be greeted in the same way, by the same people, with a cup of coffee (or latte or frappé) that always tastes the same. If you’re already in the business, you’ve seen this. You must have a system, and you must be consistent. At Pool Six, we understand that and will strive to be consistent and predictable at all times, roasting coffees for you with which you can build a brand and a loyal customer base.