What Matters Most When Opening a Coffee Shop - Ep #436

What Matters Most When Opening a Coffee Shop- and Where to Spend Your Money - Episode Cat & Cloud Coffee Summary Thinking about opening a coffee shop? Here’s where your money actually matters—and where it doesn’t. In this episode, Chris Baca and Jared Truby…aka Dale ;) unpack what actually matters when you’re opening (or refreshing) a café: create a real feeling of place without overspending on flashy build-out, “blow the bag” on the essentials (espresso machine, grinders, and water filtration), and don’t get distracted by optional prestige projects like roasting, direct trade, or origin travel before the core experience is dialed. They also zoom out on how café design has evolved since early third-wave homogeneity and land on a grounded definition of “sustaining excellence”: either innovate with intention or “plus the show” by obsessively maintaining the details that signal care—because culture is what people learn to accept as normal. Chapters 00:00 Monterey and Coffee 07:00 Opening a New Coffee Shop? 13:30 Business reflects the people who started it 21:00 Should I Roast Myself? 29:00 Homogeny in Coffee Shop Design 33:20 What’s Worth It vs. What’s Hype 42:00 Plus the Show Cat & Cloud: Instagram Webstore We LOVE our Wholesale Partners! Interested in serving our coffee at your business? Learn more about our Partner Program Links – Six Over Coffee Cat & Cloud Coffee was founded in 2016 by three friends who believe experiences and connections shape our lives. Former barista champions and lifelong coffee professionals, they envisioned a better way to do business and set out to create a values-driven organization that put culture first. Our mission is to inspire connection by creating memorable experiences. Whether it's with guests in our 4 retail locations in Santa Cruz, our team members, or our wholesale partners across the country, we strive to leave everyone better than we found them. The Cat & Cloud Podcast is a space for us to share our experiences and adventures in coffee and business in hopes of inspiring more people to create culture and values-driven organizations.

You can listen to What Matters Most When Opening a Coffee Shop - Ep #436 online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

What Matters Most When Opening a Coffee Shop - Ep #436 is an episode from Coffee Podcast by Cat & Cloud by Cat & Cloud Podcast.

This episode is 00:50:06 long.

This episode was published on Feb 7, 2026.

Yes. Use the heart button on the episode page to add it to your favorite episodes list.

Yes. This page shows related episodes from Coffee Podcast by Cat & Cloud when more episodes are available from the podcast feed.