Roasting Plant Partner Interview (Part II)

Good Morning... What can I get for you?

Sorry, I'm a little late today. It was my night for the baby monitor and sometimes babies throw you curve balls... Customers and partners can do that too... How about part II of that interview with a 25+ year Roasting Plant partner? OK then... You got it!

What were some of the oddities around at that time? i.e. delivering beans by truck, etc...

Well, yeah, eventually I got into deliveries to the stores and the restaurants. That was an experience. Deliveries to the stores were pretty basic and only took one person, but some of the restaurant deliveries downtown during the holidays and rush hour traffic, we used to send 2 people out. One to double park on the street and the other to grab the hand truck and about 6 orders and start weaving in and out of pedestrians delivering to the restaurants. Loading freight orders and bringing supplies and green coffee to the roasters were a bit challenging as well. We didn’t have an area for the freight companies to back into for loading and the warehouse that had a majority of the green coffee was across the street from the roasters so, here’s the scenario:

1. we’d slowing back into Airport Way, wait for traffic and cross two lanes and park in the center turn lane, then load the truck that’s waiting in that turn lane with green coffee, we’d again slowly back into Airport Way, and when traffic allowed, we’d cross two lanes, and wait in the center lane for traffic to clear to cross the remaining two lanes to get to the roasters one time while delivering chocolate supplies across the street, a 50 lb box of chocolate bounced off the pallet and was hit by a Buick station wagon. The chocolate lost, and I even have a picture of the smashed box of chocolate.
   
   
2. Roaster fires were very common, about every other month. Now, the main building that the roasters are in is an all wood structure with NO sprinkler systems, and a couple times, things got a bit scary. So, one time during a fire, we had a car pull up and nonchalantly ask us if we knew if our roof was on fire. The roof is right in eye level with I-5, and he drove all the way down to airport way to tell us.
   
   
3. Another time, it was the middle of winter and to get to the roof, we had to climb a set of stairs, then go up a ladder, and then another set of stairs. Well, we had so many fires on the roof that we installed a garden hose up there to put the fires out (we used to try to put out our own fires, because the fire dept always wanted to start cutting holes in the roof). Anyway, we had another fire, and so we got up to the roof, and the hose was frozen solid, so, what did we do? Chinese fire drill…we grabbed a bunch of the cans that we put coffee in and started filling them up with water, then we spread the entire crew out along the path to the roof. You should have seen the eyes of the folks in the offices, they were really freaking out. We got the fire out and all was cool, but it was a challenge. The fires could get real bad occasionally, but we always pulled together and usually had it out by the time the fire dept got there.
   

Most memorable experience?

Well, Howard and I started on the same day although I showed up at 8:00am and he got in around 9:30am, but I remember thinking that this guy has got a lot of energy. He was very friendly; actually he hasn’t changed much at all. One thing that still gets me to this day is to listen to him talk at one of the open forums or share holders meeting or really anything. He’s got so much passion for the company and the people that work here, it just “pumps” me up. It’s really a great feeling.
Outside of work, he was just the same, if fact I used to dog-sit for him with his giant golden retriever, Jonas.

At picnics, I remember him always being very competitive. It was pretty funny.
At parties he was fun as well. Having flavored coffees and Caravali was a real different experience (and a whole other story in itself), but when we finally sold Caravali, we had a catalogue burning ceremony, and yes, I even have pictures of that too. Flavor-locking coffee-if people only knew how we used to do it to how we do it now, they’ve probably laugh. Everything was totally manual and primitive.

What were New Store Openings like for Starbucks way back when?

New store openings... oh, that's way different than now. Me and 2 others would pull everything we needed, rent a Budget truck, load it up and deliver and unload. Whatever needed to happen to get the job done we did it.

What were the holidays like back then for you?

Several times during the holidays the stores would run out of Christmas blend coffee, well, the first holiday we were in the Portland area, that’s exactly what happened. So, I loaded of several hundreds pounds of Christmas blend in the truck and drove down on Friday night to Portland and delivered to all the stores that were short, and then drove back. Same sort of thing happened with the Canada stores, although this time it was a truckers strike at the border, so I kind of had to sneak across the border, not literally, but I got product across the border and through the strike, and to our stores. Working weekends or holidays during the crunch of holidays was just something we did, because if we didn’t do it, we wouldn’t be where we are today.

Well, there you have it... A look at the past for a fella that started with Starbucks the same day as our own Uncle Howie. I hope you enjoyed Starbucks Positivity Week... Have a good weekend...

We'll see you Monday for your usual...

Pat Nerr...