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

Cat & Cloud Podcast

Cat & Cloud

Education

4.8 • 727 Ratings

🗓️ 7 February 2026

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What Matters Most When Opening a Coffee Shop- and Where to Spend Your Money - Episode #436 Cat & Cloud Coffee www.catandcloud.com/ 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 www.instagram.com/catcloudcoffee/ Webstore www.catandcloud.com/ We LOVE our Wholesale Partners! Interested in serving our coffee at your business? Learn more about our Partner Program https://catandcloud.com/pages/wholesale Links – Six Over Coffee https://www.instagram.com/sixovercoffee/?hl=en 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.

Transcript

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0:00.0	All right, buddy, welcome to the Cat and Cloud podcast.
0:04.4	Today we're talking about that brand new coffee shop energy, that first album feeling
0:10.7	and why some places feel instantly authentic, even if they don't have a super fancy buildup.
0:16.4	So we're unpacking what actually matters when you're opening or refreshing a cafe.
0:21.5	Where do you spend your money?
0:22.9	How do you create a sense of place without overspending on a flashy buildout?
0:26.9	And does a flashy build out even matter?
0:29.8	We zoom out on how cafe design has evolved since the early third wave copy and paste trend
0:35.4	and dive into some frequently asked questions that people who are
0:38.3	opening coffee shops have levied our way do I need to roast my own coffee do I need to
0:44.4	source my own coffee do I need to travel to origin what are the advantages and disadvantages
0:49.6	of taking all of these things on really this, this is an episode about intentionality,
0:56.0	details, and putting first things first
0:58.2	when you're opening or growing your business.
1:01.2	Enjoy.
1:03.9	Hey, this is Chris.
1:05.9	And I'm Dale.
1:10.0	And welcome to the Cat and Cloud podcast. I call me Dale. The show where we talk about gear, coffee. No, I'm just Gear Boys riffing. I don't know. I'm just excited. I'm just excited. The place are we talking about culture, people, opening shops. I went to a new coffee shop last week. Was it the one in Monterey?
1:27.8	Six over Monterey.
1:42.9	Yeah. Is that Tyler? Is that how that works? I saw them in, not Tyler, sorry, his brother. It is. Yes, it's Tyler's brother. Yeah. Oh my gosh. I said Tyler. Now I'm not going to remember his name. But is it his actual shop? Yeah. Congratulations.
1:43.5	Yeah.
1:44.2	It's a really awesome.
	...

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