Risk Free Assessment
Access Granted: 321 Coffee Part 2 Transcript. Tune in wherever you listen to podcasts.
Mike: Welcome back to Access Granted, a podcast powered by Ablr. In today’s episode, we are back with co-founder Lindsey Wrege from 321 Coffee. We’re here to talk about the reality of how to start a business that employs adults with disabilities. If you’re curious about how and what they went through, what hiring looks like, how to support a training structure, how to retain employees, how to help educate them and train with their skill set.
You’re going to learn a whole lot on this episode with Lindsay Wrege from 321 Coffee so stay tuned.
The thing that I love about what you’ve been doing is sort of this expansion. So you were talking about, hey, we used to do this. We used to do that. What has changed in the company in the last few years? Like talk a little bit, talk to me about like anything, but I mean, I’m thinking like from a technology perspective, from a staffing perspective, from a culture perspective.
Lindsay: And I mean, I think earlier you said, like, you know, do you feel the traction you feel?
And I think I was like, yeah, I do. Like we’ve made a lot of progress, and then we derailed. But I was gonna say, like, yes, I see the traction. Like this morning, I drove around for four hours, like, with my car full of coffee, switching out product at every single Weaver Street Market, and last week it was Whole Foods because we got new packaging and we needed to, like, it was better packaging, it was better for the grocery stores, and we needed to switch it out, and it like took so much time, right? But like…
Mike: But you’re out there, just, well you’re still working?
Lindsay: Oh, absolutely, right? Oh my god, there’s so many examples of this. A few months ago, we had to clean out, it’s the worst job of 321. It’s to clean out the gutters of the Farmers Market. Uh, or not the gutters, the drain.
It smells so bad. Thank you. Yep, and like, there I was with the shop vac. I was so pissed.
Mike: Was this a Saturday morning?
Lindsay: Uh, no, it was like a freaking Friday night.
Mike: A freaking Friday.
Lindsay: Don’t get me wrong, I love those moments because it is so important that, yeah, it’s so humbling. It’s so prideful to know things are going well, but like, it’s not being handed to us, we’re working really hard at this, and like, we’re figuring out solutions, we’re coming up with how to overcome a lot of these barriers that we never would have thought we would have had to address.
January of 2022, we were one shop at the Farmers Market. Period. End of story. December 2022, we were shop at the Farmers Market, shop at Pendo, shop in Downtown Raleigh, shop in Downtown Durham, Roasting Facility, been on the Today Show twice.
Mike: So I didn’t know you were on twice!
Lindsay: Mm hmm.
Mike: So what, was that after the first couple stores, or do you think that helped launch some, like talk to me about that piece. I say talk to me about that a lot. I need to stop that. Inform me on that.
Lindsay: Inform me. Yeah, so we got connected with the Today Show, and I mean, it was just sort of one of those ruthless, like, every four days that they don’t respond, email again, and finally they were like, “okay, yeah, like, let’s have a call.”
Let me hear, understand the story. I was telling them what we were up to, and they were like, yeah, like, let’s, let’s do the story. Al Roker was actually supposed to come down.
Mike: I did hear about that.
Lindsay: Yeah, that was when he was having some health issues, so he didn’t come, but that’s okay. The other people on the team did, and so, they did an amazing job telling the story.
Like, that segment I am so proud of, and it aired, and that was wild. Because, I mean, it was just like, the website crashed instantly and we would up the server bandwidth, it would go live, it would crash again, would up the server bandwidth, it would go live, it would crash again, for like, hours, like, just from people across the country coming on, I mean, we had people sending us pictures of like, “I’m in the Chicago airport and like, you’re on TV,” it was, that was the, the first time that we had really like, had true national reach, but the coolest thing was, once we got this website up again, the number of messages that we got from people across the country saying like, ” I’m a special ed teacher and I just showed this segment to my students and they all said, I want to be like Sophie when I grow up. Like, thank you for what you’re doing.”
Mike: Wow. That’s real impact.
Lindsay: I mean I get goosebumps again like just thinking about it. How powerful it is and it comes back to right, representation, proximity builds empathy, like showcasing what people are capable of. That’s why, right? You give people a reason to believe in themselves. You give someone who looks like them, who sounds like them, who has the same similar lived experiences as them thriving and being on national TV. And you can inspire people to believe in themselves and that matters.
So yeah, we were on the Today Show and then they came back to us at the end of the year and said, this was one of our favorite episodes and like best performing ones. We want to re air it to close out as the best of 2022. Um, so they did and we were like, okay, we’re going to be ready this time. Like we’re going to max out this server bandwidth. And again, the website crashed, which was awesome.
Mike: Those were huge milestones.
Lindsay: Yeah.
Mike: So are you still feeling stuff from that? Like people are like dude I saw you on the Today Show.
Lindsay: I mean it’s insane.
Mike: So you’re hanging out with like celebrities.
Lindsay: Yeah.
Mike: You’re on, did you go to New York, or they came here?
Lindsay: No, uh, wait, yes. For Today Show they came here, for Queen we went to New York, which is crazy.
Mike: So, like, I mean that’s gotta be kind of insanely cool, right? Like, tell me about this New York trip, like, what happened?
Lindsay: Alright, this is a good story.
Mike: Did queen pick you up, or did Law pick you up?
Who was in the limo? No. Alright, this is, this is a cool story.
I wanna meet Queen.
Lindsay: So, one day I get a call from Lenovo, and, you know, We’ve, we partner with Lenovo, they’re an incredible partnership, and they’re like,
“Hey, we want to film this commercial, film this video that highlights how we engage with small businesses, you all are a great part of that. We’ve got Queen Latifah to be, like, the face of the campaign. We’ll fly you to New York City. Are you in?”
And I was like, uh, are you joking? Like, yes?
Mike: No, can’t do it.
Lindsay: Let me see. And I’m like, you just tell me when, I’ll be there. They’re like, great, okay, the date is August 20th. That is the date of our downtown Raleigh grand opening.
And I was like, that is literally the one day in this entire year that I need to be in Raleigh for. And they were like, well, we can’t really ask Queen to reschedule, and I was like, I totes get that.
How did she say reschedule in a brief? We probably did not.
Mike: Abbrev, abbreviate.
Lindsay: And so, what we did was they rejiggered a little bit of the filming schedule, so we had the ribbon cutting and all of the craziness of launching our downtown Raleigh shop, which was like our first true, like, the Farmers Market was awesome, right?
That’s our flagship location. Pendo is really cool, but realistically it’s only for Pendo employees. Like this shop in downtown Raleigh was like the biggest probably like iteration of 321’s vision coming to a reality. It was a big deal. Um, so that was awesome. That was the morning.
I was a mess leading up to it because it was projected a hundred percent chance of rain. And so I was completely anxious and we had hundreds of people show up with umbrellas. So that afternoon a limo showed up to the event because
Mike: It picked you up at the event.
Lindsay: But hear me out. This was not Lenovo’s doing. This was from the magic that be of Trish la Peglia at Pendo.
Mike: Oh, she’s incredible.
Lindsay: She’s incredible. So she caught wind that, so it was myself and then one of our baristas Aaron that were gonna go to New York City. And Aaron works at the 321 Pendo location and is just, I mean.
Mike: I think I met him.
Lindsay: You want to talk celebrity status from Queen?
Aaron at Pendo. Oh yeah, like he’s just the best. Like, he’s so awesome. He has the world’s best energy. He is everyone’s best friends.
Mike: I think he’s in the GAAD video from two years ago.
Lindsay: I’m sure he is, yeah. His fatal flaw is that he has flooded that cafe too many times, but it’s because someone walks in and he stops what he’s doing to go give them a hug.
And it’s like, Aaron, can we just like, stop running water or cold brew when you go to give the hug. Anyways, so we found out, so Trish finds out that Aaron and I are supposed to go to New York City. And she’s like, how do we go about making this like even more special than it already is? So she puts out a call for help amongst Pendo employees of like, who has contacts to a limo.
Someone says like, oh, my friend drives limos. And so she arranges for a limo to come pick us up. She then goes over to RDU the week before with some bags of coffee, talks to the Delta gate agents, like gets them on board. So like we had a whole like, welcome Aaron banner, like it was unbelievable.
Mike: Did you do any of that recorded at all or no?
Lindsay: I don’t think we have videos, but we totally have pictures. It was so awesome. So, the limo shows up to the shop. It was a surprise to Aaron. So we had him like, I was like, Aaron, come, you know, into the store. I want you to close your eyes. Like, we have a surprise up front. So he walks out and he opens his eyes and just like loses his mind, which was awesome.
So we get to go up to New York City, which was crazy. At this point, Aaron only knows we’re going to New York City to do something with Lenovo. He doesn’t yet know about Queen Latifah because we were under an NDA at this point and we have a lot of loose lips on our team. So right before I was like, I pulled him aside. I was like, Aaron, I need to tell you something. I was like, we’re filming this video. I was like, there’s someone pretty cool involved. Um, and I pulled up a picture of queen Latifah to show it to him, like who it was going to be. And he, again, just like lost his mind. He was so excited. It was also awesome. So, I mean, 2022, like we’re mostly over COVID, but it’s still, it’s around.
Um, and so, you know, everyone sort of had to wait in their own areas and they were, You know socially distant when we weren’t actively filming, whatever. And queen is a big deal so is not really on set like if she didn’t need to be on set, like she had a stander.
Mike: Wow
Lindsay: Yeah.
Mike: Did you get to like say hello and talk with her?
Lindsay: We did, we did, but aaron was just like. Like we were taking pictures and at one point like she sort of like slunched over on the table, so like he slunched over on the table to like match her. And like she loved it. Like they were giving each other high fives .
It was awesome. And it was like he truly, like, he was excited to meet her and everything, but, like, he treated her like a person.
Mike: Interesting, right?
Lindsay: Yeah.
Mike: Where do you go from here? Like, you’re on the Today Show with, like, potentially Al Roker’s like, I’m on my way down, we’re going to do the weather, and then we’re going to talk to you, twice. And then all of a sudden you’ve got like the biggest and best companies in the Triangle, the biggest and best are saying, “Hey, we believe in you. We’re investing in you for you and what you’re doing.” Like, what does that feel like at night when you go home? Obviously there’s some pressure, I’m sure. But like, do you feel that deep level of gratitude of like, man, we’re doing something good for other people every single day. And that feels amazing.
Lindsay: Yes. And it also feels amazing to recognize, people are willing to help, right? They’re willing to step up. They’re willing to offer what they can. I remember when we were building the shop at the Farmers Market, an unknown number called me and at the time I like thought that was really cool so I answered, and somebody was like, “I love what you’re doing. I’m an art teacher. I’m not in a position to support financially, but if you ever need a mural painted, please call me.” And it was like that conversation has stuck with me of like people are willing to offer what they can. And for some people it’s advice and some people it’s financial modeling help. And some people it’s understanding insurance and some people it’s art and some people it is financial and dollars. Right? But when you have something that unites people and brings people together and willing to, like, grow that community and that camaraderie, it’s so humbling to see that people will step up and offer. I mean, I think it’s awesome to talk about, like, the awesome stories and the highlights, but, you know, the other reality is, like, life isn’t always necessarily a highlight reel, and it was a lot of work to go from the one shop at the Farmers Market to all of that stuff in December of 2022.
I remember at one point, like it was the little things that just started really breaking really quickly of like, we could not for the life of us keep enough oat milk to our name. I don’t know why oat milk specifically was so difficult, but like just little things of systems that we had when it was just Michael and I, a team of two that doesn’t work for a team of 50. And you’re building the ship as you’re flying it, and that’s really fun, and it creates a lot of quick growth, but it also creates a lot of quick and deep pain points. So you’re in the middle of building and like, okay, we need this shop, like four shops now to open tomorrow at 7 a.m. And it’s just, you know, it’s not just two of us anymore, but that also means when it was just one store, if things really went sideways, one of us could be there. All of a sudden, we’re outnumbered, right? So there was things that really started breaking that we needed to fix and we still needed to deliver of what we had already built.
And that’s hard. And it’s, you know, there’s a whole ‘nother level of management and leadership and getting team buy-in and being united and vision setting and direction. And then people have personal life challenges, right? And that’s allowed and it’s sad when it happens. But as a people-focused company, like you need to be able to give people time and space to deal with their stuff. But that then sometimes means that, you know, More burden is put on other people and it’s just navigating all of that. It’s not easy.
Mike: That sounds really fun. I mean you’re you’re building it like a legitimate business like it’s not like oh, we’re just trying to get off the ground. It’s like, no, you have five stores. You have 50 employees. You have inventory. You have staff. You have HR. You have fin- you have all these things to run and yeah, it’s a lot to handle
Lindsay: I remember when we you got our roasting facility warehouse space. It was 2, 000 square feet of warehouse space. We were like, we can set up a bowling alley!
Like, we’re gonna have a jumping tent! Like, this is awesome! Because before that we had like three storage units. We had stuff in my parents’ garage. We had stuff in Michael’s parents’ garage. We had stuff in a trailer. We just had stuff everywhere. And so the idea of like moving out of all those places and it could all be under one roof was like the best thing ever.
You know, there’s the times that we, so we don’t have a dock at our, at our warehouse. So when we order stuff by the pallet, we order with lift gate, right? So the truck comes, pallet gets put on the lift gate, it goes down to ground level and then we can roll it into our warehouse. Well, there’s plenty of times where the truck shows up and the lift gate is broken or they forgot about the lift gate. And it’s like, well, now we get to unload this pallet one box at a time and rebuild the pallet and…
Mike: But that has to make it so fulfilling, you know, I’m not taking away from the exhaustion.
Lindsay: No, totally. And I think that that’s such a fun part of 321’s culture is that everyone shares that, right? Like everyone’s working hard, everyone’s stepping up. Like our shop at the Farmers Market is a freaking awesome location. It has been around for five years. On a Saturday and a Sunday is like slammed packed.
It is awesome There’s no ac.
Mike: Yeah, I heard about that one.
Lindsay: Right? Like that sucks. At the end of the day that just sucks, but we we figure out how to make it work.
Mike: It’s a mission.
Lindsay: Yeah, and you work together to sort of get through the hard times.
Mike: So much has happened, but like, when you just look out and close your eyes, what do you see in front of you?
Lindsay: A lot of people, in a great way, right? Like people on the team, people who want to be on the team, people who are a part of our community because they show up every day to get coffee, people like y’all, people like Trish, right? People, it’s, it’s really rooted in people.
Mike: Do you think there’ll ever be a day where, like, this will be the norm? Cause it’s still…
Lindsay: That’s a great question.
Mike: It’s like, oh my god, 321, I mean, they employ people with disabilities. Oh my god, Ablr, you know, they, they help people with disabilities. Like, is there ever gonna be a day where it’s like, no, like, we all just get jobs.
Lindsay: Well, no, totally. When Michael and I say like, what would success look like for 321, the true macro version of this is that we don’t exist. And it’s because it’s not because we failed. It’s because these people can get jobs wherever they want, that we don’t need to be here anymore. I don’t know if we’re going to necessarily see that in our lifetime, but I definitely think that we can move the needle. Right? Like it’s awesome now that people can work at 321 Coffee. Period. It’s awesome er that people can work at 321 Coffee, or at Ablr, or at, you know, Esteemed Coffee, or Bitty and Beau’s, like, they’re starting to be choice, but how do we really break out such that, like, they can work at 321, or Ablr, or Lenovo, or Pendo, or Relias, or Lululemon, or, or, or, or, or. Because that’s truly what choice can and should encompass.
Thanks for tuning in to this insightful episode of Access Granted with co-founder Lindsay Wrege from 321 Coffee. If you’ve ever wondered how to implement inclusion in your workplace, please share this episode with your colleagues, your human resources department, and especially the leadership team. Lindsay and Michael’s impact from 321 Coffee inspires the masses, from local customers to big corporations like Relias, Pendo, Lenovo, and more. The partners who believe inclusion matters and are doing something about it. If you’re in the Triangle area of North Carolina, stop by one of their shop locations.
You can also check them out at 321coffee.com or social media at @drink321coffee. Remember, every sip supports meaningful employment, so get out there, buy some coffee, and do good work for all.