American Hipster Presents Four Barrel Coffee

This video has been out there for almost two months now, but I just happened to come across it yesterday and thought that I would share. It's part of a video series highlighting different people/businesses in various cities that are typically consider as hipster, it just so happens that specialty coffee tends to be one of them.

I found the interview to be pretty interesting because it focuses in on both the coffee that Four Barrel serves, but really on the life of owner/founder Jeremey Tooker. Particularly interesting to me was seeing a portrait of a very successful roaster/cafe owner within specialty coffee. The guy in his early twenties help start Ritual Coffee Roasters and then turned around and was able to replicate that again.

Basically, it shows that it took a lot of sacrifice on the part of the owner when starting Four Barrel. The guy talks about missing a lot of events with his child's first years of life that coincided with starting the business. For better or worse that is something that I often hear about people that start their business is that their personal lives go on the way side.

On a more coffee related note, which I mentioned elsewhere, is he is one of the few people that I ever hear talking about customer service problems within cafes. He acknowledges that when they first opened Four Barrel that they were understaffed, I assume because they couldn't hire all of the poeple needed, and as a result had very poor customer service because of that. Now, that he has been successful and reaping those rewards he has brought the focus back to being very customer service oriented, and trying to create a better experience. I always harp on this because I have had a few bad experiences at some shops, so I am happy to hear this.

Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed the video as much as me.