Life & Work with Chris Mccoll of Long Beach

Today we’d like to introduce you to Chris Mccoll

Hi Chris, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
Our Spot Coffee & Goods was created out of a desire to build a coffee business that would feel 100% aligned to our values, and those values would be reflected in every touch point of the business.

With Our Spot, we feel we can prove that a value-led coffee business is imperative to showing the industry that sustainable culture and practices can be both successful and positively impact local community and the coffee supply chain.

We are striving to define the Fourth Wave of Coffee through fully-transparent operations and sustainable practices, while simultaneously encouraging others to join us in this movement to elevate the coffee industry in all of the ways it desperately needs.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Not even mildly close! But things that are truly worthwhile rarely come fast or easy.

The biggest struggle in our entrepreneurial journey is capital. It is such a challenge to get something started without a substantial amount of money. Even smaller concepts/approaches can be risky for a small-startup with big dreams.

What also has been humbling for myself personally, is working backwards. I have years of experience managing coffee shops, leading people, consulting, and even years of experience of ownership in a previous venture. Walking away from misaligned ownership to create something authentic and value-based – even if it meant restarting small – has been tough, but the right move. I’ve been learning a lot of new information as we continue to rapidly grow from such a small concept.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
Right now, Our Spot is primarily known to be the “coffee pop-up with truly next level bevs”. And, while I take pride in feeling this is true, I’m excited to continue defining the Fourth Wave of Coffee and how much more it encompasses than simply elevating the tired coffee experience that’s so commonly accepted.

Until then, I’ll thoroughly enjoying hooking folks in with stunning drinks that are equally delicious as they are original. Bev curation has quickly become a creative outlet for me. I’m constantly continuing to incorporate more sustainability (batching techniques, pushing toward zero-waste processes) and also adapt more bartending techniques into my coffee & tea making. It’s been so much fun, and I feel that my constant improvement leaves me feeling like “this is my best menu yet”.

So far, in the last 6 months of our residency, I’ve concocted 32 unique beverages for our menus – and our upcoming Summer menu is shaping up to showcase a lot of tropical tiki bar energy!

Risk taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
Every day we open feels like a major risk! Haha. I think in what is often perceived as a “saturated market”, risk-taking is paramount to success. Too many coffee shops open with an incredibly limited amount of differentiating factors from the rest of the competition, and many of them don’t make it.

We’re taking lots of risks with our menus: rotating aggressively every 8-10 weeks means our guests have to often adapt to finding their new favorites, and we have to be very tactical about all of our production to reduce waste between menus.

We are taking many risks with our value-based approach. Currently, we publish (and will expand on) quarterly transparency reports in which we break down our numbers, lessons learned, and summarize our human experience. We plan to expand this aspect by always revealing how profitable the business is, how much money ownership is making (and why), how much money employees/their respective positions are making, and so, so much more.

Full transparency in our business means we’re often “giving away the playbook”. However, I’m a big believer in the phrase that you can be often imitated, but never replicated. We want to incite sweeping changes across many touch points, and we can only do that by showing others how and why they changes should occur.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ourspotcoffeeandgoods/?hl=en

Image Credits
@thereintime // @marissavickers_