Archive for the ‘customers’ Category

Happy New Year 2010

Sunday, January 10th, 2010

For a long time now I have been very proud that Urban Grind has been successful but for longer than many might realise I have also been aware that Urban Grind has been unsustainable. In retrospect only, that would seem like things for Urban Grind are not good but in fact they are better than ever. Urban Grind is in my heart and if you know me well enough you will know that it has been a personal journey for me, not just a business. And it’s not over yet.

So as you might be aware by now Urban Grind New Farm closed it’s doors at the end of 2009 and will not be re-opening at the beggining of 2010. It’s time for a break and a regrouping. In simple terms this is not the end of Urban Grind. It is going to take us a little while to regroup but we are working on our return and will be back better than ever.

I have learnt a lot from my mistakes over the years and along the way I have discovered other directions in which I want to take Urban Grind. I can’t wait to re-open Urban Grind and show you what I am talking about. In the meantime I will keep this website/blog going. I will also be working at the Di Bella Factory which is going to be great. Obviously I love Di Bella coffee as I have been serving it for about 8 years now. I also have a good friendship and a great respect for Philip Di Bella so I look forward to working more closely with him.

For me Urban Grind is more than just trying to make great coffee. Of course that is really important as anything less would be just embarrassing, but for me Urban Grind is a way of life and an experience that I want to keep having. Only one thing has made this experience as wonderful as it has been and that is people, and the amazing relationships we were able to have with them. From the single moments with a stranger that have taught me life lessons, to the life long friends we made, Urban Grind has been about the interaction of people – community. To all in this community I am most grateful for your help, your willingness to interact, your bravery to be yourselves and to challenge yourselves. There would not be enough pixels on this computer to properly thank everyone that has meant something to me over these years. But to Rachel my loving partner, Urban Grind would have never been without you. To Adz, Brendan, Carl, my brother Dan & Sophie, in particular – Thank you. To so many more – Thank you.

Now in looking forward, lets keep in touch.
twitter
facebook
blog rss/email
mailing list
0408 10 11 40
email – it’s in the picture

Posted in customers, family, friends, local community, personal, urban grind | 11 Comments »

the map magazine 2009/2010 eat drink awards

Friday, October 16th, 2009

More voting to be done if you have a couple of spare minutes. This time we have been lucky to be nominated in a couple of categories for the map magazine 2009/2010 eat drink awards. Best Coffee is obviously the one we would love to win. So if you think we are the best you can vote for us here. Thanks.

Posted in alternative media, customers, urban grind | No Comments »

Best in the City Awards

Monday, October 12th, 2009

We have been lovingly nominated for the award below:

Best Service to Make You Smile
In this digital age of automated existence, sometimes we forget to value the important stuff like good old fashioned face-to-face service. Whether it’s a pizza made to order, artworks out of lattes or a waiter who remembers you’re crazy for creamed spinach just like your mum used to make, this category showcases service that makes you bust out a smile and tip like it’s actually a pleasure! Vote for us in Brisbane

It is an honour to be nominated in this category because while we love serving great coffee end hope that is an experience that you walk away feeling like you have had. For me personally there has always been more to Urban Grind than just that.

So if we have ever managed to make you smile please vote for us.

If we haven’t, watch this then vote for us.

Thanks

Posted in alternative media, customers, friends, local community, staff, urban grind | No Comments »

Bring your own cup for a Takeaway Discount

Tuesday, August 25th, 2009

This is from a local office. I am told that this is a little under five days worth of cups between three. While impressive two things stand out to me. The first is that they are obviously awesome customers and for that I am grateful. Secondly, that is a lot of wasted resources. Like wow!

So as of tomorrow, if you bring your own cup we will give you a takeaway discount. In this way we can say thank you for being regular customers and see if we can’t reduce some of this waste. Common sense conditions apply.

Posted in customers, environment, local community, urban grind | 3 Comments »

Good day today.

Friday, July 24th, 2009

Today I was reminded of a few things. What goes around comes around. It is safe to trust people. And you can never judge a book buy it’s cover.

Took my son down to the local hardware today to get a few small things and upon reaching the counter I turned to Oscar, my son and exclaimed “Oh no I forgot my wallet!”. Instantly the guy in front of us said don’t worry I will pay for it. I didn’t hesitate and said thanks because the best advice ever given to me was to “Never deny someone the opportunity to give.” – Nigel Reed. David, the generous man in line told me how he had once filled his car with petrol, then at the counter realised he had no money only to be surprised by a women willing to pay the whole bill. He said that he is now always on the look out to keep paying such a kind act forward. It reminded me that when you do a good thing for a person or a bad thing against a person it gets multiplied which is why you should do good things. A random act of kindness really wakes something up in people I think and it will be a feeling they will want others to experience. If you have never seen the movie Pay it Forward I highly recommend it.

Earlier in the day I had another wonderful encounter with a customer that had returned to pay her bill after what must have been at least six weeks. I have a personal policy of trusting that if people don’t have the cash on them or they only have card I trust them and ask them to simply fix us up when it is next convenient for them. So far everyone has returned as far as I know as I don’t keep a record each time and I usually forget moments later that this person still ‘owes’ us. It’s a nice place to be in cause it kind of means for me that I get to live in a world where everyone is trust worthy and my personal theory goes that you can’t trust people if you never give them the opportunity to be trustworthy. I know some have abused this but that’s ok cause the percentage is so low that I could probably only name one person in nearly 8 years of Urban Grind. Anyway… six weeks ago I declared to my awesome (just as her she will tell you herself) assistant that this particular women has obviously scammed us and is never coming back. But such is life yadda yadda. She had been so vague the first time that she came into the shop and we just couldn’t work her out and I guess the experience made us wonder a bit as to what was going on and we started to get sus. Then she came up to pay and only had card, no cash and while I said sure just fix us up later I honestly thought that she was never coming back. I didn’t trust her. Today she walks in and I pretend I don’t remember her, but I do and she asks for a coffee and would like to fix up her bill from last time she was in Brisbane. How is that the first time I am so sure I couldn’t trust someone I am wrong. So I get talking to her cause now she’s cool you know, I trust her and I can treat her like everyone else (I just called myself a tosser so you don’t need to) and she mentions that she doesn’t come into the cities much or something like that and now I am getting the sense that maybe her being a bit vague was actually her way of just finding her way around slowly. She has actually been so patient the first time that she waited like 20 minutes for the line to die down before ordering. Maybe I can go easy on myself for thinking that is strange as so many people these days are impatient and pressed for time.

This is not the first time that I have found that it only takes about a maximum of 2 questions to start to get to know someone. If you think you know someone on sight, inquire, you will be so wrong unless you are gifted. I once thought one of my customers once was an obvious bum until I asked he once what he does and it turns out he was a retired physics professor in a field that I had never heard of and these days he just likes to tent to his garden. Speak to people, they have stories that will out do your assumptions.

Posted in customers, friends, inspiring, local community, peace, personal, urban grind | 4 Comments »

Plastic Bottles – did you know?…

Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009

Wow. The plastic bottles in our oceans issue really is so much worse than I thought it could be. I imagined bottles floating around that could simply be retrieved and cleaned up. Not so. Empty bottles sink, bottle tops float, wildlife feeds the plastic to their young, fish ingest the breaking down particles and the problem is considered to already be so bad that it may never be able to be cleaned up. Now usually I try to err on the side of positive news but I had to ask myself, ‘Am I contributing to this? Is Australia?’ At first I didn’t think so, but Urban Grind sells plastic bottles. We do sell one bottle made from BioPlastics that will compost, but that is only one of many otherwise plastic bottles that won’t break down anytime soon.

At Christmas we were in Byron Bay for the day. And I swear to you that I have never seen a plastic bottle left on the beach (I may not get to the beach enough though) but on the beach at Byron it was littered with bottles. Surely this is caused by tourists but after learning what I know now about the issue it is simply not cool for it to be happening. So bottles on the beach will make it to the ocean, and as they say, ‘All drains lead to the ocean’ so littering in any sense in not acceptable.

In the short TED video above you can get a well presented overview of the situation. So what am I going to do about it? Well, first things first, I need to personally stop buying plastic. I also plan to remove plastic bottles from our shops drinks fridge by first contacting the drink companies and asking them to watch the video and let me know their position, and inform them that I am considering removing them from my fridge should they decide not to explore glass, bioplastics, or some other way of taking responsibility for the problem. I will also be contact Byron Shire Council with the same video, etc.

Please note that Urban Grind for over 7 years has always placed 100% of our plastic waste in the recycling bin. Which means that in milk bottles alone we have placed into recycling about 25,000 2lt bottles of milk. So think of it this way. Urban Grind is a little coffee shop and can produce that much milk bottle waste. I have worked in places that did not recycle their milk bottles and I still hear it from new staff about their old places of work never recycling a single bottle. Please check with your local coffee shop and find out if they recycle, and if not encourage them to do so. We all need to be considering how we are contributing to the global problem, that actually doesn’t effect us so much because most of the plastic floats away from Australia – how convenient (that’s a pun).

Posted in alternative media, customers, design, environment, urban grind, zeroWaste | No Comments »

Adam Sebastian West at Kiln

Monday, March 2nd, 2009

Many Urban Grind customers probably know Adam Sebastian West as he has been hanging around for years. About 7 years now. He is a wonderful friend of mine and a great photographer. You can check out his photography on the Zenstick Website or this Friday night the 6th of March you can see his latest work as part of the Sea City Sky group exhibition at KILN Gallery. The show runs from the 6th – 29th of March. For more details check out www.kiln.com.au.

Posted in customers, friends, local community, personal | 1 Comment »

Parking Tips

Wednesday, February 4th, 2009

Parking in New Farm can be a bit tricky but there is more parking than you realise at first. Right on Brunswick St is actually when the best parking is. On the Urban Grind side of Brunswick St is when you will find the most parking. Just back towards the valley mall from Urban Grind there is parking for about 3 cars for 2 hours till 4pm. Also on Brunswick St in front of the IGA there is similar parking. But please do not park in the IGA car park unless you are shopping there. I do not advocate using their parking to visit Urban Grind New Farm. So I would try parking on Brunswick St before heading down Harcourt which can be much harder to find a park on. I hope this helps some people. See you soon.

Posted in customers, urban grind | No Comments »

What do consumers really want?

Friday, January 16th, 2009

This is an interesting little video. I have always hoped that it was understood that Urban Grind is trying to provide an experience beyond just a great cup of coffee, which when you think about it should be a given anyway. So if they coffee is supposed to be great as a basic rule, then what sets us apart from any other coffee shop with great coffee? That is the question that I design Urban Grind around. The answer has 2 parts – my theories and your perspective.

In the talk when Joseph mentions how it would be nice to check in to the ad as opposed to the actual hotel it reminds me of mobile phone companies and how if they would just do the right thing by you the first time they would need to lock you in with 2 year contracts because you would stay with them for a lifetime anyway. The idea of ‘real real’ makes me think of DiBella Coffee. They fit the idea of an authentic business in an almost text book fashion. Test for yourself. Watch the vid, then read the homepage of their website, then take it from me as one of their customers – they deliver that experience.

Posted in customers, inspiring, urban grind | 2 Comments »

Winner map readers choice awards

Sunday, January 11th, 2009

As you can see we did pretty well this year in the map readers choice awards. I am a big fan of map so it is very cool that map readers and everyone else I spammed with email took the time to vote for us. Thank you everyone that voted for us. I really do appreciate it. With so much email, sms, twitter, etc these days I am very grateful that you could still find some time for little old Urban Grind. See all the winners here for some great places to check out around Brisbane. This is like you good food dining guide to Brisbane for the next 12 months.

Posted in alternative media, customers, family, friends, local community, staff | No Comments »

• « Older Entries