Article Excerpt:
TWST: Would you begin with a general description of Caribou Coffee Company?Mr. Coles: Caribou has been around since December 1992, so we are actually in our 14th year. The company was started by two local entrepreneurs with one store. It has grown to over 400 stores today. I have been involved with Caribou since January 2003. We provide a very different experience ' a place to have coffee that's different from that of our biggest competitor. We like to think that when you come into a Caribou coffee shop you get an opportunity to take a five-minute vacation, kind of a breakaway from what you normally are accustomed to. All the Caribou coffee shops look kind of like a Vail ski lodge. You get a sense of being away from your normal place ' unless we happen to open a coffee shop at some point in Vail, and even then it probably wouldn't feel quite the same! But right now we hear from our customers that they love coming to Caribou because it really feels like they are getting a chance to take a five-minute vacation, just a real break in the day. Yet we are very fast too. We provide very fast service in the mornings for people who just want to take their coffee away with them. In sum, we have, three distinct factors that separate us, we believe, from all our competitors within our sector: one, we have probably the best coffee out there; two, we have great customer service; three, a very unique environment to spend time in.
TWST: Give us an idea of the two sides of operations, the retail and the
coffee houses. What are some of the priorities you have in each
business? What is Caribou's agenda for the next 12 months?
Mr. Coles: We have said that we will open somewhere between 95 and 120
stores, including some licensed stores. Right now, we are currently in
about 15 states and the District of Columbia. We also have some stores
opened internationally. We will continue to expand on both of those
fronts. The newest market that we will be going into will be Kansas
City. We focus on a great customer experience and on really providing
people with just an excellent product. We really pride ourselves on the
kind of focus that we have on the customer experience. We are a very,
very customer-centric business. I have grown up in the retail business,
been in it all my life, and I have always understood it to be a tough
business because customers don't have a contract to come back. The best
day or the best month or even the best year that you have ever had,
every time you turn the lights off at the end of the day, you know you
have to start it all over the next day. At Caribou we never forget that.
We focus on making sure that every time a customer comes into one of our
stores, we thank them. We invite them back and we let them know that we
appreciate their business.
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