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now been a part of Kaldi’s Cof-
fee for over 10 years now, and
at no point in his journey has
he wanted to step away and do
something else. He credits that
to the “infectious culture” with-
in the company.
“It’s a culture that definitely en-
gages entrepreneurs,” he says.
“There’s a lot of focus on per-
sonal development and contin-
uous improvement, and that’s
what really has kept me close.”
Brett is not the only employee
to have risen through the ranks,
either. He regularly gives tours
of the roastery, and he says
his favorite part is to point out
team members who started in
retail and then advanced their
careers. He estimates that al-
most 70 per cent of the people
there fit that description.
“We’ve been very fortunate,”
he says. “As we’ve grown, we’ve
held on to our team, and we
have all remained very tight.”
“The culture here is infectious,”
he reiterates. “That’s the feed-
back we get from all new em-
ployees, and I think that stems
from the ownership group
on down. Once people get in-
volved, they tend to fall in love
with the brand and what we’re
trying to do.”
What exactly Kaldi’s is trying to
do is different depending on
the stakeholder. For employ-
ees, they are trying to create
lasting career opportunities for
people in the communities in
which they work. For customers
– at all levels of the business,
from retail to wholesale – they
are trying to provide exception-
al coffee experiences.
At the retail level, Kaldi’s that
experience starts with excep-
tional service and hospitality
“Coffee can have a reputation
as a snooty business,” Brett
says. “We don’t want anything
to do with that. We want Kaldi’s
to be a coffee shop our moms
are comfortable going to. We
still want to have specialty cof-
fee, but we really want to be
approachable in everything we
do.”
“We also want to ‘wow’ our
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