We recently connected with Brittany and Deni Salazar and Banach and have shared our conversation below.

Brittany and Deni, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Coming up with the idea is so exciting, but then comes the hard part – executing. Too often the media ignores the execution part and goes from idea to success, skipping over the nitty, gritty details of executing in the early days. We think that’s a disservice both to the entrepreneurs who built something amazing as well as the public who isn’t getting a realistic picture of what it takes to succeed. So, we’d really appreciate if you could open up about your execution story – how did you go from idea to execution?

When Deni and Brittany met at another restaurant they became fast friends and talked about each others dreams and hopes for the future. Deni expressed to Brittany, how she would love to open her own coffee shop someday. Brittany instantly fell in love with the idea. So together they talked about what they would name it, how they would set it up, what fun drinks and offering they would have. Slowly starting to build the foundation, became their daily goal. Finally one day, Deni had an idea to look up different places for sale on some brokers website. She found a place that would be perfect for them. Deni and Brittany went to look at the space and knew it was perfect. So they took that leap of faith and put in an offer. Once they put in an offer they knew they had some work to do. Deni started to build the menu, looked into where we wanted to source our cups, lids, straws and milk from. While Brittany started to secure the money, order a POS system, file with Arizona, IRS and the City. Brittany and Deni were able to divide and conquer. Deni was able to take care of all things ordering, and creative while Brittany handled all the financial aspects.

In around 30days they had keys in hand to what has become Enroute Coffee and Tea, out in Goodyear.

Brittany and Deni, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

We are Brittany and Deni, the proud owners of Enroute Coffee and Tea.

We are located in Goodyear, right off the I-1o and Estrella parkway. We are located in between Saddle Mountain Brewing Company and Augie’s sports grill. We are open Monday thru Sunday from 6am to 5pm.

We are a full espresso bar that specializes in using unique and premium ingredients for a new and exciting drink experience! We pride ourselves on our hand selected powder bases that really create our of this world flavors compared to syrups that are traditionally used. We proudly serve 12 different teas at anytime! With a wide variety of offerings like our favorite strawberry peach black tea and a local elderberry herbal tea. All our teas are locally blended and unsweetened. Something that we have become quite known for, would be our Lotus drinks, which are an eye catching plant based energy drink made from clean ingredients that wont leave you with a caffeine crash like store bought canned energy drinks.

Here at Enroute we pride ourselves on our local Love! We do our best to source, support and hire locally for all our operations. All our baked goods are made fresh by small family businesses and our milk, creams are from a local dairy farm! We showcase a handful of small business from our community in our “Local Love” shopping corner! It’s great for them and a great option for a last minute gift.

Did you know……. $0.45 of every dollar spent in local business stays within the community, meanwhile only $0.14 of every dollar stays within the community when you shop at a corporate stores.

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Deni is the hidden face behind our social media account. We felt it was important for our followers to know that it wasn’t a big marketing firm, it was actually one of us. So we made sure to let our followers know that by posting everyday, interacting not only on our own stories’ with them but on our followers page as well.

Our posts and stories were geared more towards informing our followers that they can ask us questions, find out about new specials or fun events that we were holding. It was a way for us to market, but on a more personal level. We wanted them to know us or feel like they did. We felt this helped more people gravitate towards us because we didn’t give out standard bot answers.

One key thing that has really helped Deni, find what worked for us was, she made sure to follow like minded influencers on how they captured their audience.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

customer service- great staff unique drink options
community- not competition

Deni and Brittany worked at the Enroute from day 1, which set the tone on how our customer service would be. Not only did we want to deliver unique drinks that were crafted by heart and hand but we wanted you to have an awesome customers service experience as well.

Another thing that has helped us not only gain a reputation in our market but find friends, was Deni and Brittany made sure to celebrate other local business and coffee shops. Brittany and Deni know there is room for us all, and we have enough competition with the big brands that we need to help and support each other.

Contact Info:

• Website: enroutecoffeeaz.com
• Instagram: @enroutecoffeeandtea