We recently connected with Cortnee Pinski and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Cortnee thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. How did you scale up? What were the strategies, tactics, meaningful moments, twists/turns, obstacles, mistakes along the way? The world needs to hear more realistic, actionable stories about this critical part of the business building journey. Tell us your scaling up story – bring us along so we can understand what it was like making the decisions you had, implementing the strategies/tactics etc.
I should start out by saying that I did not start the juice pub. A woman named Allison Dickman was the original creator. When the juice pub was created and when I bought it after 2 years of operation it had 1 fridge, 1 freezer, a frother, 1 blender, a POS system, a dishwasher, a juicer, a hand washing sink and a 2 compartment sink and of course retail and other little necessary things. It was also started in about a 100 square foot space with a bit of storage in the back. Now we are in a 1,000 square foot building with 5 fridges, 1 freezer, an ice machine, a POS system, 2 hand washing sinks, 3 other sinks, a juicer, 3 long work tables , an espresso machine and 3 blenders. I feel it relevant to mention the equipment jump as well as the space increase because of the money it takes to purchase commercial appliances. Another amazing factor of the tiny juice pub and key to growing was our rent was very cheap. The transition from small pub to big pub happened over the span of 3 years. I feel like one of the most important things in growing your business is a steady flow of customers. We were so blessed from the beginning to have the support of our tiny town of 1, 398 people and the consistent flow of vacationers and second home owners. I am so grateful to everyone who stepped foot in the pub and supported us. After the first year of business it was getting harder to store what we needed and also to have more than 2 workers in the pub at a time. I had two faithful, great workers in the beginning. I knew that we needed to expand. As fate would have it, i knew a great builder, Travis Tomlanovich, who not only helped us knock out two walls to expand but also had my oldest son help him along the way. The tiny juice pub had 2 divider walls in the back of this small space so travis knocked them out to open up the kitchen area for more work space. Also my neighbor, Chris Hare, kindly offered me her back room for storage. Without these two people and their generosity I would not be where I am today. Another thing I needed in the expansion was more equipment. for operations. I also decided with the cold, long winters it would be wise to invest in an espresso machine. I was SO blessed to find a coffee shop going out of business where i bought a lot of equipment to help the flow of our business. I also found an espresso machine at a tiny diner that they were no longer using because of covid. I paid $20,000 for the expansion and all of the new equipment which came from my grandmother’s inheritance to my mother who so kindly gave it to me. Without the kindness of my mother I would not be where I am today. After running for a year with the expanded juice pub I still felt like we needed more space. Big boxes of fruit were quickly taking up the back room and with the influx of vacationers in summer it was challenging to fit 3-4 employees in the small space. Also, the amount of power we were using in the small space was getting maxed out. I had always been looking at bigger building and had our realtor, Chuck McDonald, show us almost every empty building downtown. After we put an offer on one of the last buildings downtown I was feeling defeated as to where we would go but I kept faith that something would open up, and it did. My sons hockey coach must have heard us talking about it and offered his building to us. We had no idea he owned it and it was in a very good location, first block in downtown Eagle River. Again, without the generosity of Chase & Casey Kukanich offering this building to us we would not be where we are today. We went to our banker, Jed Lecheitner at Nicolet Bank, and he really helped us to get the funding we needed to not only buy the building but to do a complete remodel and gut on the building. We had help from so many people through the build. Starting with gutting and redoing all electrical and plumbing our plumbers, Happel Plumping and our electictrian Kane provided great services. We also hired Kirk with Cambell brothers to help us do some craftsmanship and things we could not. The majority of the work was done by my husband Mark and then our family would stop in and help throughout the journey. My in-laws, Ken & Sue Pinski and my children were amazing helpers. I guess I feel it relevant to mention everyones name that helped because we could not have grown without each and every one of these people. We had a great time tearing away paneled walls, drop ceilings and carpet to reveal the beauty of a 100 year old building. Throughout the build we kept the little juice pub going and then shut down for what i was hoping would be a few days turned into 3 weeks making corrections for the health department. Finally, after some amazing local friends helped us move and set up the new juice pub we were ready to rock and roll (Kim Adamovich, Holly Depuydt, Abbey Stecker-Gaitlin, Susan Justice, Leah Lechleitner, The Hicks Family, Marci McDonald, & Jen Adamovich). Also, big thanks to Abbey Stecker-Gaitlin for staying up until 3:00am the night before open to do last minute things.
We bought the original juice pub in May of 2020 and moved into the big, new, beautiful juice pub in December of 2023. It has been such a fun and learning experience. Today the new juice pub is doing well. We employ 15-20 people throughout the year, we rent out to private parties and let people host classes here. I think it has turned into a fun place for our community. This year we are also leasing out the juice pub to a very talented bar tender so that he can start his very own bar and business at night in the building. All of these extra people using the juice pub help us maintain our business.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
To be very honest I didn’t have an extensive knowledge of juicing, making smoothies or running a business. One of the biggest drives was having the desire to have something of my own and to not be trapped in a job where I wasn’t treated fairly or appreciated. Being in a previous job that was not ideal was a big drive to learn and create the juice pub. Now I feel like we have a beautiful space where people can come to enjoy healthy drinks and food. I am most proud of the fact the nearly everything we carry is organic and sourced as local as possible so this means that we are nourishing bodies and supporting local growers and business. I also feel like you can have a great product but if you don’t have employees to kindly greet and make your products great you will not be as successful. Every single one of my employees has been amazing at the juice pub. I could not have the business I have today without my employees.
Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?
I think social media and being involved in the community have really helped us grow to where we are today.
Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?
I think this is a constant learning experience. I would say having good, consistent systems in place to manage employees is very effective (Employee expectations, beginning of day & end of day procedures, clear & kind communication, a good scheduling app, clear ways to receive raises). Maybe maintaining high morale would be encouraging employees, letting them be involved in creating things at your business (drinks, social media posts). Buying them lunch occasionally and giving extra money when they have worked above and beyond.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.google.com/search?q=Roots+-+The+Northwoods+Juice+Pub&stick=H4sIAAAAAAAA_-NgU1I1qDBJMTUxNk8yTU5JSTJOMzK3MqhINDNKSjY3NbRINLE0SzYwXMSqEJSfX1KsoKsQkpGq4JdfVJJRnp-fUqzgVZqZnKoQUJoEADNrOARMAAAA&hl=en&mat=Ceb6DIP6mZdYElcBYJahaR8g16SQf6kkvyI57H4MRkyzqPbn8E-TFAgQstNj63BiG00dImZ_4mYjI-nwoPG7t4Qb2Uj224hfVLsJMjAQIiZ_NLrINESwUJ51qfcR1clQTUI&authuser=0
- Instagram: roots.juice.er
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/roots.juice.er/
Image Credits
Cortnee Pinski