Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jennifer Biffert. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Jennifer , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Naming anything – including a business – is so hard. Right? What’s the story behind how you came up with the name of your brand?

When stating our we wanted our business name to represent who we are. We are transplants to UT from Charlotte, NC – land of all things Southern, butter and biscuits, flowers favorite water source- humidity and southern charm. Our goal with our company was always to bring the charms we love from the South to the West. So when we thought of what would represent that felling to us – the honeysuckle flower was on the top of the list! They grow wild of pretty much every picket fence in town and we have fond memories of pulling the sweet nectar out of the flower to savor from back in our NC days. So we surveyed over 100 people and the general consensus was that the name “The Honeysuckle Coffee Company” brought good feelings all around.

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

We are owners, Tim and Jenn, a husband a wife team transplanted to Salt Lake City from Charlotte, NC. Being from the south our goal was to create a space that held all the feelings of southern charm we had grown to love and bring all those “feels” to the west that we had now grown to love.

So we set out to offer comfort style baked goods that melt in your mouth and warm your belly and complement them with the utmost craft in our coffee and tea drinks.

We opened our shop in the heart of Sandy because we loved the community around that town and have loved all the customers we’ve severed, a lot of which are now our friends, and we’ve loved being here for the people in this city. We have a passion for craft coffee, a specialty style not very many coffee shops are offering on the south side of the valley and when it’s complemented with great customer service, the kind where every barista knows your name + your drink order and our from scratch and only house made pastries, baked good and brunch eats we offer something that’s hard to come by in our town. And we love being here for it!

Let’s move on to buying businesses – can you talk to us about your experience with business acquisitions?

We just opened our second location a few months ago on Main St. in downtown Salt Lake City. The space we opened was previously a coffee shop that approached us as potential buyers of their already up and running space.

Our first location was a project that had to be gutted and built from the ground up. It was lengthy, expensive and stressful. So when the option to purchase a space that was mostly ready to go structure and plumbing wise (being a restaurant industry type) is was like a Diamond in the rough. The space needed a small amount of work to expand some food processes, a good amount of new furniture and some coffee and food storage equipment but ultimately was about 1/3 of the cost of building out a brand new space. So we loved the idea!

The hardest part of the process for us was getting the lease “re-signed” as the land lord already had a lease with the previous shops owner and we needed it to updated and redone to be relevant for our business. The best thing we did was hire an attorney to help us get good clauses in that lease and work out purchase price and equipment sales paperwork!

The rest was really quick and easy for us as we had done it once before and we are so happy with how it turned out.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

We think our commitment to GREAT and genuine customer service has really set us apart in our industry. We offer a very “niche” style of coffee drinks, kind of like fine wine where we work to bring out the flavors in the coffee beans themselves and craft our milk to complement them – and with that often can bring a slightly “higher than thou” sort of attitude from staff and other shops in our same style category. Our goal has always been to love our community and be kind to our customers, educate them on our coffee processes and do it in a kind way and genuinely care about the people that walk through our doors. We love what we do and want to share that passion with people – even those who don’t understand it yet. One of the most fulfilling things is to see our customers grown in their love and knowledge of coffee start to drink craft coffee right along side us and even brew it for themselves at top quality at home!

Contact Info:

• Website: [email protected]
• Instagram: thehoneysucklecoffeeco
• Facebook: The Honeysuckle Coffee Co.
• Yelp: The Honeysuckle Coffee Co.