We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Karlie and Liz Warne and Fast a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Karlie and Liz, thanks for joining us today. What was it like going from idea to execution? Can you share some of the backstory and some of the major steps or milestones?

Opening a coffee shop together had always been a dream of ours. We’ve been best friends for 20+ years and so many of our favorite memories growing up involve spending hours at local coffee shops. Throughout high school and college we both worked at multiple coffee shops, but ultimately thought this would be the extent of our coffee dream/obsession. While in college we both studied “people” degrees. I graduated with a Sociology & Psychology major and Liz graduated with a Human Development and Family Studies major. Right out of college we were lucky enough to accept jobs within our degrees, but both quickly realized our hearts were still being pulled in a different direction. We both had that itch that there was something bigger and better still waiting for us. Fast forward to April 2017- we were back in our hometown of Spearfish, South Dakota for Easter catching up on life over a few drinks. Liz was living in Colorado at the time and I was living in eastern South Dakota, so bff time was rare! After a little liquid encouragement Liz brings up this ‘crazy’ idea that her parents approached her with… quitting our jobs we worked and studied so hard for to move across the country to a town we knew very little about to open a coffee shop together. They were snowbirds in Verrado and knew the empty building on Main Street would be perfect for a local coffee shop. Empty building on a Main Street?! Both of us already on the verge of quitting our day jobs?! Both of us still just as coffee obsessed as we were back in the day?! Was this too good to be true?! The next morning Liz texted me bright and early and said “So wait, were we serious? Are we doing this?” to which I replied “Heck yes we are!” and the rest is history. From there it was a whirlwind of quitting our jobs, packing up our lives to move, chatting via Facetime every day to start conceptualizing the building, researching the town of Verrado and figuring out what our target market would be, and searching out our vendors from thousands of miles away. We relied on Liz’s parents A LOT during those first few months. They were our eyes and ears and researchers until we were able to make the move in July. Moving from the midwest to Arizona in the middle of July was probably not our smartest idea, but ya do what ya got to do right? Once in Arizona we jumped into hyper speed- every day was consumed with meeting with vendors and contractors, finalizing the whole menu, interviewing and hiring a full team, marketing and advertising so people knew who we were, writing up our mission statement and policies, and conceptualizing an overall budget. Looking back, the months between July and October are literally a blur. We opened our doors October 7th, 2017 and haven’t looked back! Verrado and the whole West Valley community has welcomed us with the most supportive and incredible customers since day one. 4 1/2 years later we still have a lot of the same regular customers and are constantly welcoming new customers as well. The growth we’ve experienced has been surreal and has exceeded all expectations. In just a couple short months we will be opening our doors for store number 2 and we couldn’t be more excited!

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

As I stated earlier, we have been best friends for 20+ years and have always had a passion for coffee and community. Our love of quality, local products and providing a friendly, safe environment fuels every decision we make as a business. We want Ebb + Flow Coffee Co. to be a positive experience for every person that walks in the door. We worked extremely hard to source everything as local as possible. We also put an emphasis on healthy and fresh products. We offer real fruit smoothies and smoothie bowls (including acai and pitaya), as well as gluten free and vegan baked goods and breakfast sandwiches. Our menu boasts something for everyone- from our strong, bold coffee and espresso to our 8 tap kegerator system to our fun teas and lemonades- we’re proud of our versatile menu. The culture we try to encourage at Ebb + Flow is warm, inviting, and friendly. We focus on hiring staff that encompass our culture and build relationships with every customer that walks in the door. I think our story and our passion sets us apart. We have worked so hard to create Ebb + Flow and truly everything in the shop has a story behind it. Liz and I love being present in the shop and working along side of our team. We believe in collaborative success and using the strengths of everyone on our team. We love involving our employees in running our social media accounts, helping us create seasonal menus, giving us opinions on new merchandise

Have you ever had to pivot?

Ebb + Flow Coffee Co. as a whole started as a pivot for both Liz and I. We pivoted from our comfortable 9 to 5 day jobs to something totally unknown. Once our mission statement and overall concept for our brand was developed there was even more pivoting that had to happen. Personally, we had opinions and ideas for what we wanted our coffee shop to include, but ultimately we had to be open to what the whole community wanted so we could appeal to the masses. While Liz and I enjoy single origin coffees and wanted to focus on purely being a coffee shop rather than an eatery, we were overwhelmed with the response from the community asking for a consistent dark roast coffee and a place where you could find a hearty breakfast sandwich. So we pivoted to make sure our vision included something for everyone. We personally love being able to pivot in our business. We approach it as a growing opportunity to better reach our clientele. Another example that comes to mind is how when we first opened we were set on only having one shop and making sure we stayed small. 4 1/2 years later here we are opening our second location, with a drive-thru none the less! We feel extremely grateful for the opportunity to pivot from our original goals for Ebb + Flow and to approach the future with a totally open mindset.

We’d love to hear about you met your business partner.

I’ll save you from all of the embarrassing stories and pictures, but Liz and I met in third grade and have been best friends ever since. Throughout grade school, middle school, high school and even college we have always been each other’s right hand. We have been with each other through all of the awkward stages (perms, braces, bangs) and through all of life’s ups and downs. Right away our personalities clicked and we have carried that throughout our whole lives. Having the background of being such good friends and understanding how the other communicates helped us tremendously when opening the shop. We each have different strengths as business owners and we have really figured out how to use them to benefit Ebb + Flow as a whole.

Contact Info:

• Website: ebbandflowcoffeeco.com
• Instagram: @ebbandflowcoffeeco
• Facebook: Ebb + Flow Coffee Co.
• Yelp: Ebb + Flow Coffee Co.