We were lucky to catch up with Missy Greis recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Missy, thanks for joining us today. Talk to us about building your team? What was it like? What were some of the key challenges and what was your process like?

When Publik opened in 2012, we were a crew of 11 that mastered operations for our downtown roastery + café and our event space.

When Publik opened 10 years ago, there were only a small handful of coffee roasteries and coffee houses in SLC. This meant a small pool of trained baristas in SLC, so many of ours had to be trained and they often trained each other. Today, there are over 30 SLC coffee companies, some with roasteries, and the pool of baristas has grown with the industry.
Most of our employees have always been referred by other employees and we typically always promote from within. Our Head Roaster and Director of Coffee, Silvana Elguera, was a barista at one of our locations. Our roastery administrator, Lindsey, had been a line cook at one of our restaurants. Building these teams has been very organic, and each location has its own personality – much of that is due to the personalities who work there.

In the first 90 days of 2016, we added two more SLC locations, bringing our staff to 38. In 2018 we added another 12. Each team has scaled and grown in the past 5 years, bringing our staff number to 64. It was a rapid expansion, and brought a lot of challenges but our brand and coffee were popular and the neighborhoods showed up. Because we have multiple locations, but with the same product, we promoted one of our best to “barista trainer”. Luna Santiago is responsible for continuity with respect to the drinks being made, and she also incorporates a coffee curriculum, whereby our baristas can opt into classes and then test and receive pay increases based on advancement.

We call our staff the GOATS – an homage to their greatness but also to coffee lore of the peaceful, wandering goat herders being first to roast coffee over a campfire. However, our mascot is a “goat rider” named Omar and he’s definitely rugged and wild!

Missy, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

After a 17 month renovation of an industrial warehouse, Publik Coffee Roasters opened its doors in the Central Ninth District of Salt Lake City in May of 2014. Publik is Dutch for “community” or “gathering”. Using the coffeehouse model, the intention was to create a community gathering space that served delicious coffee in a unique environment. The 12,000 square foot building is home to the company’s roastery and wholesale production, a 60 seat coffeehouse with three meeting rooms and a 4,000 square foot event venue, Publik Space. The renovation of Publik incorporated reclaimed materials wherever possible and the company is committed to sustainability, including a recycling and composting program, and is the only solar powered roasting facility that also implements an oxidizer, which alleviates 96% of the particulates released into the environment through the roasting process. We are the only solar powered roastery with an oxidizer in Utah, and we believe only one of 5 in the country that has both solar and an oxidizer.

In 2016, Publik opened a second coffeehouse in the Avenues District which seats 50 as well as Publik Kitchen, a 46 seat breakfast-all-day restaurant, in a tiny Victorian house in the 9th and 9th District (which went through a full renovation and new rebuild in 2022, expanding seating to 80, adding a second patio and building a proper kitchen). Publik Ed’s, a 40 seat breakfast + coffee and burger + beer joint, across from the University of Utah, opened in 2018. All four Publik locations serve the same delicious coffee, source locally for all of our menus where possible, and provide a unique community gathering space.

Our company culture of diversity + equity and has been at epicenter since the beginning, and our place in the community has been one of inclusivity. We are honored that Publik Space hosts some of the best events and important causes in Utah. Some call us an institution, some call us a safe space. Some call us THE place. At the end of the day, we’re just Publik – a brand and places that strive for excellence and high vibes.

In 2022 we were named best coffee roaster in Utah by Food & Wine Magazine.

Going into its 11th year, Publik continues to sell award winning coffee through retail + online sales, while providing spaces that are vibrant and hospitable.

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

In March of 2020, there was a large group of SLC restauranteurs and food industry people who came together in an attempt to navigate the pandemic closures, the PPP process, and provide each other camaraderie. It was during this time that I developed a deeper friendship with the couple who owned “Amour Spreads”. Publik had become more than 25% of their wholesale jam and marmalade business and they were looking to retire. We stayed in negotiations with them for nearly a year and a half, at which point we used SBA grant money to purchase their business and café. The negotiations were incredibly straightforward. We put pencil to paper, outlined assets and quickly and easily transferred ownership and began construction of the cafe. We maintained the name for the jams + marmalades, but we re-branded the formerly named “Amour Cafe” to what is now called, “Picnic”. We brought our Publik baker, Carly Lundgren, and the Publik Kitchen restaurant manager, Vi Tran, into partnership with us. The two businesses occupy the same building, in a quiet little neighborhood across from Liberty Park, near our downtown roastery and near Publik Kitchen. The beautiful kitchen there not only produces all of the Amour Spreads products, but we now bake the Publik pastry menu there (it had previously been done in a small space in a back area of the cafe at our roastery). Carly and Vi are the owners and Publik is a very small minority partner.

Have you ever had to pivot?

When “pandemic reality” set in, a group of three of us could see and feel that our restaurant businesses were already wobbly, winter was coming, and we needed a plan. We shared a customer who had a successful digital marketing company. He was a foodie, and he offered to build us a website, create the digital content and provide the collateral + resources we needed in order to launch an online local food delivery service. He did this for free and “Hive Eats” became an online collection of ten local restaurants with other local food “pantry item” vendors and bakers, all in one place. Each meal provided by a restaurant served two people and was $25. Each pantry item was $12. The restaurants captured $20 per meal, the pantry items provided those vendors $10 per item, and Hive Eats provided the packaging and facilitation. Customers could order from one – or all 10 restaurants – each week. We offered “once a week” ordering on Sundays and a $10 flat rate delivery took place on Thursdays. We hired a local delivery driver who added 7 drivers to his team and they were paid the full $10 per order. We served a small area of SLC the first two weeks and then expanded across the entire county, and ultimately included Park City. We launched with 4 restaurants the first week in October, and then added six more, and continued through the end of 2020 rotating in new restaurants who approached us. We even delivered meals on Christmas and New Year’s Eve! The most memorable part of Hive Eats was showing up at 11AM every Thursday for three months, with the other two Hive Eats, at a local brewery’s *donated* beer cooler. We would receive the food from the various chefs, bakers and owners and then the three of us would collate meals, pack bags and sort by zip code in order to hand them off to the delivery drivers at 3p. One of the weeks we delivered 800 meals! Until we were able to hire a part-time assistant, I spent way too many Wednesday nights printing out address labels and stapling them to bags that had been stamped – by me – with the Hive Eats logo. But, most of the restaurants were able to make upwards of $2000, every Thursday, in a time when their dining rooms were closed or very empty. It was an interesting time + pivot, for sure!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.publikcoffee.com/#/
• Instagram: @publikcoffee @publikkitchen @publikspace_ @publikeds
• Linkedin: Missy Greis

Image Credits
Last Image #8 (black and white ceiling) – Mark Weinberg Photography