We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Nathaniel Pantalone a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Nathaniel, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. To kick things off, we’d love to hear about things you or your brand do that diverge from the industry standard
At Dobra Tea, we’ve taken the typical American cafe model and turned it on its head. Our interiors are handcrafted to be unique and vibrant, inspired by Bohemian culture. We don’t shy away from color or texture. Everything about the atmosphere is carefully curated, from the smell as you enter to the music you hear as you sit and sip, and our extensive menu showcases traditional and artisanal teas from around the world at affordable prices. We don’t take reservations, and we never plan to because we believe that tea drinking should be for everyone. As long as you show up wanting a cup of tea, we will make you one.
Nathaniel, 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?
I started drinking tea in college as an alternative to coffee. My friends and I used to drink tea and try to study, but we’d usually end up gossiping after only a short time. Eventually, we drank tea as a way to hangout. The tea room we frequented was called Dobra Tea. They had an extensive menu with dozens of different teas that we had never heard of before. We only knew about Assam, Ceylon, and Darjeeling teas. Chinese green tea was the grey-green powder in tea bags that our grandmothers liked. Japanese tea? What’s that? We quickly learned that we had never had good tea before and that we had entered a new world of tea.
Fast forward a couple of years: my friend and I started a blog about tea when we realized that people would send it to us for free if we reviewed it (yes we were tea “influencers,” before that term became popular). But those teas never really matched up to the ones that we had from our local Dobra Tea. We found, even as we turned our blog into a podcast, that the comparable teas from Dobra tasted better. Eventually our curiosity peaked and we asked them about their business. At that time, Dobra Tea was young, with only two locations, but the owner offered that they source all the teas themselves by traveling annually and that they franchise.
After graduating and not finding work, I decided to do something else I knew and loved; I reached out to the owner of the Dobra Tea and asked him about franchising. Soon after, I met with the former leaders of Dobra Tea US, and within a year, we opened our first location in Pittsburgh in 2013. As owner of our Pittsburgh location, I’ve focused on building a community tea room that prioritizes friendly service and aspires to be a third space for our customers.
As Dobra Tea has grown since then, we found success in our efforts. Our customers care about our inviting atmosphere, quality products, and welcoming staff. They care about ethically sourced, authentic teas without pesticides. They care about tea culture and education, which is why we send our owners and staff to tea growing countries each spring to bring back firsthand knowledge. They care about having a third space to socialize and relax that feels warm and inviting.
In 2022, after a rough couple of years for Dobra Tea, I became a minority partner in our franchise, Dobra Tea US, and in 2024 I became the Vice President of Dobra Tea US. We have grown and learned from those though times, and we are proud to be growing and thriving again. The future is bright for tea. As young people shy away from alcohol and look to alternate sources of beverage and socialization, they can find a place here with us at Dobra Tea.
If you’re interested in franchising a Dobra Tea, you can go to https://www.dobratea.com/open-a-dobra-tea
How do you keep your team’s morale high?
Being a good manager involves endless balancing of different, often opposing, objectives. On one hand, you never want your employees to stand around at work, and on the other hand, constantly yelling at them to get back to work will slowly and surely reduce morale. There are several ways that we’ve found balance.
The first is to hire people that want to be there, but then you have to maintain the work environment as somewhere they want to be. The second is to be open and honest with the team about problems, small issues, disagreements, etc. because communication is the most important aspect of teamwork. The third is dedicated leadership; when staff see the owner or manager in the trenches with them on a busy day or an extra person on shift because they asked for help, they will trust in their leadership.
Somewhere they want to be: Cultivate a friendly climate among the staff. Yes, work comes first, but if the staff like their coworkers, at least enough to chat on shift, they are more likely to find their work rewarding. Listen to their problems, and try to provide solutions, often this is in the form of benefits. In this day and age, minimum wage won’t cut it to retain good employees. If they cannot pay their bills working for you, they will find an employer who can provide that for them. If it within your budget to provide healthcare, they will also see that as a benefit. A shift meal for a restaurant employee also helps morale. Food is comforting, not only for customers.
Open communication: If you create a culture that ignores the requests of customers and employees, you’ll soon have nothing. Your employees care about your business, maybe not as much as you, but they still care. And they are uniquely positioned to provide you critical and constructive feedback that can work because they know the ins and outs of the business. When you listen to their ideas and credit them with a successful change, they will appreciate it. The team and the business are only better for it. They are also more likely to take constructive feedback from their manager if they can feel that the communication is open.
Dedicated leadership: Leaders, including managers, should listen to their team and problems the team has. As a leader, it is your job to solve greater problems affecting the team. Listen to the customers too. If they are unhappy, business will decline. Hold yourself and your employees accountable. When everyone is accountable, and communication is open, other members of the team are also likely to hold their teammates accountable. This will lead to more consistency.
Lead with direction, know where you’re going, and have confidence that you will get there. Your team will see that. They will better know what to do when you’ve set a clear vision for them. Be the first to take action or the first to demonstrate the way forward. When you can empower them and show proficiency, they are more likely to trust and listen to leadership in the future.
Finally, know when to give them a break. If it’s an especially slow day, consider not scolding them for being on their phones or gossiping. Only you can know the right situation to give them some slack. No matter what, always treat them like people.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
COVID was a rough time for me and my business. Because our business is primarily customers in our dining room, our sales dropped 50-70% during quarantine. I did something that I never thought I would have to do: I searched for a job.
Pivoting the business to a slower model wasn’t actually hard, just emotionally hard. But searching for work while most places stopped hiring was a nightmare. When I eventually found work, I had to change how I approached my business leadership; I had to delegate more and do less. This pivot taught me how to delegate more, which was always a weakness, and how to trust in my employees and their training. It was difficult at first, but I had no choice. A year or so later, I was in a better position to lead after COVID because my finances were ok, my business was ok, and my team survived without constant ownership management. Furthermore, because of how we’d survived, including saving money in the business because of my outside job, we were able to fund a new location, which we will be opening later this year.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://dobreateapgh.com
- Instagram: @dobrateapgh
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/DobraTeaPgh/
- Twitter: Dobrateapgh
- Other: https://www.dobratea.com
Image Credits
Nathaniel Pantalone