We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Rich Clayton. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Rich below.
Rich, appreciate you joining us today. Can you talk to us about your team building process? How did you recruit and train your team and knowing what you know now would you have done anything differently?
We started from the ground up. We bought an old auto garage that hadn’t been used in years and got straight to work. We went hands on doing the demo ourselves and overseeing construction for over a year. Most of the work you see today was done with our own hands. In the beginning we were the only employees figuring out a new business for ourselves while crafting the beer in our off time and developing new community events that had never been seen before. After about 8 months we realized we needed help and took the first people that popped up. They had “experience” and that is what we thought we needed at that time. We quickly learned that experience means dragging a suitcase of bad habits and attitudes into our newly started business and unloading them on the bartop. Covid hit a few months after those first employees and saved us. Back to the drawing board with people This time things changed. We realized that skilled matter very little and you can’t teach nice. We hired people with the right temperment, the ability to be resilient, those that were lifelong learners who were coachable and open to feedback. Then we got to dreaming about what it looked like to work in the best places. What it felt like to walk in, how people greeted them, cleanliness of the facilty, what they saw, how people treated one another and we got to work.
At Cal Coast Beer we started with the roots of the tree first. Say hello and goodby to everyone, obsess over the the team members who chose to work with us, treat the people who spend their hard earned money with us with the upmost appreciation and continue to have the mindset that anything really is possible if a group of like minded people could drop the ego and the noise of the outside and truly love the place they work and the people that make it what it is,
Our Core Values were born from Action. People, Pints, Possibilities and we never looked back. People: Always go first, and we know that beer brings us in but the people keep you coming back. Pints: our team comes in and crafts these products from raw materials and we owe it to them to ensure that we serve it at it’s finest down to the last drop. Possibilities: We will continue to believe that anything is possible and invest in people who have the open mindset to life. That mindset is a positive one that understands that obstacles are short term challenges and meant to be overcome by those who are willing to put in the work.
We now have very few problems finding someone to join our team. This is a place that he best want to be and our team is very picky about who they choose to let into our band. Once you are in you have to pick up an instrument and get on stage. No roadies here. Everyone is up front and center. No job is above or below us and life is always good out here. Joining our team means you will be a better person when you leave and we will be a better business becuase of your stay. That is how we arrived at our purpose statement, Bring em’ together leave em better.
Rich, 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?
We bring people together and leave them better. An educator of 15 years along with my business partners my wife Martha and military veteran Frank Panian who were also educators, we started out helping people in classrooms and transitioned that to our team and ultimately to the community by way of celebrations, concerts, community events and yes plenty of hand crafted beer and food. We decided to cash out our savings take out second mortgages on our houses and take on an industry we had not yet worked in. As crazy as this sounds we had an amazing mentor in my best friend growing up Craig Koontz. Craig had started his professional career brewing in the late nineties when we took to the classroom. Every summer i visited and couldn’t believe that this was a profession. Make beer and then enjoy one after work. Almost 19 years later Craig came to Paso from Montana where he owns sunrift beer co to visit. He said, “if you ever wanted to start a brewery, this is the spot”. At that time I worked with Frank who was also looking to make and change and after a weekend in Montana brewing beer Frank returned home and said he was in. Cal Coast Beer Co was born with my wife right there with us. The brand is People Pints (now Plates) and Possibilities. The Cal Coast community is strong and our team is among some of the best hospitality or any industry has to offer.
Our events are second to none and rarely duplicated. Some highlights are Jackpot January, where people get stamps for every day they walk in the brewery. You don’t even need to buy something just let us know your thinking of us. Those stamps turn into tickets you can use to win prizes at our Jackpot Party. Prizes consist of brewing with us, having us bring a keg to your house, playing golf with our team and many other zany ideas. March madness consists of teams of two who battle week to week finding out who is the best at physical and mental games. I don’t even want to get you going on “happy noon year”. That’s right we celebrate at noon. Why? because why not?
The people who choose to work here and spend their money here are our resume and by the feel of this place we are doing something right.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
About four years into business we found out that we owed unsecured taxes for all the items that were not considered the physical property. Not only did we owe the taxes but a 10% penalty was added to the taxes themselves accumulating to a very large sum of money. We are educated smart people with masters degrees, how could this happen? Well, as you know covid hit right around the time our first years taxes came due but we were broke filed for extentions and had no employees to speak of. Needless to say it was a chaotic time and we were never informed of the need for this form. At the same time the county for whatever reason thought we had gone out of business and our account was deleted from the system. Once they caught back up four year later we received our hefty bill. Yikes!!!
What could we do? lay down and quit? not possible. Blame someone else? Not in our nature.
We did what we always do. Suck it up and get to work.
We went to the county assessors office got informed filed our paperwork and payed that thing off. It was a good lesson that sometimes things really are out of your control and no matter how informed you may be, things will come up that you couldn’t possibly see without going through it.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
While beer will never go away the reverence for IPA’s and pinkies up talking about the hop bill surely has died. Our business is not just a craft brewery but a community hub. We host 80 year old birthday parties, baby showers, comedy shows and many other events that feature wine, wine based cocktails crafted food and then we go out and support almost any community event we can get our hands on. The days of thinking you are cool for just making beer and serving it are over. But the days of crafting community will never get old.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.calcoastbeer.com/
- Instagram: @Calcoastbeer
- Facebook: https://Facebook.com/Calcoastbeer
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@PeoplePintsPossibilities
- Other: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4Y7zLo0UU3pBcnnDLIjpeE
Image Credits
We took the pics