We were lucky to catch up with Tanya Nygard recently and have shared our conversation below.

Tanya, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Do you have any advice regarding quality control and maintaining quality as your brand grows?

Through years of building Black Cat Coffee House we have seen a lot of changes. One thing that hasn’t changed is the quality of our products. We have sampled many roasters and bakeries through the valley to ensure we have found the ones we deem best. Once we’ve secured that our product is top quality, it’s then up to us to deliver a consistent service. When we train our staff we stress the importance of consistency because it ensures we can serve our customers a quality product in a timely manner. It also helps the customer trust that their order will be correctly made no matter who’s behind the counter.

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?

I grew up in a single stoplight town. One of those towns where you knew everyone in your high school, plus their siblings, their parents and maybe their grandparents too. One where you wave at the other drivers that you pass in town and a ten mile trip took about ten minutes to get there. Well, unless you got stuck behind a tractor. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I moved to Arizona. I had lived my entire life in Iowa, but in Phoenix was a new world completely and I didn’t know anybody. When I took a part time position at Black Cat Coffee House, it was with the intention to be temporary. I didn’t have barista experience and was still trying to find a full time job I liked. Five months later my boss gave me a manager position, the following month he gave me the opportunity to buy the shop. Growing up I watched my mom run a pizza franchise, so I saw the work that would go into owning a business like this. It was a big decision for me and my former husband to make. By early 2017 we were still fairly new into our marriage, living in a new city with a new business. It was a lot of change in a short period.

Black Cat is located in the Arcadia neighborhood of Phoenix where the people are very personable. The small town feel of this neighborhood reminded me of home. Although it didn’t take long to create good customer relationships, there was a lot of work ahead of us. Our food menu, website and customer trust all needed to be rebuilt. Plus my business experience was in a sole proprietorship, managing a staff was foreign to me.

I learned that the basis of a healthy work environment for both my staff and myself was respect. When I lead from a place of respect and understanding I have people who show up with intention. Which results in delivering a quality product to my customers. It results in giving a meaningful experience to the customers. It results in customers coming back to our shop instead of the five other coffee shops they passed to get here. Building our brand around core values is what has named Black Cat Coffee House a Neighborhood Favorite on the Nextdoor app for the last six consecutive years.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

Through the years I’ve learned how to make connections with people who elevate my life. This helped me step up as a better leader for my staff. However, with growth comes change. In 2019 my marriage came to an end, but our partnership in the business remained. He stepped away from daily operations while I ran the shop. We only had a couple employees at this time, so I worked anywhere from 9 to 15 hour days for four months straight. We worked together briefly through the beginning of 2020 until Covid hit.

We furloughed our staff and worked together for six weeks, serving to-go orders until state restrictions started to lift. That year created a shift in how many businesses operated. With much feedback from both my customer base and my staff, I knew it was time to terminate our partnership.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

The process to buy out his portion was tedious. I had to balance the stress of negotiating with him while running daily operations and trying to keep morale up among my staff. The entire process took months and I felt like I was getting nowhere. I informed my staff that I’d be walking away if an agreement wasn’t met. Luckily a few days later we finalized the deal and I was able to buy him out. It has since been a full year, and we are having our best year to date.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.blackcatcoffeeaz.com
• Instagram: blackcatcoffeehouseaz
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/blackcatcoffee?mibextid=LQQJ4d

Image Credits
Tanya Nygard