Buying a business you already love is a different job than starting one. Jimmy Truong knows that: He started June Coffee in downtown Birmingham, and, this year, he also took over two places he had admired for years.

Jimmy first joined host Carrie Rollwagen on The Localist before June had a storefront. Back then, he roasted coffee and sold it in people’s yards during COVID. Five years later, June is one of the busiest coffee shops in the city. Jimmy now also owns Daily Edition in West Homewood. With three partners, he bought Last Call Baking (the James Beard-nominated bakery around the corner from June), too.

Neither deal came from a plan. Jimmy heard that Last Call’s founder, Chanah Willis, was looking for a buyer. He worried a new owner could ruin the bakery and the block. Then his old boss, Armand Margjeka, called out of the blue. He asked if Jimmy wanted to buy Daily Edition.

Carrie and Jimmy talk about what buying a business looks like when you want to change as little as possible. He kept the staff, the recipes, and the look. He also learned that Daily Edition can’t run like June. They cover his first SBA loan and why it was so much easier than funding June with personal debt. They get into staff retention, blueberry coffee, a boba test that lasted two batches, and his friendship with Tim from Punch Love. Jimmy also shares news about June’s new spot in Hoover. And he explains why staying curious about people has opened more doors than any business plan.

Buying a Business: Topics Covered in This Episode

How June Coffee grew from a roaster into one of Birmingham’s busiest shops
Why June lowered its equipment so baristas and guests can see each other
Why staff retention starts with listening
Seasonal menus, drink ideas, and a boba test that lasted two batches
Why Ethiopian coffee can taste like blueberries
Running the shop and the roastery as separate businesses
Learning what a P&L is after the first year of taxes
How friendships led to Last Call Baking Co. and Daily Edition
Financing June with personal debt vs. a first SBA loan
Selling books and magazines when the margins are thin
Merch with local artists, and why customer requests don’t always sell
Why June was a risk, and when to stop stacking risks
Jimmy’s friendship with Tim from Punch Love Coffee
Keeping a business’s staff, recipes, and character after the sale
Why Daily Edition can’t run like June
June’s new location at Knox Square in Hoover
Learning systems from Brooks at Ladybird Taco
Why kindness and curiosity compound in a small city

Mentioned in This Episode

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Connect with Jimmy Truong

Jimmy Truong is the owner of June Coffee, a roaster and coffee shop in downtown Birmingham. This year he also took over Daily Edition in West Homewood and, with partners, Last Call Baking Co.

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FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Below is the full transcript of this episode of The Localist with Jimmy Truong. This transcript is provided for accessibility and SEO.

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Carrie (00:11): Welcome to The Localist, a podcast for small business owners where we talk about the highs and lows of building community through entrepreneurship. I’m your host, author of “The Localist” book, and small business consultant Carrie Rollwagen. The Localist is sponsored by Infomedia, a digital strategy company where I work as senior vice president. At Infomedia, we help small businesses get big results online.

Carrie: Our guest today is Jimmy Truong. Jimmy has actually been on the podcast before. He’s the owner of June Coffee, and he came on right before he opened June; we’ll link to that episode in the show notes. In that episode, we talked about what he hoped for June, and in the four-ish years since, we’ve seen June develop into one of the most popular coffee shops in Birmingham. It’s definitely one of my favorites, and June has also developed as a roaster. But in the past year, Jimmy has taken on other businesses as well. He is now owner of Daily Edition in West Homewood, which is another coffee shop, and of Last Call Baking Co., which is a cult favorite bakery around the corner from June Coffee.

Carrie: I was really excited to talk to Jimmy today. I always run into him while he’s making deliveries around town, and I’ve really wanted to bring him on and dig into how all of this happened and how he’s handling it, because this is quite a lot to take on. This is a really fun conversation. We talk about June and how it’s developed. We talk about how the relationships he made with other business owners led to him finding out about Daily Edition and Last Call. We talk about how he approaches buying a new business: how he can maintain the character of the business, change as little as possible, and let each business have its own character while also having centralized ownership. We also talk about his relationship with Tim from Punch Love Coffee. We get into all kinds of things today. I enjoyed this conversation so much, and I hope you will as well.

Carrie (02:25): Welcome back to The Localist. The last time you were here, first of all, we didn’t have video.

Jimmy: Yeah, that’s a huge difference.

Carrie: And you hadn’t even opened June yet. I guess you had the roaster, but you hadn’t opened the coffee shop.

Jimmy: Oh, God, has it been that long? Man, that was almost four years ago.

Carrie: I feel like when you’re in a small business, time kind of loses meaning a little bit.

Jimmy: Time is definitely convoluted. It’s crazy to think that we’re approaching our fifth year of June.

Carrie (03:00): We were talking about the build-out and about what you wanted from June. Honestly, I think you’ve done a lot of what you talked about. We talked a lot about being welcoming, about hospitality and serving people. And maybe this isn’t fair for me to say, but I feel like at a lot of cool coffee shops, you don’t always get the hospitality piece. At June, you do.

Jimmy: That is great to hear, and I’m so glad you remember. I was like, what did we talk about?

Carrie: How dare you not remember our conversation from almost five years ago! No, I’m just kidding. Everybody kind of pays lip service to that, but you have so much of a background in coffee and in coffee shops that I think you already knew more about what you were talking about. So how has June evolved? Are there things that are exactly what you wanted, or things that were unexpected, even if it’s good unexpected?

Jimmy (04:18): Honestly, I feel like the whole business has been unexpected. It’s been great. The amount of love and support from the community has been awesome. I have been shocked by how much people love June, which is amazing. But it is way busier than I ever expected it to be.

Carrie: Well, where your space is now, everybody’s over there all the time. But that was not the case.

Jimmy: It was a very quiet block. I was like, oh shoot, people are coming here and hanging out. And I’ve had friends reach out from out of state, in New York and Oregon, saying, “Oh, someone just mentioned June in Birmingham.” It’s like, are we nationally recognized? It’s so weird. I feel like I’m always in my bubble, so it’s shocking to hear that people from outside the city limits have heard of June.

Carrie (05:29): I do think you bring together so many things. The space is very important, and we talked about that a lot. You worked with that architecture firm, and the design is really cool. But the coffee is also excellent. There are different ways to run a coffee shop. I ran a coffee shop where, to be fair, the coffee was OK, but people would always be really nice to you and there were books. It was a neighborhood thing. It wasn’t like you came to get a perfect cappuccino every single time. At June, you can always depend on your drink being perfect. But it also has a friendly feel, and you just don’t always get that with great coffee.

Jimmy: I appreciate it. That’s great to hear. I spent so much time working in restaurants and the hospitality industry, and that was something I really wanted to put an emphasis on. I feel like at most places, it shouldn’t be a sacrifice, like either I get a good cappuccino or I get treated awful.

Jimmy (06:47): The intention behind our build-out was to lower all the equipment to create less of a barrier between the guests and the barista. You can see what’s going on behind the bar. No one’s hiding behind equipment. The barista sees you, and the guest sees the barista when they come in. It creates a more approachable, customer-facing environment. I think that really helps. And it’s hiring staff who really care about what they do and about being a part of people’s day.

Carrie (07:23): How do you approach hiring staff? Your staff do seem to have a common vision, if that makes sense. I think you posted fairly recently, “For once, we’re hiring,” so it seems like you have a lot of retention. Is that on purpose?

Jimmy: I love that. That Instagram post was pretty funny. We really don’t hire a ton, so when we do, it’s always because staff are leaving to go on and do better things. That’s why I put an emphasis on taking care of the team. I’ve always been open and honest about what we can do, and we try to take care of them to the best of our ability: giving them PTO and benefits, and working to create a better work environment and work-life balance. We don’t decline requests off. If someone just wants to take a week off, they totally can, within reason. I’ve always made it a goal of mine to take care of staff first and foremost. A happy team will come into work, not be in a terrible mood, and enjoy coming in. I think that’s played a huge part in staff retention.

Carrie (08:57): Do you think it helps that you worked in the industry before, so you know what it’s like to work behind the counter?

Jimmy: Absolutely. I’ve worked in the industry for so long, and I’ve worked with awesome bosses and terrible bosses. I will not name names. But they each taught me something. I knew for sure that if I had a team one day, this is how I was going to approach situations and take care of my staff, and do what they didn’t really do. So it definitely helps a lot. And honestly, it’s just being a good listener. If anyone has any problems, you’re really just a listener. You can’t always fix the situation, but the fact that you took time out of your day to listen to your team goes leaps and bounds.

Carrie (09:55): How does that play out? Can they pull you aside whenever? Do you have regular team meetings?

Jimmy: We try to have regular meetings once a month with our managers, because they’re the ones on the floor working the most with their team members. We’ll talk about how the month is going and whether they need anything. But I spend so much time in the stores, and they have my phone number. Tons of staff just text me on the side, like, “Hey, I would love to talk to you about this,” or they’ll call me. But I prefer to meet in person, because I’m not really good at texting or talking over the phone. If it’s something really important, it’s like, “Hey, let’s book it. I would love to sit down and talk about this face to face.”

Carrie: That makes sense. It’s more of a personal connection. Does that mean you don’t have a work-life balance?

Jimmy (10:55): Sometimes I do not have a work-life balance, but I think that is the reality of being a small business owner. You’re kind of always on. Even if I’m on vacation, I’m thinking about work. Not to say that it hasn’t been awesome, which it has.

Carrie (11:19): I get it. I used to own Church Street, and my husband owns Ohm Jiu Jitsu, so there’s always something. How should we be marketing? How should we be on Instagram? There is always something with the business. How do you approach your menu? I think June is pretty famous, and Daily Edition too, for having really unique, really dialed-in seasonal menu items. Do you have a boba right now?

Jimmy (11:57): We did have a boba. It was awesome, and it was my first time making boba, but boy, let me tell you, it’s such a pain to make. Daily Edition has its own menu. Cameron is one of our employees, and he’s incredible. I’ve given him full rein to create the menu over there, and he’s done such a stellar job. We have a running joke that Daily Edition and June are competing with each other.

Carrie: Which is really cool, actually. It’s both your business, but still.

Jimmy: Like, “June’s menu is so much better than Daily’s.” He’s done such an incredible job curating the menu over there that I’m completely hands off. I told him, “Hey, man, I’m just going to let you run the show. I trust you and your vision.” For June, I’m still handling all the menu and recipe stuff. And honestly, a lot of times I have no idea what’s going to work. With the boba, I had no idea if it was going to work or not, but I figured, why not?

Carrie (13:08): That’s the fun thing about running a local coffee shop. You don’t necessarily have to ask, will this scale? Will we run it forever? You can just do it for a little while.

Jimmy: And I found out real fast. I was like, “This is terrible. This was a mistake.” It was awesome, but you have to have the tools and the layout to make it at scale, and we did not have that. June is just so small. Kudos to the boba shops, because they’ve got it dialed in. Two batches in, I was like, I don’t want to do this anymore.

Carrie (13:46): What about drinks like the Machu Picchu, the recurring ones that are super popular? Do you have culinary inspiration, or is it just, “I had this idea”?

Jimmy: I wouldn’t really call it culinary expertise or inspiration. I used to work at The Collins Bar and at Steel City Pops. I would make the syrups and juices for The Collins Bar, and Steel City Pops had all these different flavor profiles for the popsicles, which I thought was so awesome. So it’s things I want to try. I’ll think, “Will this taste good as a coffee or a matcha? Who knows?” I’ve created some god-awful flavors before that were absolutely horrendous. But we’ve also created some awesome drinks that I think are pretty unique, like our pistachio rose. That was inspired by a dessert. I was like, “This is so awesome. What if we put coffee in this?” It’s inspired by food and things I think would taste good.

Carrie (15:04): I think also, because you’re a good coffee roaster, you know that with the wrong coffee, a lot of flavors are going to taste terrible. With the right coffee, it can be kind of magical. Knowing roasting, I feel like you can do more creative combinations than people who aren’t controlling the roast or understanding the beans.

Jimmy: Roasting has definitely changed my perception of how coffee should taste, and you’re absolutely right. A lot of people want super awesome, foodie coffees, and those are great. But a lot of times those will not mesh well with the flavors we were just talking about. They’d actually taste astringent. There are so many nuances that go into the syrups. Maybe we don’t use this super light, acidic roast with this chocolaty flavor.

Carrie (16:15): This is the opposite end of the spectrum from what June does, but when we have coffee for the office, we have some people who really like coffee, and then we have people who are dumping pumpkin spice and creamer into it. Wherever we order, I’m always like, “We can’t serve Ethiopian.” It will go to blueberry, then they’ll put something in it and say, “This is disgusting.” And it’s actually really good, but you can’t explain that. We always had that at Church Street too. We’d have to say, “Eat it with a blueberry muffin, and now you’ll get what you’re tasting.” When you really understand the character of the coffee, you can do some cool stuff with flavor that you couldn’t do by putting just any coffee into it.

Jimmy: That’s crazy. I haven’t had a blueberry Ethiopian in such a long time. I feel like that’s people’s first gateway coffee. “This coffee tastes like blueberry!”

Carrie: Our customers would always say, “This tastes weird,” because they’re not placing it. If you know it tastes like blueberries, you taste the blueberry. But if you don’t know what you’re tasting, a lot of times you’re just like, “What’s wrong with my coffee?” It’s blueberry that you’re tasting.

Jimmy: We’ve had that happen a couple of times at June, and we just explain it to people. “Oh, it tastes fruity.” “Oh, I don’t want fruity.” “OK, you probably don’t want this coffee, then.”

Carrie (17:43): Exactly. Not today. OK, I touched on this a little bit, but I want to talk about Daily Edition and Last Call, because that’s a huge change since you came on before. For people listening, you own June Coffee, the shop and the roaster. Are those one business or separate businesses?

Jimmy: They’re technically separate businesses. June, the store, actually buys coffee from the roastery. It helps with inventory management. I think it’s like the Chick-fil-A model, where the restaurants buy from Chick-fil-A headquarters.

Carrie: That does make sense. The P&Ls are clean.

Jimmy: Oh my gosh, I did not know what a P&L was until I did my first year of taxes. I was like, “What’s a P&L?”

Carrie (18:39): I feel like people throw around so many of these terms, and you just have to Google it, or however people look stuff up now. There’s so much in business where people use jargon to make it sound really complicated. There are things that are complicated, but I feel like the complicated part is putting it all together, interacting with customers and staff and all of that. A P&L is actually pretty basic math. You just have to watch some YouTube videos to understand it.

Jimmy: I think the biggest learning curve for me was when I opened June. I just wanted to make and sell coffee. Then my accountant asked, “Do you have a P&L, a profit and loss sheet?” What on earth is that? She asked, “Do you have QuickBooks?”

Carrie: “I have a Venmo.”

Jimmy: So I had to switch gears, and now all I can think about is P&Ls and QuickBooks. Luckily, I have an awesome accountant, and her team is incredible. I don’t even have to worry about it.

Carrie (19:49): Again, you’re somebody who cares a lot about your staff, about the craft of coffee, and about hospitality. That doesn’t always translate into being a small business mogul. You were on another podcast that called you the godfather of Birmingham coffee.

Jimmy: Oh my gosh. That was the Word of Mouth podcast.

Carrie: Those guys are funny. So did Daily Edition come first, or Last Call?

Jimmy (20:23): Let me try to remember. It all happened this year, but I’m blanking. Last Call was in the works for a long time. Chanah and I were working on passing the torch.

Carrie: For people who don’t know, Last Call is a fantastic bakery. It was nominated for a James Beard Award, and it’s around the corner from June. You already had a relationship, and you already sold Last Call pastries at June.

Jimmy: The original owner was Chanah Willis, who is incredible and an old friend of mine. I’ve known them since they worked at Little Donkey and I worked at Octane next door.

Carrie: I love this. It’s like the evolution of Birmingham. Some Birmingham lore.

Jimmy (21:13): They’re incredible. I found out that they were trying to sell, and at the time we were looking at what’s next for June. Do we do a bakery, or do we open a second location? When I found out that Chanah was trying to sell Last Call, I was like, “We’ve got to jump in.” At the time, they said they had other interested parties around town, and people from out of state were curious about it. And I thought, if a new owner came in who didn’t really understand what was going on, it could totally destroy the business and destroy the block, honestly.

Carrie (22:02): If you live in Birmingham, you probably already know this, but Last Call really has a cult following. There are lines, especially Saturday morning, out the door. I think I showed up an hour early last time I was there, and there were still five people in line. I just brought a book. You always have to be ready to hang out in line. And when they sell out, they’re closed. Do you still do that?

Jimmy: We still do that. We try not to overbake, and we try not to be super wasteful. But also, our kitchen space is really small. We only make so much a day, and I can’t explain that to everyone all the time. We get people all the time asking, “Why can’t you just throw some more in the oven?” Well, there’s no more that can go in the oven. It’s a three-day process for a croissant. We don’t have any more croissants.

Carrie (23:05): Pastry isn’t something you whip together. I just had the Greek Food Festival on, and they were talking about that. When they’re out of baklava, they’re out. They can’t just throw it together. OK, so you knew they were trying to sell, and you were interested in the next step.

Jimmy: We talked about it for a long time, about how we support each other in this transition phase, and they’ve been super helpful with everything. Then, while we were working on that, out of nowhere my old boss Armand, who was the previous owner of Daily Edition, called me out of the blue and said, “Hey, random question, but would you want to buy Daily?” I was on the phone for what felt like an eternity, and I’m pretty sure I said, “I think. Yeah.” Then I said, “Oh man, I actually have a lot going on right now. Can I think about it for a week?” But it was such an easy process. I still care about Armand a lot. I used to work with him at Woodlawn Cycle Cafe, and he taught me so much. It was an easy transition, so I said, “Yeah, sure. Why not?”

Carrie (24:24): Can I ask, is this bank financing? Is it June financing? With Church Street, we actually just borrowed $5,000 and $7,000 here and there from a lot of friends. It took a long time.

Jimmy: With Daily, it was actually our first SBA loan. June was financed basically by me.

Carrie: All the coffee you were selling in people’s yards during COVID.

Jimmy: And a whopping personal loan. I just paid all that off, thank God. But Daily was the first SBA loan I took out.

Carrie (25:06): That’s the Small Business Administration, if people are listening. They’re usually kinder to small businesses, but especially if you already own something. That’s what is hard about small business ownership. When you’re first starting, you can probably get an SBA loan, but you’ll get better terms if you already have something.

Jimmy: Absolutely. We actually couldn’t get an SBA loan for June because we weren’t open yet, and I didn’t have collateral. They were like, “You’re asking for this much. Do you have $200,000 in collateral?” And I was like, “Brother, I don’t. I’m 26 years old.”

Carrie: We were the same. We personally financed Ohm, because it was like, if I had that, I would not be asking you for money.

Jimmy (25:58): Exactly. But with Daily, we worked with the SBA, and they were super helpful. Honestly, the process was incredibly easy, because at that point I had all my gears in motion. All my documents were folded neatly in the folder. I was like, here we go.

Carrie: “We have a P&L.”

Jimmy: “A business plan.” So that was super easy. Daily was not expected at all, but it has truly been such an amazing thing to lean into and watch grow on its own.

Carrie (26:30): Tell people about that space, because it’s West Homewood-ish, right? That’s another area that has grown a ton in the past couple of years, with El Barrio and Paramount and everybody moving over there. Were they already on that wave when you were buying in?

Jimmy: I think so. All that new development was already happening. I guess we got it at a really good time. If I remember correctly, El Barrio and Paramount were just about to open or had opened already, and all that new development across the street was almost completed. I honestly think that has helped a lot with the success of Daily Edition.

Carrie (27:31): And you expanded it a little bit, correct? Even looking from the outside, that seems like a big change.

Jimmy: Armand and his wife had stores right next to each other. Her store was ETC. It had a bathroom and a hallway in this weird U-shaped space. So Daily Edition knocked down the wall and opened it up for a shared bathroom. He asked if I wanted the ETC space too, and I said no, but I knew someone who might be interested. So I reached out to my friend Kellen, who owns Zephyr Barber, right next door to June.

Carrie: Which is a barbershop.

Jimmy (28:20): He had been talking about how he would love to move into West Homewood. So I called him up out of the blue one day and said, “Hey, man, I’ve got some great news for you. Would you want to be next door in West Homewood?” I don’t think he thought about it long. He was immediately yes.

Carrie (28:40): That’s cool. They’re your friends, but your business owner neighbors are a different kind of friendship, if that makes sense. And especially for a local neighborhood business, it does matter who’s around you. So being able to say, “I already have this coming in,” is really cool.

Jimmy: Absolutely. And I think that’s partly why I wanted to take over Last Call. It’s like, I don’t want outsiders to come in and join the block. I don’t want you to ruin it.

Carrie (29:17): What they had was pretty cool. And you still do books and magazines at Daily Edition, right?

Jimmy: We still do books and magazines. We’ve tried to upgrade. They were mostly doing magazines at the time, but we got some books in that have honestly been a great seller. I love cookbooks. I’m very visual. I would never read anything, but I’m like, “Oh, what a pretty photo.” So we got some awesome books in, and a lot of magazines. My favorite magazine is about cats. People have been loving it, which is great.

Carrie (29:50): For that side of things, do you work with a wholesaler for books?

Jimmy: We work with a wholesaler online. These individual companies sell straight to wholesalers, so we work with them and get magazines from all over. I think the ones we predominantly go through are based out of Oregon, if I remember correctly.

Carrie (30:17): I was in the book industry before, and that can be a little bit of a headache. Did Daily Edition already have wholesale accounts?

Jimmy: No, we had to start one. And I totally get it, but a lot of these book distributors were like, “What’s your minimum?” And I was like, “There’s no way I’m ordering 200 books. Can I order five?” Ghosted. No response. But it’s been great finding people who do want to work with smaller businesses.

Carrie (30:56): And the space is very aesthetic, so coffee table books or visual books fit nicely. Honestly, the profit margin on books is terrible, so it’s nice to have a higher price point.

Jimmy: I think about the books like this: I’m not really thinking about them to make money. It’s like, oh, please come in and get a coffee. That’s where our profit is. The books are just another reason to come in. I don’t expect to make a killing selling magazines and books.

Carrie (31:36): This was a very different setup, but at Church Street, a lot of coffee shops at the time were putting their sideline money into French presses and tea towels. We put that into books instead. Then books kill it as a sideline item, but they don’t have to carry the shop. Obviously Church Street was more of a bookstore than Daily Edition is, but I do think that’s a smart way to structure it. If you’re going to sell books, sell something else with a better profit margin too.

Jimmy: Cameron crushes it over there. We also have another guy named Kenny. They do a great job. We try to push coffee as the product, but the books are so beautiful that we want to keep buying them. And it’s fun. A lot of them are open, so people can take them outside, read them, and bring them back.

Carrie (32:30): It’s nice to have something that’s part of the ambiance, but you may also make some money off of it.

Jimmy: We’re hoping to get some more merch beyond books for the holiday season.

Carrie: Do you know what you’re looking at there, or are you just going to see what develops?

Jimmy: Just see what develops. People have asked for merch and hats and stuff, but I don’t want to buy too much.

Carrie (32:56): It’s hard. What customers ask for and what they will buy are not always the same.

Jimmy: I found that out really fast with June. People were like, “Oh, you should get this.” And I’d say, “I would love to buy it. Are you sure? It’s like $200.” “Oh yeah, absolutely.” So I bought some equipment, like brewers, and it took forever to get them off the shelf. I was like, “Sorry, I’m not doing this again.”

Carrie (33:24): Exactly. With merch, too, it seems like you work with local artists a lot. Am I making that up?

Jimmy: No, we do. For June, a lot of our shirts are by local artists. We have a funny off-brand death metal hoodie that we did with ASAP. They’re incredible. They play in a band and come in all the time. And we have another shirt by Chris. I don’t know his last name, but he’s a tattooer at Birmingham Tattoo Company. He made this Grim Reaper June shirt for us, and it looks so awesome. It’s just fun working with other artists. It’s fun seeing how other people interpret our brand and logo.

Carrie (34:11): I feel like that’s also part of the ambiance of the shop, and it makes it a cooler offering than just a logo.

Carrie (34:32): So that’s kind of how Daily Edition happened. I feel like there’s so much of that in small business, somebody calling and saying, “Do you want this space?” or “Do you want to buy me out?” or “I’m thinking about leaving.” Even for me, Cal from Church Street and I worked at Starbucks together years before, and he called and said, “I might do this. Do you want to do it with me?” Those random conversations really lead to a lot of small businesses, instead of a strategic five-year plan.

Jimmy: And a lot of times, I feel like people don’t have a five-year plan. I certainly don’t. Each year it’s just, well, what can we do this year?

Carrie (35:15): It also sounds like, since you mentioned paying off the June loans, there’s a difference between just doing stuff whenever and realizing this wasn’t financially responsible, versus saying, OK, I actually can make a move now, so I want to make it.

Jimmy: June was definitely a financially irresponsible decision. I remember the first week that we opened, I had $4 in my checking account, and I remember getting emails about my FICO score dropping by like 50 points. I was like, man, I really hope this works.

Carrie (35:56): To some extent, unless you have money from somewhere else, which I didn’t either, you have to do that. For Church Street, I sold my car and had a Vespa, and I made $13,000 that whole year. That was my whole takeaway. I was eating a lot of pastries and peanut butter sandwiches.

Jimmy: I was eating a lot of instant ramen. I came home, and my roommate at the time watched me walk in with a giant 50-pack of instant ramen. Like, how can I jazz this up?

Carrie (36:30): Exactly. But then you grow a little bit, you learn the business better, and ideally you don’t have to take the same kinds of chances. We don’t have to leverage our futures now.

Jimmy: Absolutely. I don’t have to put my house down.

Carrie (36:52): But there are some people who keep trying to go bigger and bigger. They took a huge risk, so they put risk on risk on risk. I think that’s where people get really underwater. Sometimes, for the first one especially, you have to take a risk.

Jimmy (37:13): Unfortunately, I told my girlfriend, who is now my fiancée, “I think I have an addiction to working, so just be prepared for all these risks and loans that I’m going to have to take out.” And she’s so sweet. She’s always like, “Are you sure you can handle this?” And I’m like, “I think so. But no, I don’t know.”

Carrie (37:37): I think it’s really important to talk about what small business ownership even means. It depends on how you do it. There are people who are building wealth through small business. But this is different. My husband owns Ohm Jiu Jitsu, and we bought into a professional jiu-jitsu league this year.

Jimmy: Oh, that’s awesome.

Carrie: Thanks. The Alabama Twisters. We both like working, and this is also a very busy season, which may not always be the case. But I do think it’s really hard if one person just wants to go on vacation and chill, or have a 401(k) and a really steady life, and the other person is like, “I actually enjoy this, and I want to keep doing it.”

Jimmy (38:40): We had that conversation at the beginning of our relationship. I said, “Hey, I think I have a problem with working. I love doing this, because I kind of love the stress.” This is not advice to anyone, but I honestly think of it as a game. OK, I did June. What’s next?

Carrie (39:06): We might have even talked about “The Great Game of Business,” the book, last time. But to keep a business running, you really can’t be stagnant, and that may look different for different people. My business partner at Church Street, Cal, wanted it to be a mom-and-pop coffee shop. That’s not necessarily what I wanted to do. So he sold the business to me. But to keep growing, you have to change something. You have to evolve, because the world evolves around you. And I definitely relate to that. It’s like, I’ll have this really busy full-time job, and also a podcast, and also be writing a book.

Jimmy (40:06): I agree. This is actually a conversation we’re about to have with our staff. There are trends in the coffee industry and the restaurant industry, like cold foam and cream top, and a lot of times people push back on them. But it’s like, hey, this is a trend for a reason. People love it. We can either be a part of this movement or kind of get lost, because the world’s going to move on without us. Trends come and go, but you can’t be too stagnant.

Carrie (40:41): And some of it is just having a little bit of fun with it. I definitely want to get to Last Call. But speaking of having fun, I wanted to talk about your friendship with Tim from Punch Love a little bit. You guys are friends from way back, correct?

Jimmy: I love him. I actually have a Punch Love tattoo, and he also has a June tattoo. This was a long time ago, before any of our shops opened. We were having a bro-to-bro moment, and I said, “Hey, man, if Punch Love ever opens, I swear I’m going to get a Punch Love tattoo.” And he said, “Yeah, that sounds awesome.” So I surprised him out of nowhere, I think two years ago on his birthday. I just walked up and said, “Guess what I just got?” We’re still really good friends. We talk way too much, maybe once every day.

Carrie (41:50): You guys have a fake rivalry on Instagram, or did for a while, jokingly. It does feel fun to be an insider and know that you’re actually friends.

Jimmy: That was all Tim. He sent me a text that said, “Hey, I’m going to do this,” and before I could respond, it was already happening. And I was like, OK.

Carrie (42:12): This is from the outside, and I think he would take this as a compliment, but you and Tim approach customer service very differently. He’ll roast people. I remember he posted a two-star Google review, and I was DMing him, laughing at it, and he said, “Yeah, well, I replied that skim milk is just colored water, and she dropped it to one star.” Of course she did. Why are you shocked? But he revels in that, and I think it works for him. In some ways you have similar shops, in that you care about coffee. I always know I’m going to get a good cup of coffee at Punch Love, and I always know I’m going to get a good cup of coffee at June. But it’s funny that he does everything I would tell somebody not to do.

Jimmy (43:11): Oh, absolutely. He’ll ask me for advice. “How should I go about this?” And I’ll say, “Oh, I would approach it like this.” And he says, “OK, I’m not going to do that.” Why are you asking?

Carrie: But that’s also what’s fun about Tim. He’s himself.

Jimmy: He’s unapologetically himself, which is amazing and refreshing, honestly.

Carrie (43:33): Absolutely. It’s a barista’s coffee shop. If you’ve worked as a barista, you get his perspective.

Jimmy: He’s great. Watching Punch Love grow has been amazing. If you remember, I think his original space was 1,000 square feet. When they knocked down that wall and expanded over in Avondale, I think that really changed the game for them.

Carrie (44:06): So we took the Daily Edition diversion, but I wanted that, and I think these things happened at the same time for you. So, Last Call. Do you think it mattered to them that you wanted to keep it the same? I think that’s something you’ve done with Last Call and Daily Edition. I think you’ve talked about it online some. It doesn’t seem like you approached this as, “Let me make it mine now. Let me make this June.” It was, “Let me find out what makes Last Call special and keep that.”

Jimmy (44:53): With Daily Edition, Armand built such an amazing brand. You said the space was beautiful, and I agree. He’s really great at designing beautiful spaces. So I immediately knew we just had to keep this. I’m not a design-heavy guy, so I was like, we’ve got to keep it the same. And with Last Call, Chanah built something so amazing. Even if I wanted to change it, I wouldn’t know where to start. The product is already so awesome, it speaks for itself. The line down the block. Obviously, we can’t change that in any way, shape, or form.

Jimmy (45:34): And I told the staff, “Hey, I honestly just want to keep everyone here. We don’t want to change anything.” Some things might change structurally, like how we run payroll, but beyond that, that’s about it. And I told Chanah, “Hey, I don’t want to change a thing,” and I think they were like, “Oh my gosh, this is why I want to sell it to you.” Other people had wanted to change things or rebrand it to something else. I was like, I don’t want that. This is amazing. Let’s keep it.

Carrie (46:14): I think they really value individuality, being inclusive with the staff, and valuing staff. Instead of saying, “We’re going to do a smaller selection of pastries that are a little more boring and repetitive so we don’t sell out as much,” they keep that creativity alive. What did Chanah move on to?

Jimmy (46:51): At the time, they accepted a culinary director role at a bakery up in New York, but I think they’ve since left and are working on a few other personal projects. I’m not entirely sure. I think they’re a consultant now. When we talk, it’s once every couple of months, just, “Hey, how are you?” But I will ask them for business advice about Last Call. “Hey, how would you go about this? What do you think about this on the menu?” And they’ll give a thumbs up or thumbs down.

Carrie (47:36): As far as recipes, is Last Call still developing new stuff, or are you sticking with the classics? How does that work?

Jimmy: All the classic recipes we have now, like the croissants, the ham and cheese, and all that good stuff, are OG Last Call recipes, Chanah’s recipes. For new recipes, we partnered with Lauren Gavin. She is our partner now in the company. And when I say “our,” it’s me and two other good friends of mine, Rachel Petronas and Ryan Fiero. We went into Last Call together, and we made Lauren a partner. She’s running the show over there and developing recipes. All the Saturday specials have been her. We plan on adding on to an already awesome existing menu, not revamping it. She’s been incredible there.

Carrie (48:38): Like we talked about, you kind of have to do that. I know you had a holiday party with all three shops. Do you do things together? Do people work at two shops, or one? Are people meshing together as part of these businesses?

Jimmy (49:02): We had a holiday party at Juniper, which was awesome. Thank you, Juniper, for hosting us. I’m sorry we were so rowdy.

Carrie: If you’re hosting a party that involves people in food service, I think you know what you’re getting into.

Jimmy: They’re super awesome. Honestly, before the change of ownership even happened, Last Call staff and June staff were already super friends. A lot of friends worked at one or the other.

Carrie: Because you’re right around the corner.

Jimmy (49:38): Right around the corner, and a lot of them hang out together outside of work. A lot of them knew me already, and I knew them. So the relationship among all three businesses has been awesome, and they all hang out with each other outside of work now. But we try to keep them separate for the smaller parties. I just celebrated Daily Edition’s one year, and it was me and three other people who work there. I took them out to dinner at Helen. No need to involve the June staff.

Carrie (50:16): It’s kind of nice that everybody still has their individual character. You don’t have to do everything together. A lot of what you have going for you is that your shops have really strong individual character.

Jimmy (50:31): Absolutely. And that was a huge learning curve for me. These brands all have their own identities and business structures. When I came into Daily Edition, I thought, “We’re going to run it like June, just not call it June.” That’s not how it worked. Daily Edition does its own thing, operates at a different level, and has its own brand identity, which has worked really well for it.

Carrie (51:02): What are some of the things that go differently? Is it the pace?

Jimmy: The pace, and the behind-the-scenes stuff and how we do operations. Daily Edition isn’t a slower pace exactly, but it’s not lines out the door all the time. The barista can actually talk, make drinks, and hang out. It does get insanely busy, but not at the level June does. And it’s a smaller, more intimate space. June is already small, but I think Daily Edition is only about 200 square feet. So it’s small and smaller. That alone is a huge reason we can’t operate it like we would run June.

Carrie (51:49): Do you have anything you’re working on now that you’re ready to share, or are you like, “I need to chill out for a while”?

Jimmy (52:00): This year was supposed to be my chill year, but then I ended up buying Daily Edition and buying Last Call with my friends and partners. We do have some things in the works for next year. One June-related thing: we are opening our second location out in Hoover. We’re a part of the new Knox Square development, and I’m so excited to be a part of that. We’re actually going to be growing our own bakery program out there, just because there’s no way Last Call can deliver 30 or 40 minutes away. I think that’s slated to open sometime in spring or summer, but you know how construction goes.

Carrie (52:49): Did you find them, or did they ask you to be out there?

Jimmy: I actually found them. I was driving out there to pick up shirts. We work with a printing company out there, and we got all of our shirts and merchandise through them. I got this hat through them. Shout out! And I saw the “coming soon” sign and thought, “Oh my God, I should give this guy a call.” That was last September. So now, one year later, we’re finally getting ready. We’re not even close to being open, but things are moving along to where we can talk about it.

Carrie (53:30): That’s awesome. Do you live out there, or did you just think Hoover was a good new market?

Jimmy: I actually live in the opposite direction. I’m just excited about Hoover because it is a different market. I love Birmingham, and I love Homewood. But I feel like anything within the Birmingham, Homewood, or even Vestavia city limits would sometimes just be cannibalizing ourselves. We really need to be strategic with our locations, because we have a lot of partners we work with, like Ladybird, and other businesses, and we really value those relationships.

Carrie (54:12): I think the first time I experienced Ladybird was at June, because they used to have pop-ups there. That was their first entry into Birmingham, right? I like Ladybird for a lot of reasons now. I also live over there, so I’m there a lot. Everybody’s always there. But I really admired their efficiency, the number stickers and everything. If you’ve run something like that, you notice the things they put into making it orderly so they can focus on hospitality instead of everybody’s order getting messed up. I feel like I noticed that more when they were with you guys.

Jimmy (55:01): They’re awesome. Brooks was the person who reached out to us about working together and collaborating.

Carrie: We have an episode with them too.

Jimmy: Brooks is amazing. He is the man. And dare I say, the feeling might not be mutual, but I consider Brooks a friend, and I hope he considers me a friend too. He’s another person I’ll call, because Ladybird is so dialed in. I’ll call him sometimes and say, “Hey, man, how do you do this? Can you tell me about your systems a little bit?” And he’ll walk me through it. I’m so appreciative of that.

Carrie (55:44): They definitely have that efficiency and those systems, but in such a good way. It’s so they can be kind to people. It doesn’t feel cold. It’s making room for people. And the lines there are also crazy.

Jimmy: But it never feels hectic. They’ve got it honed in.

Carrie (56:10): And they also serve Last Call pastries, right? Were they doing that before you took over Last Call?

Jimmy: They were already working with Last Call before we took over. Brooks was actually one of the first people I told about the Last Call thing, and he was so stoked.

Carrie (56:34): One of the things I think you’ve done that is really smart, and I don’t think this is why you did it, is that you have a huge reputation in town for just being kind to people. For a long time, ever since you were doing pop-ups at Woodlawn or working at Octane, whenever I would talk to people, they’d say, “Oh, Jimmy’s such a nice guy.” That’s what everybody said.

Jimmy: That’s great.

Carrie (57:06): Again, I don’t think you were thinking, “Someday I’ll own several shops and need to network with these people.” I think that’s also why it works. You’re not doing it to network. You’re just trying to be kind to people. But especially in a community like Birmingham, which isn’t huge, that pays off so much. Now you can call this person, ask advice, or say, “Hey, I want to be in this development. Have you heard anything about it?” I do think that’s an important part of what you’ve done, and it started before you even had June as a roaster. Now I feel weird, like I’m just complimenting you.

Jimmy: No, please.

Carrie (57:56): But it’s a good strategy. Last time we talked about how, through COVID, you were serving your customers and meeting them in their yards.

Jimmy: Man, that feels like a lifetime ago. That was fun.

Carrie: Socially distant conversations. But all of those conversations compound, I guess.

Jimmy (58:29): I wouldn’t call myself nice. I just love talking to people. I think my staff can attest to this, especially the ones I used to work with closely. If you come into the store at closing time, I’m always going to open the door for you. I’m so sorry, Cam. A customer came in who is now a dear friend, and we ended up just talking for like an hour. Poor Cam was in the background doing all the dishes, and I completely lost track of time. I was like, “Oh, shoot, it’s 5 o’clock. We need to go home.” I was just chatting away with this stranger. I love talking to people, asking about their day, and striking up a conversation. That’s really it. I’ve never really thought of myself as, “Oh, I’m a nice guy. I’m going to be nice.” I just love talking to everybody.

Carrie (59:28): You do seem genuinely curious, and that goes a lot farther than, “I’m going to talk to this person because they’re important.” That doesn’t seem to be what you’re about.

Jimmy: And I’m fortunate enough that I met all of my friends through work. At one point, they were customers. Some of my closest friends were customers at Octane, and now we’re awesome friends just because I asked, “What are you doing today?”

Carrie (1:00:02): That’s something very special about small businesses, too. You can make friends and make connections. And the way you’re growing your businesses is organic. If you hadn’t been close to Chanah, if you hadn’t maintained a relationship with Armand, you wouldn’t have known that those were good opportunities.

Jimmy: Absolutely.

Carrie: So basically, good job being a good person.

Jimmy (1:00:32): I just love talking to people. If someone wants to come in and strike up a conversation, I’m always going to play ball. Sometimes I don’t want to talk about coffee. Can we talk about something else, please? But I’m usually down to just hang out and talk.

Carrie (1:00:51): Awesome. Well, we need to wrap up. The next time you open something else, or buy something else, we’ll need to have you back on. In the meantime, is the best way for people to interact with you just to go to Last Call, go to June, go to Daily Edition?

Jimmy: Go to Daily Edition, go to June, go to Last Call. I’m still very hands-on with all these businesses. I’m usually at all three spots during the day.

Carrie: And still doing deliveries.

Jimmy: Still doing deliveries for Last Call and June. Just hang out at the store, and you’ll probably see me. I’m usually in and out running errands. But you can also hit me up on Instagram if you want to chat.

Carrie: Well, thanks for coming on.

Jimmy: I appreciate it. Thanks for having me again.

Carrie (1:01:47): The Localist is written and produced by me, Carrie Rollwagen. Our showrunner is Taylor Davis. Our outreach manager is B.J. Eadie, and our sound engineer with us in the studio today is Emery Lambert. Thanks again to Infomedia for sponsoring the show and making what we do here possible. And until next time, whether you’re buying from a local business or running one, thanks for all you do to make our community stronger every day.