Fourgrounds, here's how we did it

[00:00:01]From downtown [music] Detroit, Local 4 lives starts right now.

[00:00:07]>> Hey everybody, welcome back to Local 4 live. They let me behind the counter. It might not be a great idea. We're about to find out. The general manager of this place, her name is Jess Harmon. She's actually behind the camera right now.

[00:00:19]Are you pouring some milk back there?

[00:00:20]What's happening?

[00:00:21]>> about to make myself some fresh apple pie.

[00:00:24]>> [laughter] >> Okay, so first of all, you know what we're talking. Grand opening happened 2 and 1/2 hours ago. We were kind of anticipating a long line at the beginning, but the line over there, I don't know if you can see it or not, Jason, it hasn't really stopped.

[00:00:38]>> Not yet. Yeah.

[00:00:39]>> Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

[00:00:40]>> of course it's a great thing.

[00:00:41]>> [laughter] >> We love seeing the faces of the wonderful kids.

[00:00:44]>> Yeah, right. Okay, so you have been a part of this project kind of from the onset. I've I've I've seen >> Since about May, yeah.

[00:00:51]>> Well, that's Okay, so maybe not the onset, but really when the hard work started.

[00:00:54]>> You know, yeah, the grind.

[00:00:57]>> What What was it like kind of building up a coffee shop from the ground up?

[00:01:01]>> Oh man, I think there's so many details and you know, thinking about how it comes to life in your head is a lot different than how it comes to life in real life.

[00:01:11]I think the most exciting part for me was interviewing people and getting to know people who could be the team here. And I think yeah, that's you know, I've done this a couple times, but this time around it was super refreshing just to like the the candidates we had and the team we got. I'm so proud and so happy right now.

[00:01:28]>> Did you get to come up with the menu yourself, too?

[00:01:31]>> Yeah, selfishly a lot of this menu is my my favorite things that I make for myself at home. Like luckily, we've got some creative people on staff and hopefully for the next round of specials, their ideas will be up on the board.

[00:01:42]>> Very cool. What do you think of this downtown Plymouth spot right on the corner here?

[00:01:45]>> of course it's beautiful. Look at all these windows.

[00:01:49]Yeah, it's prime downtown spot. We're nestled between two awesome coffee shops, too. So, yeah, I think this is a great place for us. We're doing something a little different than everybody else, and just yeah, great corner, great time.

[00:01:59]>> Yeah, now so when you look around the physical space though, it seems like there's more seating that I'm used to seeing in a coffee shop, right? I mean, was that that's intentional, I'm assuming?

[00:02:07]>> Yeah, I mean, it's a big space. You should put some chairs down. We do have an occupancy of up to 105.

[00:02:14]>> Oh, okay.

[00:02:15]>> That's a lot of people.

[00:02:16]>> Yeah. What is that rating in other coffee shops you've worked?

[00:02:19]>> Yeah, you know, I have worked at coffee shops where there are no tables. It's just a to-go window.

[00:02:25]>> And uh this is probably the biggest one I've ever seen. Yeah, yeah.

[00:02:28]>> Very cool. You mentioned the staff and the people. So you've got Evie.

[00:02:31]>> Mhm.

[00:02:32]>> You've got Sarah. We've got Irma.

[00:02:33]>> Mhm.

[00:02:34]>> All just started. I mean, you've been training for probably at least a couple of weeks before you get in here. Really?

[00:02:39]So how does that work?

[00:02:40]>> You know, we had some good partners in Great Lakes Coffee, and they were able to help us out with a little bit of training. But you know, it's a lot of learning on the fly. These >> Okay.

[00:02:51]>> These baristas have a lot of patience and a lot of knowledge, and we're just sort of making it happen as we go here. Little less training time than we wanted, but you know, it's still a good time, and we're still learning.

[00:03:02]>> So forgive my ignorance on this. I have no idea what it takes, like the background. So when you're hiring and looking for baristas, like what are you looking for?

[00:03:10]>> You know, I truly just I try to find passion. I try to find people who are excited about what they do on the daily. And then also, yeah, you cannot You can only hire for attitude, you know.

[00:03:23]>> Yeah, yeah.

[00:03:23]>> You can't coach attitude.

[00:03:25]It's really passion and a and a good attitude.

[00:03:27]>> All right, so what back here can you show me how to do that I won't break?

[00:03:32]>> Yeah, well, this right here is pretty easy >> [laughter] >> to operate. It's just a lever. It's our nice Great Lakes Coffee time here.

[00:03:39]>> All right, this is just normal black coffee in here?

[00:03:42]>> Yeah, it's just like that. Easy enough.

[00:03:44]>> All right.

[00:03:44]>> Um but also, we've got this awesome tea setup, the tea program >> Oh, the tea corner.

[00:03:49]>> Yeah, we've got um 11 different teas.

[00:03:52]One is the tea of the month that we rotate. Four herbal offerings, two oolong, two black, and two green. And then we I have an awesome water tower that actually has all these different pre-programmed temperatures that's perfect for tea.

[00:04:04]>> No kidding.

[00:04:05]>> Yeah, it is a pretty well thought out tea program because I care so much about it and I know that tea cup offerings are >> Are you saying that because you designed it?

[00:04:13]>> Um >> [laughter] >> You know, that might be part of it, but I also know that like this is, you know, tea and coffee go hand in hand, and as far as, you know, what people are looking for, we got to get them set without caffeine as well.

[00:04:26]Just a lot to explore in the tea world.

[00:04:28]>> All right, so over here where Sarah and um and Irma are working, what what is the station over here? What are they doing?

[00:04:34]>> what they are doing is they're making our uh espresso coffees.

[00:04:37]>> Okay.

[00:04:39]>> Yeah, and so they are getting all of our drinks ready that are not either tea or hot coffee.

[00:04:45]>> Got you. Okay, so so our menu then again, forgive my ignorance then, is tea, coffee, espresso, like what what what else?

[00:04:53]>> Yeah, so we've got signature drinks um that are either coffee or espresso.

[00:04:59]We've got two uh specials that are tea specials, and then of course, we'll have a pour-over offering soon there with our modbar pour-over setup, and then also this wonderful tea program.

[00:05:12]Um and then next week we'll start with some baked goods from Bittersweet Bake House.

[00:05:16]>> There's going to be food here, too?

[00:05:18]>> Yes, we're going to have breakfast sandwiches, vegan popovers. My most the thing I'm most excited for is the uh weekend pop-tarts, homemade pop-tarts, yeah.

[00:05:28]Yeah, she's great at what she does.

[00:05:30]>> Homemade pop-tarts?

[00:05:32]Give me a hint on what some of the flavors are going to >> Oh man, right now she's doing seasonal stuff. So we're seeing strawberries and blueberries.

[00:05:38]>> yeah. That is so cool.

[00:05:40]>> Yeah.

[00:05:41]>> Very, very cool. All right, as we can see outside, the line continues. I think I saw Rhonda walk in at some point. Do you know if Rhonda's here somewhere?

[00:05:49]Where is she? There she is. Rhonda, what you doing over there?

[00:05:54]Ah, I see. I see. All right, very good.

[00:05:57]Uh producer Mary.

[00:05:59]Producer Mary.

[00:06:01]What are you doing, producer Mary?

[00:06:03]Are you hiding?

[00:06:06]Oh, absolutely. Yeah, we can do whatever we want on this stream.

[00:06:11]All right, so a very cool behind the scenes of all the things that we have here at Foreground Coffee. Honestly, I had no idea that we had the teas and I I knew the espressos simply because I saw the espresso machine, but food is coming as well. How cool is that? We'll take a short break here on Local 4 Live. When we come back, much more from Foreground Coffee in downtown Portland.