SHORTS 2 | Lauren Storeby with Snack Attack!

Welcome to the Loco Shorts Podcast from Loco Think Tank. In this podcast series, Loco Business Developer Rory Shah will help unfold bite-sized business learnings through the crazy experiences the business owners face along their small business journey. Listen in and listen up because these short business stories may just have the secret ingredient to taking your business to its next level of success. Okay, so this is the Loco Shorts Podcast. So I'm Rory Shah, I'm with Loco Think Tank and I have the unique privilege today to talk to you and share more information with you with a business owner Lauren Storby. She is actually the co-owner of Snack Attack in Fort Collins and when I had the privilege of talking with Lauren the first time I got to know more about her passion for business and people in community and that was a story that I wanted to share with our Loco audience because I think a lot of business owners get stuck sometimes in tunnel vision of having a good product or service but looking up and being able to see the bigger picture of how that impact really the community around you is a big thing. So Lauren's story stuck out to me and I wanted to share that with you. So I thought I would have her on. So Lauren, welcome, tell us more about you, your business and how you got started. Sure. Well, thank you. First of all for having us. We love to do this kind of stuff. It's a great way to share our story, our message, what we're about. So good morning and thanks for having me. So Snack Attack is a place where you can come to have a really great sandwich, salad, wrap, local craft beer. A lot of people get stuck on just like the Snack Attack name. We don't do snacks, it's all about the full experience. So it's about coming in, having a great meal, having a great conversation, having a great beer and then leaving feeling satisfied. My husband and I own it together. He is actually currently at the shop, running the show there. And we basically just had this dream, you know, it's going to sound cliche, but we had this dream of opening a sandwich in beer shop. And we moved to Fort Collins about four years ago and we jumped right in, we found our location. We opened our doors June 19th of 2017 and it has been a wild ride to say the least. But we, you know, we had this dream, my husband came from the Marine Corps, he was in the Marine Corps for nine and a half years, so we are better and owned. And I came primarily from the fashion industry and we just wanted to change life. We wanted to work for ourselves. We're both really hard, passionate, committed, dedicated workers and we just realized if we're going to be putting all of this work and effort into someone else's business, like what are the possibilities if we could do that for ourselves and still, you know, we would spend more time together, we would have more time with our kids. And then in turn, just really dive into what was our biggest goal was just to create community. We used to love to entertain at our house, like barbecue's all the time, having people over dinner and we thought, that would be kind of cool, like we'll have a sandwich bar and we can, we can entertain people like strangers and make new friends and have other people meet and, you know, start conversations and we, you know, not so much now with COVID, but like we used to see it all the time, people would come in, they just stay for hours, have conversations and, and other friends and now they come, come back in together and they're having beers together. So it's really fun to see relationships build and community build and really just, you know, it around the beer, right? Like it's beer and food and having just positive connections really all around. But yeah, really focus on quality ingredients, freshly prepared ingredients as local as possible, offering organic items and, and really creating a space for like families to come. If you know, you know, we've got two kids, it's hard to go out to eat sometimes and you don't want to go to like a nice restaurant because you feel bad, you leave a mess and we just have a really welcoming space that, you know, leave the mess. We got it, we know what it's like, your kids can be loud, it's totally fine, but also offering menu items that are like nutritious and good for them and just higher quality, but still tasting really good too. So I guess that's it in a nutshell. Yeah, absolutely, that's great. So I'm curious to know how 2020 has been for you and before COVID during COVID, you know, knowing restaurants were hit a little bit harder because of the shutdown, how, how is this here? I know it's like, I can say this all the time. I think we talked about it. I'm like, I feel like it's ground, it's groundhogs day, you wake up and you're like, are we still dealing with this? Okay, we are. Okay, well, there's only one way to look at this. We just had to stay positive. We got to keep moving forward. We got to start finding opportunities going into 2020. So we, you know, we just had a little girl. She's almost four months old. Everything was lining up, right? Like timing was lining up. Oh, perfect. We're going to have this baby in June. I'm not going to have to work because we're going to be busy. Usually summertime is our busy time. We kind of like bulk up for the winter because business does start to slow down, come fall in winter. And then it was like February, you know, you start watching the news. We're watching what's going on and like, oh man, this is, this is not looking good. So we were just coming out of our slow time, coming out of January, February, which are typically slower because of the weather and people are just staying indoors. And boom, COVID hits. Okay, how are we going to pivot? We had, my husband and I had multiple conversations of how are we going to, are we going to stay open? Are we going to close? I got kicked out of this shop because I was pregnant. They completely to online for probably a good couple of months. I want to say it's, it's kind of hard to remember right now since it's kind of been like, hold that thought. She's, she's making noise over here. So basically we went, we pivoted to completely online. So luckily we have a really great online service. Our POIS system is ran through Toast. We are already online and it was just a great easy platform. We even before we got, you know, like closed shutdown on capacity, we were already sanitizing, taking all the precautions, keeping our staff safe. We weren't letting anybody in the restaurant, you know, is just employees. Our delivery service were with Noco Nosh. They're a local independently owned delivery platform. So we had already fully transitioned to them. So for us, it was, we were able to really switch our business model literally within a couple hours. Once we got the word that Governor Polis was letting us do to go beers, we, we immediately switched over to to go beers. So luckily having those systems in place already, it was just, you know, re-educating our staff on how things are ran, re-educating our customers, how things were ran, and just really putting our foot down as far as like safety is concerned, right? Like people, they would be walking in the restaurant and you're like, you just walk by five signs that said do not come in the restaurant. So having to like guide, you know, guide our guests and have patience and grace with our guests because not every restaurant was functioning the same way. But we also, you know, along with, with changing over our platforms, we were able to, because we're so community-driven, we did some community initiatives, campaigns. We fed our healthcare workers for a good couple of months. We, it was like over 1,100 people that we, we fed through community donations. We did, we were tied for a cause because we were promoting curbside pickups. So it was 5% of our sales for a certain day would go to a certain organization. We partnered with the Food Bank of Lamar County. We partnered with the New Belgium Restaurant and Really Fund. So we had, you know, just ways of staying engaged and still giving back to the community because we knew, yes, we were hurting, but we knew there was a lot of other people. I mean, everybody has been affected one way or the other. And we felt, since we were still busy and functioning, we wanted to give back and show our appreciation for, you know, frontline workers and for other restaurant folks that did lose their jobs. We did have to lay off a good portion of our staff, but we wanted to somehow give back still. So yeah, we did like a small business giveaway. We partnered with some of our favorite small businesses in town and did Instagram giveaways and it's been hard because we love having people around and we love having groups of people around and make people in. It's just not safe to do so right now. So we have had to really pivot on what that looks like, but, you know, going into this like fall on winter season was still having limited capacity and having these health restrictions in place. We have a couple ideas that we're getting ready to roll out to still get community involvement going on and still being involved because people are still craving it. People are still craving community. They're craving socialization, but how do you do it in a safe way that we're abiding by these health code laws and keeping people safe, but also getting people out together to still socialize? So, you know, 2020 has been, it's been a storm. It's one, it's a dumpster fire. It's a reset year. It's, you know, you really have had to dive into your business and look at where things are functioning, where they're not. Kind of like, you know, as you say, cutting away the fat, some businesses are going to get through, some are not. And it really comes down to thinking outside of the box and it comes down to changing. You have to, you have to be able to change and adjust. Absolutely. And get the message out. That's been a big, big part of it is educating, you know, your client base, new people and keeping the message clear and and really, but for us, it's been primary number one has been keeping our staff safe. Number two, keeping our guests safe too. And a lot of people that have appreciated, you know, we're very strict on how we run things. And it is what it is. If you don't want to wear a mask when you're inside our establishment, we're not going to give you service. So yeah, I imagine that there's a lot of critical things that you had to learn quickly. And it sounds like you adapted to and hasn't just since already in place to even get there a little bit faster. So that I guess that also shows to the being small and agile is helpful for small businesses as well. So I'm curious to given all that. How do you recharge as a business owner? Because it's not been easy sometimes, then you work with your husband, your co-owners. How do you recharge? That's a really great question. We, you know, over the last three and half years or so, it has been a learning curve for us as a married couple as business owners to really trust in the other person. So he is very operational driven. I'm operational driven, but I'm also like the creative side. So really learning how to let go, right? Because we're both very passionate and we both want things so bad. But you have to listen to your partner, whether it's your husband, wife, or business partner, you have to trust in them and you have to let some of that control go because otherwise, you're going to get nowhere. That's one thing we've learned. We do, you know, we talk about business at home, but we have also learned, okay, this is just this is family time. Like this is, we're not talking about stuff. We've kind of like been able to like lock out times where it's like, okay, this is the right time to talk about something. This is not the right time to talk about something. We luckily, one good thing about COVID is that we reduced our hours and we reduced our open days. So we closed on Sundays for a long time. So that was actually a great blessing. We, you know, Sean was able to, he was working seven days a week and so he was able to come home on Sundays, stay home with us. We're in a little bit of a shorting, a staff shorting right now. So he's back to working seven days a week, but here's a thing that's you kind of sign up for this, right? Like when you own a small business, if there's nobody, you're the one who has to step up to the plate. So it is what it is right now. That was like a really great recharge for our family. But, you know, honestly, like when you when you have a business and you go into it for the right reasons, you're so passionate about it that it's not, it doesn't feel like work, right? Like you're doing it because you love it. And specifically in restaurants, you better love what you're doing because otherwise you're just, you're going to get beat down a long hours. It's not hours. You work so hard and there's so many moving parts. There's so many things to pay attention to. Um, guess satisfaction is like every single time someone comes in the door, you have to hit, you have to hit it 100%. Um, because you're working with such low margins and your inventory, it has a certain shelf life, you know, it's not like a retail boutique where you have clothes that can sit on the floor for for longer than seven days, we have to turn and burn our inventory. Otherwise, that's just ways that it's mounting out the door. So, you know, for us, it's, it's really just been being able to find that, that give and take that balance and just listening to your partner, I mean, you have to, you have to give them grace, right? You have to give them space just like in a regular relationship. Um, and just find what those limitations are and trust. It's been a lot about trusted and, and um, letting that person do what they are best at. Yeah, I appreciate that. It's, it's good to acknowledge that. It's like you've done in any relationship and be a little more mindful knowing that that person at work, you will see later as well. So I'm curious to know how you handle the transition from other other worlds, other industries into your first ever restaurant. How did you learn the key minimal things and maybe to start what you need to do? So that's another great question. It's really, it's, it's just really interesting how life can come full circle. I grew up in, in restaurants, my parents had a restaurant when I was eight and I grew up in restaurants. Like that was primarily all that I'd do. I, from the age of 18, I worked in a burger shop, I worked in a fro-yo sandwich shop, I worked at a burger place, I worked, um, for yardhouse restaurants, I worked for family owned, I worked for corporate, I did bottle service bartending, like I did everything for managing and owning or opening a restaurant. And that was in college, like that's how I supported myself. What I really wanted to do is I, you know, back in the day, I ended up going to fashion school. I graduated from fashion school. I started working in a, the apparel world out in SoCal. I worked as a product developer. I had never gone to school for product development but I landed a job at Oakley and I got thrown into this position and it's all about building. It's like about building a garment. So you're looking at quality, you're looking at pricing, you're looking at where you're sourcing things from, you're looking at color, merchandising, branding, graphics, all these things that I, I didn't know that I loved it so much. And I spent about 12 years being a product developer for big brands, learning all these little things that I had no idea down the road would actually come to fruition to do what we're doing. And so you get food, you're looking at cost. I mean, you're down to the penny on things. You're looking at how you're building menu items, like how you're merchandising, how your graphics are looking, marketing, all these things that over the 12 years, I didn't realize I was actually going to be able to apply to food. Yeah, it's incredible. Absolutely. Yeah, it's just interesting. So you could take these same principles and concepts and apply them to different products, right? And then with my husband's background of being in the military and having this very strategic operational mindset of, you know, work, work, what is it? Better, not harder, or like, what is that saying? Smarter, smarter, not harder. Yes, so smarter, not harder, right? So just being really efficient and how you run a tight, a tight ship, really, because that's what the Marine Corps is all about is being, is being efficient. And, you know, how do you, how do you get, how do you get that mission accomplished and all that? So having his operational line and then my creative side, we have done everything on our own from creating a logo from our menu building to even like the shop build out. We're really hands on like, we're DIYers. So as like, if we could do that ourselves, like, why not just do it ourselves and take full ownership of it? So yeah, it is pretty interesting how all of that really does come full circle. And when you have the passion for it too, and I mean, we just love great food. We love, we love sandwiches. We love salads. We love wraps. So it was kind of no brainer to put all that together and, and create a snack attack. Oh yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah. So I'm also curious, what is your next big milestone with a business? Oh, man. So we have a couple things. I mean, every year we're in business, that's like a huge celebration for us. So it was like, we made it to year three. We were, man, even amongst COVID, that was like a huge, huge milestone for us. Originally, our plan was to open another location by year three. Obviously, it's probably not going to happen this year, but we're talking a little bit. Yeah, we're talking about it. We're going to start looking for locations. We're not sure when that's going to happen, but we know there's a need out there. We know that people love us. They're traveling from other cities outside of Fort Collins. So it's going to happen. I mean, I don't want to quote myself, but you know, maybe a year, you're going to have something like that. We also have a really fun, grab-and-go program that is distributed to local coffee shops. So we're going to continue to build that. Really, for us, it's just, we just want to keep chugging along. We want to keep our business growing even amongst COVID, and just doing some more fun community stuff. We're going to be doing like a virtual bingo with some local restaurants. So nice. Yeah, just keep building, honestly, it's like still building community and still educating people on what snack attack is all about. That's fantastic. Right. And it doesn't mean that has to stop. And I think you've shown a lot of creativity and innovation and working with others and partnerships and making all of this happen and continue for you. And it sounds like you've seen growth too, which is pretty tremendous. Yeah, I mean, considering, you know, we're not like, we're not like this, but we're like this. I mean, I'm fine with people like this. I think I like kind of swimming along rather than being like crashing and burning and not being able to come out of this. You know, like I mentioned earlier, there's, there's going to be a lot of restaurants that aren't going to make it through this. And for us, it's really ramping up and figuring out how to get through these winter months without having full capacity. But our travel so well would take out and delivery that we're really going to invest in marketing and those avenues and just trying to get through that until February. That's that's where our mindset is right now. Got it. My last question for you is, do you have any tips or tools or really key, maybe even crazy lessons that you've learned that you would want to share with other business owners? Oh, tips and tools. Let's see. Oh, well, tips, you know, keep staying positive because if you have a positive mindset, I think anything is possible. Another tip, think outside the box. Never, never say never. That's for sure. Never say you're not going to do something because that might be your next opportunity. Or collaborate. I think that a lot of people think of other businesses that are like yours are competition. When in turn, we really are all in this together and it's better to link arms than to, you know, have like competition. Yeah, yeah, we've got competitors and stuff. But, you know, when we're all in it together supporting each other, we're all going to shine. That's what it comes down to. I really truly believe you've got to have a plan. You've got to invest in the in your infrastructure to make sure that you have these platforms that are going to make your life so much easier. I mean, you know, like you invest in a good POS system, invest in a great payroll company. Like invest in these platforms that are going to allow you to open up space to grow. That's definitely, you know, a tip and a tool. Support your community. I think that is a number one because honestly, if we did not do that, we would still not be open. If we did not decide to go back and link arms with our community, they would not be supporting us right back. That's a community. Always have your have your community because they're they will they'll carry you on your backs when you're down. That is essential, absolutely. Yeah. Well, that's awesome. I think those were very thorough actually and there's a few of them. So those were good tips. So thank you. Well, I think that's all for now. So we can wrap up. And so thank you for being on. I appreciate you sharing your business story. I also think you've done a phenomenal job of becoming a key part of the community and trying to find ways to stand out with with I wasn't going to say competitors, but now I feel like I can't with people who are in different types of restaurants. Yeah. But I think you've done a good job. So I appreciate you sharing your story and letting other business owners know how you got to where you are now. Well, thank you for having me. I love I love talking about it. I love talking about Fort Collins. I mean, we really truly do live in a very special place. And yeah, community is everything for us. I'm not sure if you saw there was an article that came out that said that Fort Collins is the best place to live in the United States. And I could not agree more. Yeah. It's hard when they're like, how widely is this distributed? Yeah. Don't tell everyone. I know. It's like, yeah, you're right. But don't share that. Right. We love it. It's good. Absolutely. Well, thank you, Lauren. I appreciate you sharing your story today. Thank you. Thank you for listening to today's episode of the LOCO Experience Podcast. This is Kurt Baer, founder of the LOCO Think Tank and host of the LOCO Experience. And I'm here with Rory Shah, LOCO Business Developer and host of the LOCO Shorts episodes. We hope you heard some new ideas and business perspectives in this episode. Our mission and all that we do, including this podcast, is to share collaborative business ideas and solutions that uplift the business community. Subscribe and follow us where you listen to podcasts to get new episodes as they are released. Curious about LOCO? You can learn more about us at LOCOthinktank.com where you'll find more information about our chapters, business resources, and events for business owners and key leaders. If you're looking for perspective, accountability, and encouragement along your business journey, why not apply for a chapter near you today? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? We'll catch you next time on the in-depth LOCO Experience Podcast with me, Kurt. And with me, Rory, for Bite Size Business Lessons and the LOCO Shorts. Bye!