Cuppa Connections Episode 11: Rise and Thrive with Kalen Bingham, Owner of Thrive Coffee Company

I love great stories, and Kalen Bingham gives us one. 

Listen to Kalen's story of how she went from being a fourth grade teacher to becoming the budding owner of Thrive Coffee Company in Greensboro, NC. 

Her passion for giving the community of Greensboro, her hometown, not only a great cup of coffee, but a warm and heartfelt experience each and every time you visit her mobile coffee cart.

I hope that you will enjoy her amazing journey.

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Transcript

Portia: 0:00

Hey guys, welcome to Cuppa Connections. I'm Portia, and we're here coming to you from our virtual cafe, Better with a Cup of Coffee. We are savoring relationships with coffee lovers around the world and sharing their experiences that have been better with a cup of coffee. I'm here with this episode today because I wanted to share with you a slice of home for me. Home for me is in Greensboro, North Carolina. And so, I've been checking out this coffee company called Thrive Coffee, for a while. The special thing about them is that they're mobile coffee company. Their story is wonderful. So today I have Kalen Bingham from Thrive Coffee. How are you doing?

Kalen: 0:47

I'm good. I hope you are.

Portia: 0:49

I am. So tell me, how is it being an owner of a coffee company?

Kalen: 0:59

It's a lot of fun. I used to be a fourth grade teacher. So I was in a classroom with tiny humans for majority of my short career and teaching. And so, running a coffee business is really cool because you get to meet so many incredible people within your community. And, I never even realized what I was missing out on being trapped in the classroom. Don't get me wrong. I loved my experience teaching. It helped me grow so much as a human and set me up to pursue these dreams I'm now pursuing. But, I absolutely love getting to meet really awesome people and connecting with groups of people that I never even knew existed within our communities. That's been my favorite part for the most part.

Portia: 1:43

Your husband, Chris is your partner in crime. He is part owner of Thrive. Chris Is not with us today, I met you guys at the charity event that was for Chez Genese. Guys, I have to set this up. It was a charity event for a local coffee shop. They're doing some wonderful things to themselves in the community. I was feening for coffee, and I knew that there was going to be a coffee station there, but you guys weren't there yet. Everyone else was around there, the alcohol beverages and so forth. And then, all of a sudden you guys showed up. I'm thinking, oh yeah, this is great. Great. I was too late. The line was ridiculous. Wasn't it? It's crazy. Well, we did not expect it at seven o'clock at night, to have such a line. We weren't really prepared for that, but it was a nice surprise. And Kalen I will never forget this. I came home and I told my wife this. It was amazing how you interacted with everyone with me. Cause I was wanting your attention. I wanted to do an interview, blah, blah, blah. And you were trying to make some money. You were trying to sell some coffee. but So anyway, here she is with a smile on her face consistently doing her thing and, and along with Chris by her side, it seemed like you had so much fun, like genuine fun. That there's something deeper there. So, let's start with this. Why coffee?

Kalen: 3:07

I just truly feel like the connection that happens over a cup of coffee is natural. It's comforting. Like there's something about like sitting down at a coffee shop and having a drink that allows you to go deeper into conversation and connection with people, even more so than alcoholic beverages sometimes. Um, it sets you up to have true communication and connection with people. And I just have found that within the coffee community, that everybody is, is so supportive everyone wants to grow together. Coffee people are just the best kind of people I found out really quickly. And it was something I wanted to be a part of.

Portia: 3:48

I agree, 100%. You have a mobile coffee station. Tell us where those locations generally are.

Kalen: 3:55

The way our cart even started. So I told you I was a fourth grade teacher as of last year. Like this time last year, I quit my job and had absolutely no idea what I was going to do with my life. Like no clue. I, um, jokingly pitched to a friend who owns a business in downtown Greensboro that she should let me put a coffee bar inside of her business. And she said, oh, I love that idea. Let's do it. Thrive was born. Kind of out of a joke. And I was like, oh, I think I could, I think I could actually roll with this. Like, let me see if I can make this happen. So that place is called ABBA Design. She's a wedding planner. She's a florist, event planner. And so that started as our home base. And then we figured out really quickly that people love the idea of bringing a coffee bar to other events to wherever you are. And so, we're there most often, but we also have done pop-ups, we've done private events, we've done weddings, a little bit of everything and it just is really cool to be able to go out into the community and essentially set up our coffee shop where wherever somebody would like for it to be.

Portia: 5:07

I know. That's really cool. I'm a native of Greensboro. Are you born and raised here?

Kalen: 5:13

Um hum. Born and raised. Yep.

Portia: 5:14

So I've traveled all over. I've lived in England. I lived in Colorado. I lived in LA, but I came back home. And over the course of, I don't know, 20, 30 years, I've noticed a change in the coffee culture. It is booming.

Kalen: 5:29

Yeah.

Portia: 5:29

It really is booming. And, it's different for every company. Every coffee shop seems to have a different theme. But, I think the common denominator is that the owners they love a great community. It's a community of friends and family, so to speak. When you get to know them, it's like, Hey, how are you doing? How's the business going? What's going on in your life? You know? And, that's pretty special. What are the things are you guys doing within the community that Thrive has paved a way for?

Kalen: 6:00

I will kind of say like our avenue, something that I have as my years, as a teacher may be more and more passionate about was empowering women and connecting with other women in the community. And so, early on in Thrive's journey, I got connected with a group called Girls Gathered Triad, and it's a group of women entrepreneurs all coming together as a community. We do different pop-ups together and support each other. And I owe our growth tremendously to that group of women because they accepted us, and they have helped us just network with other people and really, really just grow the business over the course of the last year. Getting to connect with those women and hear their stories because they are from different countries, like all over.

Portia: 6:48

Really?

Kalen: 6:49

Yeah. And, getting to work with them and build each other up as women in business has been super rewarding.

Portia: 6:56

Oh, that is rewarding to hear. And what I mean by that is, we have a lot of universities here. Right. And we, we have a lot of young people here, but the thing about that is, is the young people. They grabbed their degrees and then they leave.

Kalen: 7:11

Yep.

Portia: 7:12

But then you have yourself and you have your husband reaching out and being a part of that community, and staying here. That's really great for our community of young people, young women, then also young people to know that Greensboro is moving in the right direction. It's thriving as

Kalen: 7:33

what it

Portia: 7:34

What. What is it Rise and Thrive?

Kalen: 7:36

Rise and Thrive. That's our tagline. Yeah.

Portia: 7:38

What is, what does that mean? Exactly.

Kalen: 7:41

Whenever I was trying to come up with the name of the business. I really wanted something that would resonate with me, and you know, be like a, a good foundation to launch from, and the word thrive itself means to grow or develop well or vigorously. And over the last couple of years, I've just been really passionate about growing as a human and creating change within our community and I just thought that that was a great launching pad. And so Rise and Thrive is just, you know, wake up and thrive, grow or develop well or vigorously. And so, and it also just looks really cool on a t-shirt too The meaning of the name was really, really special to me. It was important for me to choose something that I resonated with and that that's where we landed.

Portia: 8:28

Oh, that's cool. I do remember that you guys are no longer going to be mobile. You're going to be a part of a shop? What's that about?

Kalen: 8:38

Yeah. So, we actually were going to do both. So, okay. We're going to keep the cart. We're going to be able to continue to do all the events and pop-ups and all of that. So, we launched in November of 2021. In, uh, February of 2022, we were approached by another female business owner and she said, Hey, I have this space that's not being used. Would you be interested in opening a shop there? And that wasn't even something that was really on my radar at the time. Like, I was still trying to figure out the whole mobile thing and like being a business owner and all of that. And so I wasn't even thinking about it, but she approached us and ended up meeting her, and we saw the space and we're like, wow, like this, This is such a good opportunity. And so from there, so she has her own business that it's, it's going to be a shared space concept. So she has her own business there as well. But, that allowed us to partner with another woman business owner who owns a charcuterie board business. And so she's going to be in our kitchen. So it's kind of like. Our new space will be a hub for these three women in business to share together.

Portia: 9:46

So you have coffee. Then you have, okay. Tell me again, what was you said it, but I, I didn't understand.

Kalen: 9:53

So she has a charcuterie board business, so like the meat and cheese boards, like she, yeah. So she's going to be in the kitchen, and she'll have some of her boards that she'll be able to sell. And then, Saunder is the space that we're all in and they are a health and wellness center. So they have a massage therapist, they have a physical therapist, they have sensory deprivation, like flotation tanks. They have a sauna. It's a spot where you can kind of check all your boxes, um, mental health. Yeah. It's really cool.

Portia: 10:30

Oh, when does that start? I'm coming.

Kalen: 10:35

As soon as possible. We're currently doing some build out to kind of create the space to make it more of our own. And, that's taking a little bit of time. So, we're hoping like in the next couple months we'll be off the ground there.

Portia: 10:46

Now, when you're looking at downtown Greensboro, you're closer to the corner of Elm and Gate City Boulevard. Right?

Kalen: 10:55

Yeah, we're on the south end of town. So we're closer to that, but we're kinda like right after the railroad tracks, heading towards the south end of town, where there's that intersections of all those new businesses like Louis and Elm and Bourbon Bowl and that, that kind of. We're excited for that location because that's really where Greensboro has grown tremendously in the last couple of years.

Portia: 11:20

It has. I don't know if this is still a go, but I believe that they're going to put a grocery store at that lot there as well. But, they've been wanting to do that for years. Don't quote me, but that is a possibility. But, you're right. That part of Greensboro is building, you know, at one point it was, the central part of downtown where the baseball stadium is located. Then w we had, La Bauer.

Kalen: 11:47

La Bauer Park. Yeah.

Portia: 11:48

And then we had the events center Tanger. I guess the natural progression is going towards the south part of Elm because there's a lot of

Kalen: 11:59

beyond Gate City too. Yeah. They're wanting to develop that direction. So

Portia: 12:04

Is that right? Oh, and that's going to be great for foot traffic for you guys.

Kalen: 12:10

I am so excited. And like I said, it just kind of happened, and I've just taken some chances and said yes, These opportunities came up, and I'm really, really excited to see where it goes from here.

Portia: 12:22

The future is bright girl. So, if anyone is interested for your coffee hearing this podcast, what do you serve? What's your menu? Our most popular drink, I love to go back and geek out over our data that we collect because our point of sale system gives us a breakdown of what's the most common drink and what changes people will make to these drinks.

Kalen: 12:44

Like what flavors are the top of that kind of thing. And so we sell like 80% lattes. That's our biggest thing, because we do have some fun flavors that we like to put out. Like when we first launched our whiskey maple flavor was the most popular that was in the fall of last year. Yeah. I use like a zero proof whiskey and organic maple syrup to create a housemade simple syrup. That one was for sure our best seller in the fall. And then I just love to offer like specialty drinks for each season. So like we're going to release our summer menu really soon too. So just trying to cater towards each season. So yeah, lattes are by far the most popular, but we can do cappuccinos. We can do shots of espresso. I also offer Macha too, for my non-coffee drinkers. We have teas for my non coffee drinkers. A little something for everybody. Like I have a friend that comes to see me every Sunday, and she does not drink coffee, but during the winter she'll get like a steamer. So she gets to try our flavors with some. Um, steamed milk. So, it's something for everybody.

Portia: 13:51

What I love about it is it's just, it's fresh. It's freshly made for every customer. I mean, coffee levers we're particular, but the one thing we love and I hope I can speak for some people we love fresh coffee. That creates that buzz, right?

Kalen: 14:10

Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah. I've had people come in and this one guy, in particular, take your particular. He came in in the fall and it came back in the spring and he said, um, we wanted to come back and try you. And he said, cause this was the best cup of coffee we'd ever had. And we wanted to see if it was a fluke. We are very selective about what roaster we've chose. And, we want to maintain the level of quality. That's the most important thing to me. Even going into this new season where I'm having to hire people because for the last eight months it's been just me. And so I want to hire people who are also going to maintain that same level of quality. I'm not going to put out a drink that isn't the perfect shot of espresso, or if the milk isn't exactly the way it should be. I will not serve something like that.

Portia: 14:58

A couple of questions. What was his drink of choice?

Kalen: 15:02

He had that, the whiskey maple latte.

Portia: 15:09

Second question is how did you get started with learning about coffee, learning how to attach to create? Because you know, you can, I'll be honest with you. I can create an espresso here or a latte or cappuccino, but can I do it well? How did you get that experience?

Kalen: 15:27

Yeah, so it, coffee is more of an art than I ever could have imagined. And my husband actually had an opportunity. A few years ago. We had a very, very close friend who actually owns another shop in Greensboro who allowed my husband to train with the roaster that he trained with when he first opened his shop. And so my husband was able to get some experience from them and then carry that over. He helped me in the beginning and we honestly just watched a lot of YouTube videos, like trying to learn from like the best of the best in the industry on YouTube and just soaking in all of their content. Like there's a couple of guys that are just. The Kings of coffee and we watched a lot of their videos. For example, my latte art in the beginning to where it is now. I mean, in the beginning, I just had do it over and over and over and over again. And I've just had to learn as I go. It's an art, it's a craft, and I'm still learning every day. I'm no means an expert barista at all.

Portia: 16:37

And you know what I love the honesty because nobody's looking for perfection. They just want a great cup of coffee, but I will be honest with you again, your personality carries I'm serious. It really does. Cause your energy was, I mean, it was crazy that night from what I saw, but your energy was just really on it, and it was genuine and that's what people love. Yeah. You can make a good cup of coffee, but what comes with it is extremely important as well.

Kalen: 17:04

So absolutely. Absolutely because it's gonna be that human connection that's going to bring someone back before a really good cup of coffee does.

Portia: 17:13

Yeah. And you love what you do. God, I just, I just enjoy that. I mean, who doesn't love coffee. Well, yeah, I'm sorry. I take that back. I know there are a lot of people who don't love coffee, but I'm talking to a coffee,

Kalen: 17:26

But, a lot of those people haven't tried craft quality coffee. I honestly did not. I hated coffee for a really long time. And then I was in college. And, a shop opened up in my college town. So my friends wanted to go and I just remember the people that opened the shop. They were so gracious. They were excited that we were there cause they had just opened and they gave us all free black coffee. And I'm like, I'm not trying to offend these guys by dumping a bunch of milk and sugar in this coffee. So I just took it as it was. And I remember trying that, and I was like, wow, this is different than any of that other coffee I've ever tried. And so choosing the correct roaster and the correct beans makes a insane difference.

Portia: 18:14

You know when you have a good bean, because when you have a good bean and it is prepared well, you can drink it black.

Kalen: 18:21

Yup.

Portia: 18:22

Now I think about it. I don't even know why I put cream in my coffee right now. Speaking of roasting, who is your roaster? Do you have someone local or?

Kalen: 18:32

So, when we were first selecting a roaster, we really wanted to select someone that wasn't already in Greensboro. So we made sure to like look around at all of our options. And at the time we weren't aware of anybody that was a local coffee roaster. And so we actually selected Methodical Coffee, which is out of Greenville, South Carolina, which is still a local coffee producer. They have just been insanely incredible to work with. I, I can't say enough good things about them. All their coffee is phenomenal and, being like such a small startup, we just figured we'd be like a tiny drop in their bucket, but the founders have gone out of their way to reach out to us and check in on us and have offered to come to Greensboro to help us with training and all of that. And so, their customer service has gone above and beyond and really blown us away.

Portia: 19:25

Oh that's special. Do you want to give a shout out to your University since they started it all for you. The town where you went to school?

Kalen: 19:35

Yeah, so actually I went to Appalachian State University, which is in the mountains of North Carolina, and Hatchet Coffee was the first coffee roaster that made me fall in love with specialty coffee.

Portia: 19:47

That is so funny. I did an episode with the Local Lion.

Kalen: 19:51

Oh, no way.

Portia: 19:52

Yes. I think it was probably two or three episodes ago.

Kalen: 19:56

That is funny. Used to go there in college too. I like to go there for the donuts.

Portia: 20:03

Oh, Lord stop talking about those donuts. Josiah was, amazing. He is such a down-home good person. And he spoke about the community as well. That's the whole thing about coffee companies, coffee shops, coffee roasters is that community is huge for you guys.

Kalen: 20:22

And like you said, like we all have different styles and different markets. And so my big thing that I've said from the very beginning is community over competition. And there's so many local coffee shop owners that have adopted that as well. And they have the same mentality. Like for example, there's a coffee shop that just opened. That's going to be down the street from our shop. And she came in the other day and was just so excited to support us, bought a t-shirt got some coffee.

Portia: 20:50

Oh, wow.

Kalen: 20:51

She was like, Hey, I have some extra milk do you just want some of it, like you have these events this weekend and literally like went in there and got some milk from her and used it for my customers. Yeah. It just is like, we all were supporting each other and helping each other. And it's just the way it should be. It's such a healthier way to run businesses and, be a part of the community together instead of trying to chase each other down and, be competitive with one another.

Portia: 21:19

Absolutely. But, that helps you all thrive. I mean, if I could say that name again, you picked a good name because here I am, I'm just using it in every sentence it seems. What is the name of the lady? What does the name of her coffee shop?

Kalen: 21:31

Yeah. So she owns, Northern Roots Coffee, which is on Elm Street in Greensboro. They just launched like a month ago maybe. And she has been absolutely wonderful. Her and I had a really long conversation about just her being super transparent about being a new shop owner. And she was like, listen, this is what's gone wrong. And this is what's gone wrong. And I wouldn't recommend you doing this, but just her being so open and willing to talk about those things with me, who some people would consider like competition right down the road. Right? We just don't see it that way. Like, I'll send people her way. When she sends people my way. We just have this love for coffee in the community, and we want to support each other.

Portia: 22:12

What's her name?

Kalen: 22:13

Trina.

Portia: 22:14

Trina. Hey Trina, I like that. And, you know, I would actually go see her to thank her for doing such a good deed for you because, you know, that's kind of that paying forward thing, and I'm sure it seems like you have that same heart to do that for someone else. It is not a competition because you know, you kind of get in your own way when you think about, the competition of another business or are they going to take my business away? No, it's not about that because you have your own niche, you know?

Kalen: 22:45

Exactly. And the more people that love coffee in Greensboro, the better for everybody.

Portia: 22:50

It is so true. Oh my goodness. This has been a thrill. It honestly has. I mean, I'm, I'm stuck. You're an Instagram, um, under thrive coffee company. Yeah.

Kalen: 23:05

Thrive Coffee Co GSO.

Portia: 23:08

Are you on Facebook or any other platform?

Kalen: 23:10

Yep. Also on Facebook Thrive Coffee Co on Facebook, Thrive Coffee Co on Tik Tok.

Portia: 23:20

Guys, they have a list of their times and where they are for the week, which is pretty cool. They will give you what their schedule is like for the whole week, which I do. I do like. Oh my goodness, Kalen, thank you so much. Go women power. Honestly, it's very, very nice to hear positive stories about ladies within the community just doing their thing and thriving and shining the way that you are.

Kalen: 23:44

Well, thank you for having me.

Portia: 23:46

You're welcome. I will talk soon. Ok. Bye. Bye

Kalen: 23:49

Yeah. See you soon. K.Bye. Bye.

Portia: 23:51

I'm Portia White, and I hope you've enjoyed today's conversation. I'd like to give a special thanks to our sponsor, betterwithacupofcoffee.com. If you like what you heard, please rate and review our podcast. And join us again soon at Cuppa Connections.