CoCo Reflections from Celeste Bayer:
This Week’s CoCo: Be Here, Physically & Mentally
I think for many people this is a very difficult CoCo! Work is not the only thing that we have going on in our lives as we all know. Learning the work, life balance can be really hard and it tends to eb and flow. Because of this, we will never master this coco, which I always find a challenge. I also find that even if you want to hide that you may not mentally be there, your coworkers will know. Being honest and open with them I think can really help you re-engage and just help you to be there mentally and physically. I think an important part of this commitment is finding ways for you to take care of yourself. We all have things that take stress off and help us to refocus. For me, it is cleaning and listening to music and any type of physical activity (besides running)! These activities give me space to think and just refocus before work. It kind of reminds me of the saying work hard, play hard (kind of). When you play hard (do activities you like) then you more likely will work hard. There is an important correlation in my mind. So I hope this week you not only work hard, but you also play hard.
Next Week’s CoCo: Prepare For Your Work
I recently went to the chiropractor for the first time. Prior to my visit, they asked me to fill out some initial paperwork to better understand my health goals. A lot of these goals were more looking to the future rather than the here and now. They asked me to do this so that they could be well prepared for when I came in and for me to know the reason why I am going. When I think about preparing for my work, I automatically connect it to meeting my goals or a step in the right direction. Anything you want to successfully do requires you to prepare for your work. Things do not just happen prior to that effort. If you want to run a marathon, you can’t just decide a week before that you are going to do it. Or you can but you will not get very far or hurt yourself. Rather you create a regimented plan to meet your goal. Now translate this to your everyday work! Though coming to work may be an unspoken goal, it is a goal nonetheless. I say work is an unspoken goal because it is an everyday task that leads you to your future goals. If you have a goal to own your own business one day, working as a manager is going to aid in that future goal. I challenge you to think of how you can prepare yourself now for your future goals? This type of thinking prepares you for your work now and for the future!
CoCo Heroes:
- Be Here, Physically & Mentally: This Core Commitment Hero comes from Production – Brooke Sherman! Brooke works full-time and is willing to be flexible and scale up and down as production needs it! She fills a great portion of our e-commerce orders among other Production tasks. One of the hardest things about being here physically and mentally is knowing when you will not be able to perform as necessary for any reason and speak up. Brooke is very self-aware and aware of her surroundings and speaks up to the right person at the right time if there is anything preventing her from doing her job 100%
- Prepare For Your Work: This Core Commitment Hero comes from the Bakery – Corina, Analisa, and Ellen! These three are always prepared for their day, on time, and regularly look for ways to prepare for the next day. Our Bakery Team loves knowing that they will have an opportunity to work with one of these three because they feel supported. They know they can rely on one of these team members to show up, look ahead, and crush it!
Going-Ons:
- Open Enrollment Details: Each year, all team members who are eligible for health benefits have the opportunity to enroll, change coverage, or waive coverage during Open Enrollment. Per the Employee Handbook, all team members who work an average of 30 hours or more over the course of 60 days and beyond are eligible to enroll in benefits. As a reminder, Open Enrollment is the only opportunity to enroll or make changes to coverage outside of the new hire enrollment period or a life event such as marriage, birth of a child, loss of alternative coverage, etc. Open Enrollment will begin on Monday, 11/7 and close on Wednesday, 11/16. If you are eligible for benefits, you will receive an email with Open Enrollment details from the Employee Care team, Rachel Perik and Celeste Bayer. Please reach out to Rachel Perik, rperik@stonecreekcoffee.com with any questions.
- Employee Satisfaction Survey: Hey Coffee Geeks! As you know, one of the most important things at Stone Creek Coffee is you! We care about you and the experiences that you have working here. To continue to never stop learning about areas in which we are excelling and areas that we can improve, we are conducting a super short employee survey. Your experience at Stone Creek Coffee is important to us, and this survey is another opportunity to share your thoughts. Click here to #SpeakUp and share your feedback by the end of the day on November 21st.
- Volunteer Time Reminder: Did you know that Stone Creek Coffee offers 16 hours of paid volunteer time to each employee every year to be involved in community projects? We would love to support you in having the opportunity to serve in a capacity that you are passionate about! If you are not sure where to start, here is a resource to get you started with a few volunteer ideas in the Milwaukee area. Don’t want to go by yourself? Coordinate a date with a coworker to two to join you! Once you find a date that works for you, email your team leader and teams@stonecreekcoffee.com to share how you plan to volunteer, then place a volunteer time off request via Paycor (make sure this is requested at least 21 days in advance). Reach out to teams@stonecreekcoffee.com with any questions and get out there to brew some change!
- 11/10 TNT: Mark your calendars! The next Thursday Night Throwdown is November 10th. This TNT is going to be a party- literally, a costume party! There will be two brackets, a beginner’s bracket and an experienced bracket, a Costume Contest, and a Rice Krispie Treat sculpting competition! We’ll be giving away prizes for all of the above! Please note that anyone who has been a barista for less than a year qualifies for the beginner’s bracket. Posters with QR codes will be making their way to cafes in the coming weeks!
- 11/17 Bakery Price Increase: With the Holiday Launch, we will also be implementing a price increase, mostly focused on our bakery. As noted previously, over the past 9 months we’ve seen steep increases in our costs across our product lines, our raw ingredients, our packaging, milk, butter, eggs, shipping, etc. It’s all going up, therefore we also need to raise our prices. We will be raising the prices of a few of our products including bagels, scones, croissants, phat slices, and cold case products. Please look for new price tags with the coming Holiday launch and be sure to swap them out. Tasks will be included in the Holiday checklists. In addition, the Bakery Leadership Team will be responsible for making updates to prices in Live and Square. If you have any questions, please reach out to Hailey at hbarsch@stonecreekcoffee.com.
- Employee Council Feedback and Follow-Up: Every other month Eric, our Managing Director, meets with the Employee Council which includes a representative from each area of the company to learn what is going well and what may need work in our spaces. This feedback is then reviewed and corresponding commitments are made. As a result of this work in September, we were able to address a number of work areas including some site-specific equipment fixes and more which can be found below. If you have any hot or not items you would like to share outside of NSL Workshops, please do not hesitate to connect with your team’s Employee Council
representative or reach out to teams@stonecreekcoffee.com.
Cider Recipe Audit | An updated cider recipe went out on 9/19 to all cafes. |
Production Vans: tire pressure & cracked windshield | Replaced windshield and tires repaired. |
Contamination in recycling. What is allowed in recycling? | It is unfortunately true that contamination in customer-facing recycling bins occurs, eg. when food debris is emptied into the recycling. We do have a helpful infographic in cafes, indicating that only hot cup lids and sleeves, plastic cups, gift cards, and cardboard should be recycled at condiment stations. Cafe teams should empty their “Bean Bag Mailbox” regularly and recycle eligible 1lb bags (current bags), sorting out 1/2lb and 5lb bags (not recyclable). We plan to review recycling signage again and will distribute any updated signage as needed following further review. |
Do we compost in any cafes and if not, should we start? | We currently compost at our Factory Cafe and plan to expand our composting program to more cafes next year. We are currently in the planning phase of this initiative & targeting March 2023 for compost program expansion to MKE area cafes. |
Menu Feedback: 16oz only listed | We believe (given Starbucks’ utilization of this process) that posting a singular price was sufficient. It also helps minimize the amount of clutter on the menus, making them easier to navigate for the customer. We also included the large “Sizes Available” box. We will continue to monitor this to see if there are continued issues where customers voice confusion over sizing. |
New menus had letters missing. Should we replace COD peel off with magnets and/or move to the bottom? Signs don’t fit well. | We are trying to find a system that is easier to execute, but we elected to mount this as we did so it is clearly visible to customers. Previously it was tough to determine what coffee was being brewed. We hear that it is a bit cumbersome for the baristas to keep up with the little grabber arms, but magnets would be harder to mount and some sort of track solution wouldn’t work well either. We’re open to suggestions about other potential systems, but we wanted to keep these as visible for customers as possible. |
Sample bags: ink rubs off, hard to fill, not being rotated. | There are not currently punch-stamps like the ones we use that have a more permanent ink. So, if the ink is not showing up well on the sample bags please use a permanent marker to carefully and legibly date the sample bags. While these bags are small and thus not super easy to stock, we know that customers are utilizing this program to share coffee or to find a particular coffee they love. We’re currently selling a little more than three samples per cafe per day. Over the last 48 days we sold 1,194 samples in our cafes alone. So at this stage, we don’t plan to make further adjustments to the program. We did install wood bottoms to the wire shelves to help these displays stay better organized. Regarding rotation, these should be inspected each day along with the rest of the bean shelves in order to mark out and give away old samples. |
Equipment Difficulties: Broken vacuum at Oconomowoc. Step ladder broken and Mythos challenges at Shorewood | All resolved by tech team; equipment replaced and/or fixed. |
Wins & Shout-outs:

Email the Employee Celebration Committee (celebrations@stonecreekcoffee.com) if you’d like to recognize or celebrate a teammate. Or if you want to make a public shout-out, email Val (vnewhouse@stonecreekcoffee.com) to include in the next Employee Newsletter!
Birthdays:
- 11/9 – Katie Fariss
- 11/13 Karen Strange
- 11/14 – Natalia Duchesneau
- 11/14 – Payson East
- 11/17 – Sundance Duchow
- 11/19 – Kyra Hankins
- 11/28 – Maelyn Kaczmarek
Anniversaries:
- Olivia Aponte – 1 year!
- Monica Brown – 5 years!
- Emili Butrin – 3 years!
- Zipporah Caspers – 4 years!
- Jason Knaak – 1 year!
- Miguel Martinez – 4 years!
- Katelin Rockwell – 1 year!
- Kyle Ryan – 1 year!
- Litzel Saavedra – 1 year!
- Arcadia Schmid – 1 year!
- Vanessa Van Den Elzen – 3 years!
Welcomes:
- Stephanie Severiano – Tosa B.
- Violet Locallo – Tosa B.

Employee Discount Codes:
Please don’t share these with non-employees
- 20% Employee-Only Website Coupon Code
- November: Nov22sccemp
- 40% Employee-Only Mobile App Coupon Code
- November: Nov22sccemp

Catch up on all of our newsletters, company updates, recipes, and more in our Employee Blog here.
Ways to Speak Up:
Do you want to speak up about ideas, thoughts, and more? Send an email to Teams & People (teams@stonecreekcoffee.com) or use the button below to send a note anonymously.