Jarrod Strong: Eva's Garage director on the café launching a new coffee subscription service

A new Wellington café is hoping a subscription-based coffee offer will help boost the company in a tough economic environment.

For $70 a month, customers can have as many free drinks as they want - and for $30 a month, all drinks are $2 and for $15 a month, all drinks are half-price.

Jarrod Strong from Eva's Garage says the service has had an 'amazing' amount of support from the cafe's regulars.

"It's sort of built around those people in our community already." 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
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Speaker 2 (00:16):
A new Wellington cafe is hoping its subscription coffee offer
will be the key to finding its feet in a
tough hospitality environment. Two months and this is Jared Strong
of Eva's Garage seees things are going pretty well, and
Jared joins us on the line now, Jared, good, afternoon kidder.

Speaker 3 (00:34):
Guys.

Speaker 4 (00:34):
How are we very good? How does it work? Jared?
Is it a card a name or do you know
your subscribers by face?

Speaker 3 (00:42):
Well, hopefully there's going to be too many to know
them by faith. Our breath of team's very good at
learning and getting to know everyone. No, it's a digital
token that we're issuing to the people that sign on,
and so yeah, they just come and show their token
and get their coffee.

Speaker 4 (01:03):
How many people have signed on so far?

Speaker 3 (01:06):
We only launched on on Friday, so it was what
was only on our social media. Then we got a
few over the weekend and then it's hit the news
today and our poor website is getting absolutely well.

Speaker 4 (01:20):
Hopefully we can help with that a little bit more.

Speaker 3 (01:23):
So Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, anything.

Speaker 4 (01:24):
Help yeah, so it's it's seventy dollars a month for
unlimited coffees. But it can't be completely unlimited, right, What
if a workplace got one subscription and someone's coming in
every day and grabbing ten coffees and taking them back
to work. You must have some restrictions on it.

Speaker 3 (01:38):
Yeah. No, So it's for an individual. So it's unlimited
coffees for that person. They can come and they can
get their their one coffee and take it away. They
can come back and forth as many times as they
like throughout the day. But you know it's for that
one person to consume, and you know they have to person.

Speaker 4 (01:59):
But they have to come in and out the door,
so they can can they can they sit at the
table and just have coffee if they have to leave
and then re enter it.

Speaker 3 (02:06):
The idea is that they leave and reenter. We've we've
sort of modeled the way that it works off our
off our regulars. We've had an amazing amount of support.
We've had customers that have come on our very first
day two months ago today actually and have come every
single day since. So we've sort of designed it around
them and how they consume their coffees. And and and

(02:31):
consume you know, the services that we provide throughout our store.
So yeah, it's sort of built around our most people
and our community already.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
Yeah, and so at this stage it sounds like you've
had a great response to this offer. Are you hoping
that's going to continue going forward and you're going to
make some good money off this and get more people
through the door.

Speaker 3 (02:52):
Yeah, that's that's sort of the idea we we When
we opened, we had, like I say, we had these
regulars quite quickly and and they were asking about you know,
coffee cards and things in the past that or that
still exists around We Yeah, I always end up with
cards for Africa and none of them ever filled in.

(03:14):
They're all half halfway done. So we didn't want to
do something like that. We looked around and thought about
other options, and this is sort of what we've what
we've landed on. We've got a couple of different tiers.
So there's a fifteen dollar a month one that does
half priced coffees, and then a thirty dollars a month
one which does two dollar coffee. So there's a bit
of a range for people. But yeah, the idea is

(03:36):
that it will help you build that community, get people
into our store, get people that are on the subscription
to you know, bring friends with them, who who are
going to you know, just be there the once because
they live elsewhere or work elsewhere or whatever. And we're
not just a cafe either. We've got a florist, a
gift store, and a barber shop and Eva's Garage too,
So all of our subscribers get they get ten percent

(03:59):
off everything else store wide. So it's just about building
that whole whole community. And the success will be in
the success of all of it, not not in the
coffee it's off as such. So yeah, yeah, it's just
about about building that whole that whole community.

Speaker 4 (04:13):
Really love it. We're talking to Jared Strong of Eva's
Garage because I was going to ask you that. So
in a way, it's kind of a lost leave, lost leader,
because it seems to me you've underpriced it. It seems
to me a coffee a day for a month would
be at least one hundred and fifty dollars with yep.

Speaker 3 (04:28):
Yeah, and that's yeah. Like I say, we've we've sort
of built it off and priced it off. The habits
of our alv our regulars and and certainly we want
to make sure that it's it's you know, a cost
benefit to them. Otherwise why would they do it? Right?
So there there isn't as much margin left as they

(04:49):
could be, or as there is on a normal coffee,
but we have tried to make sure that it's not
going to go too far the other way, and that's
why the caveats are there of you know, so you
can't just sign up once and take your ten coffees
up to your workmates upstairs or anything like that. But yeah,
as I say, there's also the other things within our
business as well. So yeah, you know, people people bring

(05:10):
other people, people need to you know, buy some flowers
for an anniversary on their way home and get their haircut,
or you know, gifts and bits and pieces as well.
So yeah, it's about the whole thing and how it
all works together. And people love coffee, so that's a
good place to start.

Speaker 4 (05:24):
Will you shame people that take the purse within the rules?

Speaker 3 (05:28):
Yeah? Yeah, well you get to know them pretty good, right, Yeah,
just a little bit of a ray, be a little
bit a little bit more lenient on when you've got
good relationships with people.

Speaker 4 (05:38):
Yeah, Jared, what's the market like out there at the moment,
you know, you're in Wellington, but there's there's challenges across
the whole country in the hospital industry. Do you have
to be innovative to succeed these days?

Speaker 3 (05:52):
Yeah, I think so. I mean, we we're in quite
a unique spot down here in Wellington in the Hannahs
Lane Way. We have been running a hotel next door
for a couple of years and and that's sort of
a little bit easier to break sort of out into
the market. With the likes of you know, online travel
agencies and and things like that, people can find you

(06:13):
a lot easier. We get some good foot traffic, but
you know, thinking outside the box and trying to do
things a little bit differently certainly helps. I mean, you
don't get the opportunity to talk to you guys about
coffee if you're just doing what everyone else is doing, right,
And that's the that's the thing. It is tough out there.

(06:35):
Prices are going up for you know, everything that we do.
But at the end of the day, it's all about
people and people are you know, the center of our business.
So if we can help them, they help us. And
that's sort of yeah, how we've tried to model the
whole whole thing.

Speaker 4 (06:51):
Oh good on you, Jared. And this chat is only
going to cost you two subscriptions, one.

Speaker 2 (06:58):
For tild and you can take the perce with us.

Speaker 4 (07:00):
We don't mind, that's all right.

Speaker 3 (07:02):
I'm sure you guys. You're based in Auckland, so struggle.

Speaker 2 (07:06):
To Yeah, great stuff, Jared. Hey, thanks for having a
chat with us, and all the beast will check in
with you in a couple of months time.

Speaker 3 (07:14):
Awesome, Thank you guys, appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (07:16):
That is Jared Strong from Eva's Garage and by all accounts,
in the early day stages two months in working really well.
The subscription service getting people through the.

Speaker 1 (07:26):
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