Today we’d like to introduce you to Aron Bode.
Hi Aron. We’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today.
I started at 18 in college with a hybrid French Culinary/Food Science degree. This was awesome, and I thought nothing could get better than this. I was cooking in a few kitchens and enjoyed it, but it wasn’t quite what I wanted. I loved cooking but not quite the menus/ideas that I was excited about. I then went to learn about Holistic Vegan Cooking, which taught me how to cook/use what I had learned in my previous degree more than I even thought possible. After doing some personal chef jobs, I still wasn’t sold. I went and finished a Food and Nutrition degree, thinking this was the ticket, but it still wasn’t. I worked a few jobs here and there until, eventually, my brother and I opened up The Retz 227, a speakeasy bar, in New Ulm a year after I finished college. This is where I found what I liked to do and where I wanted to go. After 2 years of massive personal growth and learning how to operate a business, my brother helped me to find/build Sippet Coffee & Bagels. This was the best decision ever, and I cannot thank him enough for helping me with those businesses. Over the past 3 years, I realized that I love building rapport with customers/co-workers, getting up at 4 am to see the sunrise every day, and, of course, coffee.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle-free, but so far would you say the journey has been smooth?
Of course, it’s not always smooth. Every business is a machine that only operates as well as the operator. If whoever owns it “oils it,” the machine will continue to operate to the highest possible degree. Each endeavor is always a hard road to learn the best approach. I could never use the business model from The Retz 227 and apply it to Sippet and expect it to work. Every day I learn a new idea/path that makes working easier and better for the customer.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Alright! Sippet Coffee is New Ulm’s first drive-thru coffee shop. We specialize in specialty coffee drinks and fresh, locally sourced food. All of our coffee comes from Colectivo in WI. We are super proud to serve their roasts. Another awesome source we have is our bagel supplier. We get them monthly from a company based in Long Island, New York. These are the best of the best bagels. We are so happy when customers come back again and again to get our bagels. The proudest point we have at Sippet and what sets us apart is that every employee, including myself, is on the same level. There are no managers/owners/line workers etc. We are all employees of Sippet and know every job in the building. This builds respect for each employee so they can all say ideas and do things differently to improve the job experience for other employees and customers! I can not stress enough how much the employees make Sippet what it is. We would not still be here operating after 3 years if we did not have the people in place that we do!
We’d be interested to hear your thoughts on luck and what role, if any, you feel it’s played for you.
Luck is everything. Good or bad, luck is luck. Every new idea or even old one is all a risk and has a fair bit of luck involved. The thing with luck is that it can always change and that is the risk we all take! We have had our fair share of good and bad, but we have been very fortunate to have employees and customers alike who can change a bad day into a good day real quickly!!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.sippetcoffee.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sippetcoffee/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sippetcoffee
