By Austin Arnold, BGSU Icon intern
Phil Zimmerly, owner of Common Grounds on Main Street, relies on simplicity when it comes to business. Sometimes when you go into other coffee shops, like Starbucks, you hear things like grande late and you have to know the lingo to order something Phil said.
"Here, we make it easy to order. It's not complicated and you don't have to know everything about coffee to get what you want," Phil said.
Another simple aspect to business that Phil understands well is cutting your losses. That means cutting out any items of your business that are making little to no sales, Phil said. He learned this rule of business first-hand during his previous occupation as a restaurant consultant. His background in business, graduating from Ohio State University with a business degree and working as a consultant for four year, has helped him run his own business now.
"I learned a lot about food safety in general and what a business has to do to be profitable, which sometimes means cutting items," Phil said.
Phil himself has had to make some small adjustments at Common Grounds like making some drinks seasonal, for example, limiting hot chocolate to just the winter months. He has also switched from Pepsi to Coke, a move that has literally paid off as Coke is one the bigger non-coffee items that is bought frequently.
"I originally started with Pepsi and it wasn't making any sales, so I decided to switch to Coke and the sale of that item is up by like 400 percent."
These changes have kept Phil's coffee shop running smooth, since he has re-opened the shop in July of last year. Within that time he estimates he has seen about 80,000 customers overall and on a good day he'll have about 300 people walk through the door, most of which he knows by name. Knowing many of the customers is something that comes naturally for Phil because of the kind nature of the people in Bluffton, he said.
"The Bluffton community is fantastic. There are so many great people here and I have made so many good friends. I love Bluffton, I really do."
Of course, Phil has help at Common Grounds. There are seven other employees that work with him. He also receives help from his wife, Sharon, and mother, Alice. Sharon helps out with most of the paperwork for the shop and Alice makes the various pastries available for sale. His mother frequently pitches menu ideas as well. One example is a drink called frozen hot chocolate, which is hot chocolate that is chilled and frozen for a day and now is one of the latest additions to the selection of beverages at Common Grounds.
"My mom saw frozen hot chocolate somewhere else and suggested having it here. And, at first, I hated the idea but she eventually talked me into it and we tried it out. And, now it seems to be catching on," Phil said.
Common Grounds might be making some more additions to the menu in the future. Phil said he is looking into adding smoothies for the summer and possibly offering a few more breakfast items.
"We're always looking at and for new ideas, sometimes it can be like a puzzle and you just have to see what fits," he said.
Phil purchased Common Grounds just shy of a year ago after he and his pastor, Jim King, got into a discussion of how they enjoy coffee. King then mentioned Bluffton's Common Grounds was up for sale and a couple weeks later Phil and Sharon decided to buy the shop. Well into his first year, Phil says business has been pretty good so far.
"We have our tough days, like everyone else, but things are good for the most part."