Founder Profile: Playground Art + Coffee on How to Differentiate

Is it enough these days to just sell a good product? More than ever, consumers are looking for more behind the things they buy, whether its an experience, a story, or a feeling. How do you offer that? Maybe, with a heavily-packed calendar of community-based events like Playground Art + Coffee.

In this profile, we talk to Spring Barnickle, founder of Playground Art + Coffee, a dual food & coffee shop and makerspace in North Park, San Diego.

Playground quickly made a splash in the North Park Community by not only offering unique beverages (their sodas and tonics are one of a kind), but by also regularly hosting events like chocolate tastings, craft workshops, and more.

In this interview, we talk about how Spring moved quickly into making Playground a reality, why she chose the differentiators that make the cafe unique, and how she balances it all on top of her day job.

What did we learn from Spring?

• Be passionate! Your personality and interests can be the thing to make your brand stand out (see: chocolate wall.)

• Find a supportive team. For brick and mortars, you will need people around you to keep the business running. Investing in them is also investing in your brand.

Read on for the full transcript of the interview.

Playground Founder Profile Interview

Charlene

Spring, I want to thank you again for joining me in this conversation. At Lazy Su we're trying to build resources for small community-minded food and beverage brands to navigate the San Diego community and grow their ideas into business ventures.

I'm super excited to have this conversation with you about Playground, because of how unique a space it is in the San Diego scene: its theme and aesthetic, the dual function of it being a food and beverage spot, but also a makerspace. Playground is clearly a result of creativity and fun, so I'm excited to hear about what brought it about.

So jumping into my first question, I'd love to hear more about your background and your relationship to the food and beverage industry, and what led you to create Playground.

Spring

Okay, happy to, and thanks for having me. I think…background is sort of two fold, and both of them inform the decision to start Playground. One is my “day job” which has been for a long time C-suite marketing CEO, CEO kind of things. Right now, I'm the global chief commercial officer for a healthcare company, which doesn't have a whole lot to do with Playgrounds direct mission, but it has a lot to do with how I see the world and how I function as a business owner, and, and thoughts about strategy, and you know that kind of thing.

So, I love marketing, I love, I love taking care of people. I've also owned food-based businesses in the past, including one that was a commercial confectioner. We did handmade marshmallows and chocolate and caramel and shipped all over the world. That was a fun adventure. And in my career, I've worked with several food brands. I always seem to find my way back to food, and then I have ghost written several New York Times bestselling cookbooks. And I love to eat, I love to talk about food, I love to learn about food, and I just love to nurture people through it. So that was one side of things.

And then, as you said, it's a dual space, so we're also a makerspace and a space for creatives and community. That is really just about passion, passion for North Park. We've been there for six years now, and recognizing the need for a third space. Then recognizing globally the need for grown-ups to have an outlet to make friends and to play, and to not be thinking all the grown-up thoughts all the time, like life is hard right now. The goal was just to create a space where, for just a little while, you could put it down.

That's why [Playround] has that sort of nervous system reset mural painted on the wall that says “Unclench your jaw, drop your shoulders, take a deep breath.” We all need it, and then that's what informs our programming and how we handle art, and it's also what informs the food. It's why everything I can get organic is organic. It's why we do everything house made, why we make our own nut milks. All of those things are because I'm just trying to take the best care I can of people.

Charlene

I want to circle back definitely to the fact that everything is housemade. I think that is not a super common direction that you see with new concepts, but before we get there–maybe I didn't fully understand the history–you mentioned you had a six year presence in North Park? But Playground specifically launched…

Spring

…Me personally! We live there. It is our neighborhood, and I think that that was important to me. And I've seen everything sort of come and go. I know the businesses that were in our space before we were, and I have a passion for that neighborhood and its people and its challenges.

I think we keep eyes wide open about both the opportunity and what the likely obstacles would be for having that space there, but willing to take it on, because I really felt like it was where we were supposed to be. There was never any question in my mind the moment I decided, okay, I'm ready to do something else. This is not a side hustle, this is a passion project. This is taking everything I care about and love and putting it into one space with one mission. As soon as I decided I wanted to do that, I knew it was going to be at North Park. There was never any question to me.

Charlene 

It’s a phenomenal location on University Ave. I think for me and my friends, we kind of stumbled upon it just walking around, which is the ideal situation for anyone who has a storefront, you want it to be in a place where people just walk in. And North Park is just a great neighborhood. I'm in Hillcrest, but I pop over very often, probably too often.

I’m curious, of the founders that I've spoken to, a lot of people start off part time with their concepts. They still need a steady income as they're proving the viability of their idea. You come from a slightly different angle than our previous folks we spoke with for an interview. They're going the pop-up route, and it's been a little less than a year, they're young, they're figuring out what they want to do and making sure that it's reasonable.

You have the history of that confectionery concept, and so I'm sure the way you navigated this was slightly different. But it's still a part-time thing for you. You mentioned you have your day job that you're committed to. Do you see yourself moving into this full time? Or do you think it'll always be something that you manage at a part time level with other folks being more on the ground regularly?

Spring 

I think the latter, not for a couple of reasons. One is, which, I'm 50, I will tell you that up front, so I got a ways to go before retirement, but I also like to stay busy, and my part-time is definitely somebody else's full-time, so I'm still there a lot of hours. There is no day I'm not working on things, and I'm there Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday every week.

For me it was really about what is the point of opening this? It was not a route to retirement, it was not something to get rid of a day job I hated and move that away or out of my life. It was not meant to do a lot of the things that I think are very reasonable expectations for somebody who starts a business like this, especially in the hospitality industry, for food and beverage. 

For me personally, it was more about what can we achieve in this space that will change this community for the better? I'm getting old enough that I'm thinking about legacy, and what am I leaving behind, and I don't necessarily want it to be a bank account, like that's what matters to me.

So I thought a lot about what I could do in this space, and one of the things I came to was that I would like to have a team that had better than the pay they normally expect, something that is, it's still not a living wage in San Diego, but that's an entirely different subject, which we will not dive into, but it is not minimum wage. And to be sure they had really good benefits, which was a fight to try to set up for a business of my size, which was something I didn't expect. Everybody I talked to for Covered California till I finally found the right agent, wasis like “They're young, just let them get it themselves.” I was like, “Well, I want to pay for it, and I want them to have a better version. They can't get it unless it's through me.” And they would literally just tell me no. And these are the people from the website for Covered California. I went through over a dozen agents before I found someone who would even talk to me about it, because I have a team under 10 people.

That aside, that was another thing really important to me, is that I would–it's not just about taking great care of our guests, it's about taking good care of the team and ensuring they feel supported in every way that I can. That it's a fun work environment, and they look forward to being there, and it is inclusive for them too. And so part of the structure and the mission for Playground was to create a work environment that offered that, and necessarily that means I'm not working there full time.

This is about having managers and having people who have the potential to move up, and who are young. Everybody in our team is under 30, except for me, so it was about nurturing them and what they want long term, because most of them don't want to do what they're doing right now, forever. And so I hired a lot of artists, a lot of people who are really excited about the other things we're doing in Playground and can be a part of it and help teach classes. But also I've hired some people who want to own businesses themselves someday, and I'm trying to mentor them in that, and tell them the gritty behind-the-scenes things that you wouldn't normally tell your staff, so they know when you do this, know this happens. So I think all of that, combined with the fact that I have a passion for the work I do as my day job, means it was never my intention to leave. So maybe someday I do my version of retirement, and it's being in a space like that full time. But for now this is what works for me.

So I didn't need a pop up, I didn't need to do any of that, I had the experience a pop up would have given me, and I also had the foundation of knowing I do have a day job. There's a safety net there that a lot of people don't have financially, and I'm willing to do that. But we won't be profitable for at least the first 6 to 12 months, that's just how it goes. Yeah, so it's just about accepting that and deciding you love it enough to do it. So I do.

Charlene

I think the environment you've created, it was palpable for me when I went in as just a customer. But it's clear that it creates a space that allows for all the event programming that you guys have, which is really impressive for a newly launched concept to be already so packed on the calendar with so many different things, which obviously speaks to your relationship with the community. The presence that Playgrounds already developed as a host to all these different creatives and different events and ideas. Yeah, it's just a really impressive thing. How quickly you have gotten to that point.

Spring

I did give us a month where we didn't do any events other than the launch party, food and drink. I worked so hard to find the right team, I don't want to kill them right at the start. But yeah, we did one month and then we started the events.

I'm a big believer in start how you mean to go on. If you know what the plan is, then get it in place as soon as you can.

But also there's a reason I did this business. I'm excited about making the food, and then I'm excited about the events and working with all of these individuals who have great ideas and supporting them in it, and teaching classes myself, and teaching chocolate tastings, and doing all of those things.

For me, getting started was key, and it's also key to being sustainable. Food and beverage is not an easy business to run in San Diego. It is expensive to do business here, and I know that, having done business literally all over the world both on my own and with my clients. It's tough here. It is hard, and so, in order to do that, you do have to think about things like revenue streams and differentiators. I didn't want the space to close at 4:00 every day and be empty. I wanted people, I wanted it to be comfortable, I wanted the seats to be something you didn't want to leave.

I know that's not always how coffee shops work, and I get it. I completely respect that. That's not everybody's vision, but for me that was the right way forward. So, in order to do that, the programming had to happen. But also, I had a million ideas. I was so ready, so not a problem. I've already got ideas through the next few months.

Charlene

I think that it speaks to something that's true across industries. I'm also a big film-goer in person, and I think that there's so many indications now that to appeal to consumers, you have to make things an event. You're selling an experience more than just a specific product. You're definitely seeing that more in the food and beverage world here in San Diego, whether it's super aesthetic Instagrammable spots, or the event programming routes. It doesn't feel like you can just sell a good thing anymore. 

Spring 

Oh, I know, which is so frustrating, because there's so many people who have great ideas, but they just know how to sell a good thing. And they don’t want to do all the other things, and they don't have the capacity to do all the other things, but it is the reality. You're absolutely right. It's a very wise insight.

It is about the experience now. It's not just about what do you know, what did I eat or drink while I was there. It's about how did I feel while I was there, and what pictures did I take while I was there, and what did I share on social media while I was there.?And how does this make me look, how does being in this space inform how I think and feel about myself? I think that is also really key, and it just didn't used to be a thing. You didn't used to identify yourself by where you got coffee, right?

And the notion that I thought very carefully about where to put the full length mirror…You either have to love it and embrace it, or you have to have a trust fund.

In the end, it's about knowing your customer and making them the hero of that experience, of the story. It's not about you, and it's not about your space, and it's not about your team, and it's not about what you sell. That's hard, because it takes so much effort to come up with all of that and to make it work. But it can't be about you, necessarily, for a food and beverage business–but any business really–to be successful. It's not about you, it has to be about that. So that's what we're trying to do, is make it about our guests every time.

Charlene

I want to ask a couple of questions more focused around navigating the administrative side of things, the business side of things.

You have a lot of experience coming into this, but I'm sure Playground offers some unique challenges that you didn't expect. I'm curious if there's any specific thing that comes to mind where you're like, "Oh, this was not something I expected to have.”

Well, you did speak about the healthcare challenge…

Spring  15:43  

Certainly, that was a piece I didn't expect to come along as a challenge. I did not allow enough time for that. There's always, there's always things.

We've hit a really interesting point where I had to make a choice between, do we stick to our guns and things are organic and all natural and dye free and as healthy as they can be? Or do I do what I can actually find that is affordable?

Everybody knows, even going to the grocery store, you're paying more for organic. I built that in from the beginning. We don't charge more for it. Our pricing is set entirely based on what everybody else in North Park who offers something similar is charging, or less. That's how we did it. So I knew going in that meant I would make a little less money. But this is also about me being able to sleep at night, and I don't want to walk in and think, “Well, I'm not eating that, because I know what's in it.” No, absolutely not!

In order to do that, what I didn't realize was the commercial landscape is involved in a way that, unless you are making things house-made, it is almost impossible to get things that are ready-made that meet my expectations for nurturing people. I didn't realize how much time it would take to find suppliers for those kinds of ingredients and to find options. I didn't realize that there was going to be a whole other commercial kitchen ecosystem involved and required within the city of San Diego and the County of San Diego as a result of what we wanted to make and how we wanted to make it. That wasn't the case in the other cities that I've set up shop, it was a breeze.

I feel like we earned our opening so hard. 

We have a separate commercial kitchen that we cook in, and we need to do that. I knew we would need to do some of it that way. But I think that was the biggest set of surprises around the food. And around the notion that somehow, along the way in the last decade, having those specific standards for what you want to sell and how you want to do it, and wanting it to be custom or personalized in any way, being sure we had a lot of vegan, plant-based options, gluten-free options, and all of that, and still not be being willing to compromise on quality. We were very limited in who we can buy from and what we have to buy. So that was a surprise. It created a whole set of admin and extra expenses and all sorts of things.

Also for the people who came the first month, I apologize, we were sold out constantly. I had no idea how much food we’d go through, but we've hired more baking help. We are finally staying stocked now. But I think that also was a testimony at how much people are looking for that, how much they want something that they can feel good about putting into their bodies, and that makes sense to know they're willing to pay for it and wait in line for it and keep coming back day after day, until we have some available for it. So I still think it was absolutely the right choice, but it made life so much harder.

Charlene

Well, even despite those constraints, you guys have such an interesting menu. Especially on the drink side of things, I love when there's like an espresso tonic on the menu. But you guys got that, plus a bunch of other different caffeinated, soda-y drinks. I was so excited about that and the house-made syrups and everything. It's just a joy to walk in and know that I get to try a bunch of stuff that I wouldn't get elsewhere. So, yeah, clearly you guys have been able to respond to those challenges creatively and still make something that is exciting and different.

Spring

Thank you for saying so. It was important to me, and we spent the entire build out–it was five months for the build out, which is very fast, so we were really busy–but we were recipe testing. In the entire five months, there was not a single day that went by, alongside everything else we were doing, that we weren't working on the food and the drinks and refining it.

A lot of that is because I hired the right team and they're just as excited about it as I am. My manager of the coffee and guest experience and my food and facilities manager are both just so on board with that. So a lot of it is their creativity.

Then the other was just there's a ton of coffee shops. When you tell somebody you're opening a coffee shop in San Diego, especially North Park, they're like, “Really? We don't need other coffee shops.”

Well, yes and no. I don't want to offer what everybody else is offering because, right, we don't. And I don't see anybody else who's selling coffee or maker experiences or any other event we do as competition. There is more than enough people and more than enough time and more than enough room for all of us to do what we do and succeed. That's the beauty of being in a big city.

I also was very mindful and I paid attention to everything in the area when we were doing recipe development. There were some initial ideas we had that I was in love with that I wanted to do, but I found out somebody else had something that was adjacent on their menu, and we deliberately didn't do it. Wholesome has a beautiful banana bread latte. We initially had a banana drink on the menu, and I nixed it, just didn't want it to seem like there was any hint that we were trying to play on somebody else's creativity.

Everything we did, we did mindfully with the thought about the space and what's playful and what's fun and what takes good care of people, but also try to be original and really provide a new experience for people. So if we're not your everyday coffee spot, we're still your Wednesday coffee spot, you know you're gonna get something new.

Charlene

I'm curious, for you personally, is there any specific food or drink item, or even an event programming concept that you think speaks the most to you personally? Or to the concept?

Spring

Yeah, definitely. I appreciate it anytime somebody walks in and says, “Oh, I love it in here, it's so fun.” Or “I love the vibe.” Because that is like me on a wall, like everything in there is what I love, including the wall of chocolate, all the craft chocolate that we have.

That was the very first supplier I ever got in touch with, because I knew there were some chocolates that are only available through one supplier in the US that come from Europe that I wanted to feature. I reached out to them the day I created–before I even had the space. I want that Hungarian chocolate. I know it's good.

So, on the menu…If I go in, I'm either going to get - if I want something warm, then I'm going to get a spice chai with salted caramel. Then if I want something cold, the root beer latte. You either love root beer or you don't, but even if you don't, you should try the root beer latte. It brings out the spice notes, we put freshly grated nutmeg on top, and it's just got this beautiful whip to it. It doesn't taste medicinal, you lose that sort of herbal note, and you just get that beautiful spicy depth. So I'm all about a root beer latte.

Then if I'm going to have to pick one baked good, which is hard, then I love a peanut butter fudge protein mini. Those are my favorite. It's a tiny little loaf cake. It's flourless. It's got secret organic veggies and fruit in it, and it's got the best cocoa you can get. We actually make our own cocoa blend in house of two different best cocoas. I am that picky about my chocolate. But it's got 10 grams of plant-based protein and it's organic. That's my go-to for if I want a little bite of something.

Charlene

Okay, perfect. I have my order set for the next time.

Spring

Yes, definitely. We're rolling out paninis in the next week too, so fun stuff happening there. We got a pizza grilled cheese that is so good.

Charlene  24:09  

Oooh that sounds exciting.

Okay, well, I want to make sure we get things in on time. So I want to ask my final question that I ask everybody, which is: Is there anything that you want to shout out to the San Diego community? Anything that's coming up that you want people to know about?

Spring

Oh, that's hard when we offer so many events. I would say I will shout out in general that we have an Eventbrite page that stays packed. That is part of our mission, is that we offer free events every single week, and everything else is as affordable as possible. 

I have been so impressed by how flexible the creative community is, and how much they are willing to meet me on that, and me saying I'm not pricing anything - like food events can be $45 that's the cap, art events $35 that's the cap. If we can't do it for that, I don't want to do it, because I want it to be accessible, I want it to be inclusive. We do as much as we can in the $10 to $15 range, and they're willing to do that. They come back and come up with ideas, and show up, and really care. I am so proud of every single person we're working with on our calendar this month, in the next few months, for being willing to do that and having that passion.

In return, we do as much as we can to support them and be sure they get paid for their time. But I don't want that to be passed on to our guests. So shout out to the creative community for having a heart in San Diego. That is impressive and really unmatched. And then otherwise, go to our website, go to our Eventbrite page, and follow it, because we're doing at least a dozen events every month, usually closer to 15 or 16.

Charlene

Yeah very exciting, definitely check it out. Thanks so much Spring.

Transcribed by Otter.ai. Lightly edited for clarity.