How May I Help You, My Friend

Caption - Tiffany Crist asking – How May I help you my friend?

“How may I help you my friend?” (A question She has been asking for ten years 4-10-25)

So, who is this barista taking your order at Crema? She very well might be the owner and visionary who brought this coffee shop to Hartsville in 2015. And, you might want to learn more about your coffee “friend” – Tiffany Crist.

Tiffany, a native of Michigan but a graduate of Hartsville High School. was a music major at Harding University in Little Rock, Arkansas, when she needed to get a job to help make those college ends meet. That job happened to be as a barista at COFFEE SHOP. She quickly discovered that she loved the way coffee brought all kinds of people together. That barista job and that coffee shop quickly became one of the most long-lasting impacts of her college years. She stayed with her voice major a year or so and then because of her interests changing she switched to marketing and finance though never losing her love of music.

Coffee Capstone

“I think just about every major project that I had in college I centered around coffee and my capstone project focused on developing a marketing plan for my own coffee shop.” Turns out that while the path was not direct, that marketing plan turned into Crema, the coffee shop she opened with family assistance in 2015 and which is still going strong today – despite the impact of COVID.

The path to Crema

Tiffany and her family moved from Michigan to Hartsville during her high school years and she graduated from Hartsville High in 2008. After getting that first barista position, she earned some assistant manager spots and right after college went to work for Starbucks where she also got management experience. There was also some retail work with the coffee shop work giving her experience in the world of selling – not just coffee. Tiffany has a large and tight-knit family and she found that she wanted to be closer so she left Little Rock and returned to Hartsville. She still had coffee in her blood.

Tiffany’s Hartsville path to coffee began at the Midnight Rooster

The Midnight Rooster was making a splash in the Hartsville community. “I did something out of character for me,” remembers Tiffany. “ I went into the Rooster and Jeremy was behind the counter. I asked him if they were hiring and in the same breath I told him if they were he wanted to hire me.” (Jeremy Smith is the husband of the Rooster owner, Jessie Smith - for those of you who were not around back in 2012.) Tiffany was hired at the Rooster and she moved from barista to coffee shop manager. That early Rooster experience helped Tiffany see new ways that coffee really does bring lots of people together and it helped her widen her vision for what a coffee can shop can do and can be.

Counter Culture is a part of the path

As part of her own coffee culture development, Tiffany began to look at ways to learn more about the industry, more about different coffee roasts and different approaches to the coffee business. She found some professional development opportunities with Counter Culture coffee, one of the top roasters in the country and “an awesome company” says Tiffany. She remembers with clarity and excitement the ‘Barista Championship’ competition that Counter Culture developed as the graduation experience to earn the CounterCulture certificate. She earned that certificate in 2014 while still with the Rooster. Also in 2014 the Rooster was undergoing management changes and Tiffany explored more opportunities.

A customer suggested that maybe a second coffee shop in Hartsville might be a solid idea. That conversation sort of ignited her fuse and Tiffany went back to her college capstone plan and began writing revisions.

As she developed her plan she held strategic conversations with her parents and her siblings. With her plan and assistance from her parents she was able to obtain funding for this new venture from the SPC Credit Union.

She found an empty building in downtown Hartsville that had been a locksmith shop but was now owned by the adjacent Hartsville Pharmacy. The Pharmacy owners liked her idea for a coffee shop and she took a lease of the building that after an intense amount of work by Tiffany, her father, friends and other family opened its doors as a Crema Coffee Shop on April 10 of 2015.

“So – what can I get you my friend…”

Tiffany began her Crema journey with a solid idea and plan that helped her get through the ups and downs of what it means to be an entrepreneur and a new business owner in town. And that plan got her to opening day. While the exact thoughts of that first day might be lost, she remembers the FEELINGS of “I did it, we really did it – and this is so much what I hoped and felt it would be.” One of the reasons she remembers those joys is that in the seven years Crema has been serving and entertaining the Hartsville community those feelings keep coming back again and again - - - Despite economic downturns, a COVID pandemic that had been on no one’s agenda and in no one’s strategic plan.

Caption – Tiffany telling students in a marketing communication class from Coker about the marketing aspects of running a small consumer-focused business.

There are so many memories from that opening day in 2015 to these days of November/December 2022 –

-- As the blog was being prepared for publishing another Crema guest sat down at the table to talk. As I told him about this story, he told me of being one of the first CREMA customers. Back in 2015 he had left the library and biked over to Carolina Ave and saw the differences in the former locksmith building. He walked in and had his first cup of CREMA coffee. "It was a great addition to downtown," he told me.

– Crowds of 30 and 50 people of lots of ages and ethnicities playing weekly Trivia

– Open Mic nights featuring not just new music and new musicians but new poetry bringing back the vibes of the 50s beatniks to the new century’s coffee/entertainment lovers

– Governor’s School students deep into their computers, deep into heavy study sessions and deep into relaxation from the academic pressures

– Hartsville residents getting together to map out strategy for something like Dancing with the Stars or new non-profit organizations

– Individuals in job transitions using the wi-fi of Crema to make new business connections

– Coker faculty using the tables for “office hours” and other Coker personnel planning their team recruiting tactics – which often include a visit with the prospect and a parent or two in the CREMA coffee stop.

– Other individuals using that same Wi-fi to make new individual connections that are later realized in real – ONE ON ONE people meetings…

– The Crema walls are nearly always show places for art. There are all kinds of styles and artists appearing on these walls – adding more depth to this coffee shop experience

– And Chess enthusiasts are always encouraged to use the large game in the back chat room while other gaming groups might be pulling out one of the boxes near the little lending library

Don’t forget the coffee…

And all these activities and meetings and thinking and talking and engaging are built around the careful construction of the customer’s coffee-shop favorites often built around the seasonal specials

For example in this Thanksgiving Christmas season — in addition to the pumpkin spice lots of the responses to ‘What may I get for you my friend?’ include Eggnog Lattes, Peppermint Mochas, Apple Cider, Gingerbread Lattes, cold brew with eggnog foam. And if you have your own special favorite, then challenge the barista.

Daily, there are the small, medium or large cups of the CounterCulture regular roasts like

Big Trouble, which is most popular, 46, Hologram and Apollo.

Caption -- coffee and computers could be a design staple of this Hartsville coffee shop

Lots has changed for Tiffany since that opening day in 2015 – but not her love for this coffee shop experience - because she has been able to so fully integrate her life into this coffee life. She and Jason got married during these years. They have two little ones Atlas, who is three going on 12, and Avery, who at 1 ½ has discovered the excitement of total mobility. Both can often be seen enjoying their own CREMA experience

.Caption – Atlas helping his mom blend one of her coffee creations.

And while the little ones are enjoying their experience they are watched over by family members, some working, others who have just dropped in to see how things are going.

“The support of my family in this entire adventure has been so crucial to it happening, to it continuing that I would never be able to summarize it in words,” says Tiffany. “I could have never done this by myself. John is running the kitchen and I think he makes some of the best lunches you can find in Hartsville. Josh is another key behind this counter. My mother sometimes adds her culinary skills to the menu. – and there is no question that if I keep listing I would still miss something my family has contributed. But I feel they know how much they are all appreciated” she says with a deep sigh and a tear.

The relationships cross the line of customer and friend

Tiffany notes that when she gets the opportunity to talk with students and others about working a business, starting a business and maintaining a business she has motivation that comes from how much she has gained in life from seeing it all come together. “My customers have become my friends. Even when that is a strange dynamic, it is one of the great and surprising things that helps me understand that places like Crema are not just for building business they are for building connections.”

The connections continue as the plans for new connectors continue to BREW

Tiffany is continuing to work her plans, which she has found a most valuable tool in her business arsenal. COVID did interfere with plans and at the same time it demonstrated that good planning helps with resilence. So Tiffany says, “Be sure we are planning new things.”

“We saw more than 500 people during the recent downtown Holiday Open House and we think we are going to be giving our friends and customers a coffee shop experience they will want to continue sharing with their own friends and family for years to come,” said Tiffany.