Theresa and Dan Duling are the owners of the Scooters Coffee Shop franchise that opened in Mount Vernon in early January.
“We’re so glad to be open in a community like Mount Vernon,” Dan said at a ribbon cutting event there.
Dan said there was definitely a lot of excitement about the new coffee location opening, and remembers their soft opening a few weeks prior, when employees were getting experience on some of the new drinks for friends and family. Somehow, it got posted to Facebook, and there was a lot more traffic to the new location that particular training day.
Manager Michelle Schneider said she and the employees are starting to get into the ebb and flow of the business. They definitely see their biggest rush in the mornings, with the business trying to keep to the goal of getting a vast number of cars through the drive-through as quickly as possible.
That’s helped by an army of teenage staff members, who are ready and working at the location in those early morning hours.
“I have several high school employees who put in their 15 hour shifts with those early morning slots,” Schneider said.
The other biggest rush time for the business is immediately after school, when many students from the area flock to the business.
“In those cases, it can be several students per car with some complicated orders, but we’ve been handling that great,” Schneider said.
This is Theresa and Dan’s first franchise, but they have two other locations opening soon.
Theresa showed a brief tour of the space, explaining that the coffee is ground fresh every morning and brewed fresh every three hours of a shift. Airpots are kept with the dark, medium and brew flavor of the day for employees to draw from. After those brews comes the items like mochas, espressos, additional flavor shots and cold beverages.
This year marks the 25th anniversary for the coffee chain begun in Bellevue, Neb., so the Dulings and staff will get to take part in some of the celebratory measures, like attending a company wide event this spring.
Schneider notes that the local chain is already fulfilling the three amazing promises Scooter’s Coffee chain tries to adhere to – Amazing drinks, Amazingly Fast and Amazing people.