Coffee bar chain opens; American School teacher shares views
Its first coffee bar was unveiled along with the Klif shopping center March 3 "and it has been nonstop since the doors opened," said Phil Price midway through the hectic opening day.
Price heads Tchibo in Poland and also manages operations in the Baltics and Russia. He plans to open a second Tchibo coffee shop soon - perhaps outside of Warsaw - and will take a reading after several months. If they do as well as he expects, the sky's the limit on how many more stores Tchibo might open.
Tchibo, based in Hamburg, Germany, expanded to Poland in 1992 and today holds top ranking for coffee sales, with its $150 million in business the highest in Central Europe. Why the entry into the retail market, however? Price, who is British, had been watching coffee bars take off in London and his German colleagues saw a similar trend. "We realized we have a very good name in Poland. Poland is booming. And we should be in there," he said.
Fifteen minutes at the Tchibo coffee shop on opening day was enough to show why Price was optimistic. The six tables stayed full and others crowded around the stand-up bar. About 75 people came and went during that time - trying out the cappuccino, sometimes the tall, iced drinks. The coffees are made fresh to order; the nine different cakes and the sandwiches are brought in from local suppliers.
Tchibo has a prime spot just outside the Bomi supermarket (which still wasn't open five hours after the overall shopping center opened). In Germany, Tchibo runs "several hundred shops, originally selling coffee beans and then expanding to sports and other items," Price said, and they are experimenting today with cappuccino concepts "but ours is the first upscale modern coffee bar." The manager is Janusz Tarasiuk and Magda Duszczyk "is the chief team leader behind the bar," Price said.
None of the staffers are experienced coffee-bar workers. That's part of the strategy. Some came from within Tchibo, others were recruited specifically for the coffee bar. "With retail innovations, you often succeed by getting people without industry experience. They come with fresh ideas and that's what you seek to exploit."
On opening day, it looked as if they would sell 1,500-2,000 cups of coffee and about 500 cakes. On a normal day, Price said, they expect to sell 1,000 cups of coffee and a few hundred cakes and sandwiches.
And Price's favorite coffee? "Double decadence, it's an iced coffee with double doses of cream."
The Klif center is in the northern end of the Wola district, on Okopowa between ulicas Anielewicza and Stawki (and as Klif's fliers remind sightseers, it is served by eight trams and buses.) That area is packed with apartments and the Daewoo Center is nearing completion a block away.
But the neighborhood is a wasteland in terms of restaurants and cafes, let alone coffee bars.
• • •
It looked as if the entire Wola district came to give the Klif a once-over.
Klif is a Scandinavian company that owns a similar center in Gdynia. Rather than a handful of shops positioned around a hypermart, as is the norm in most centers here, the Klif center is more similar to the Western norm of many small to medium-sized shops and cafes, including a few large (but rarely gigantic) stores.
Some shops didn't make the opening or were open but without their names up. Others were still structural skeletons - including the Chili Cafe. Up and running and doing land-mine business, however, was the locally owned salad bar Sandwicz, which made its name at its original Nowy Swiat eatery. McDonald's also was there, with an opening onto the street. That's because they plan to open an hour earlier and close an hour later than the mall: from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., opening two hours later on Sundays.
• • •
The resignation by two American School administrators still is a hot topic for parents and teachers. A teacher leaving this summer after several years made her own points about complaints by board members that the school was not the way they had wanted it.
She noted that the school does not invent its own standards but hews to those of the European Association of International Schools, which accredits it. But the parents and teachers can disagree on what a "best" system is, since they often come from very different backgrounds and countries. Some want it like it was when and where they grew up. For this teacher, her "pay" comes not just from her salary but when she can see evidence "that children are learning. There is no other source of satisfaction - and maybe no one else sees it but me, but I'm higher than a kite," she said.
"So what really tees me off is when parents come in and say 'you fool, what are you doing with my kids?' And I'm saying I'm doing the best I can with the children I have."
She also objected to the insinuation by some critics that non-native English speaking students in English-immersion classes are holding back the native speakers. "The parent who spoke out against ESL courses sounds like a parent disgruntled in an international situation where they speak different languages. Sometimes they think the others are stupid. You're not stupid if you speak Polish. You can be a very brilliant student. I had a student who didn't speak English at the beginning of the year and now is one of the best in the class," she said.
"All you need to do is take a look at the honor roll in the upper school and read the names. It sounds like the United Nations. The American students are not held back. There are Korean, Polish and English names there."
The board's job, she said, is to make sure the school "is heading in the right direction, according to our accreditation" and the job of administrators is to figure out how to do that. Concerned parents "should be working better with the administration, not to say 'this is stupid, this is how we did it in my country,' " she added.
Price heads Tchibo in Poland and also manages operations in the Baltics and Russia. He plans to open a second Tchibo coffee shop soon - perhaps outside of Warsaw - and will take a reading after several months. If they do as well as he expects, the sky's the limit on how many more stores Tchibo might open.
Tchibo, based in Hamburg, Germany, expanded to Poland in 1992 and today holds top ranking for coffee sales, with its $150 million in business the highest in Central Europe. Why the entry into the retail market, however? Price, who is British, had been watching coffee bars take off in London and his German colleagues saw a similar trend. "We realized we have a very good name in Poland. Poland is booming. And we should be in there," he said.
Fifteen minutes at the Tchibo coffee shop on opening day was enough to show why Price was optimistic. The six tables stayed full and others crowded around the stand-up bar. About 75 people came and went during that time - trying out the cappuccino, sometimes the tall, iced drinks. The coffees are made fresh to order; the nine different cakes and the sandwiches are brought in from local suppliers.
Tchibo has a prime spot just outside the Bomi supermarket (which still wasn't open five hours after the overall shopping center opened). In Germany, Tchibo runs "several hundred shops, originally selling coffee beans and then expanding to sports and other items," Price said, and they are experimenting today with cappuccino concepts "but ours is the first upscale modern coffee bar." The manager is Janusz Tarasiuk and Magda Duszczyk "is the chief team leader behind the bar," Price said.
None of the staffers are experienced coffee-bar workers. That's part of the strategy. Some came from within Tchibo, others were recruited specifically for the coffee bar. "With retail innovations, you often succeed by getting people without industry experience. They come with fresh ideas and that's what you seek to exploit."
On opening day, it looked as if they would sell 1,500-2,000 cups of coffee and about 500 cakes. On a normal day, Price said, they expect to sell 1,000 cups of coffee and a few hundred cakes and sandwiches.
And Price's favorite coffee? "Double decadence, it's an iced coffee with double doses of cream."
The Klif center is in the northern end of the Wola district, on Okopowa between ulicas Anielewicza and Stawki (and as Klif's fliers remind sightseers, it is served by eight trams and buses.) That area is packed with apartments and the Daewoo Center is nearing completion a block away.
But the neighborhood is a wasteland in terms of restaurants and cafes, let alone coffee bars.
• • •
It looked as if the entire Wola district came to give the Klif a once-over.
Klif is a Scandinavian company that owns a similar center in Gdynia. Rather than a handful of shops positioned around a hypermart, as is the norm in most centers here, the Klif center is more similar to the Western norm of many small to medium-sized shops and cafes, including a few large (but rarely gigantic) stores.
Some shops didn't make the opening or were open but without their names up. Others were still structural skeletons - including the Chili Cafe. Up and running and doing land-mine business, however, was the locally owned salad bar Sandwicz, which made its name at its original Nowy Swiat eatery. McDonald's also was there, with an opening onto the street. That's because they plan to open an hour earlier and close an hour later than the mall: from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., opening two hours later on Sundays.
• • •
The resignation by two American School administrators still is a hot topic for parents and teachers. A teacher leaving this summer after several years made her own points about complaints by board members that the school was not the way they had wanted it.
She noted that the school does not invent its own standards but hews to those of the European Association of International Schools, which accredits it. But the parents and teachers can disagree on what a "best" system is, since they often come from very different backgrounds and countries. Some want it like it was when and where they grew up. For this teacher, her "pay" comes not just from her salary but when she can see evidence "that children are learning. There is no other source of satisfaction - and maybe no one else sees it but me, but I'm higher than a kite," she said.
"So what really tees me off is when parents come in and say 'you fool, what are you doing with my kids?' And I'm saying I'm doing the best I can with the children I have."
She also objected to the insinuation by some critics that non-native English speaking students in English-immersion classes are holding back the native speakers. "The parent who spoke out against ESL courses sounds like a parent disgruntled in an international situation where they speak different languages. Sometimes they think the others are stupid. You're not stupid if you speak Polish. You can be a very brilliant student. I had a student who didn't speak English at the beginning of the year and now is one of the best in the class," she said.
"All you need to do is take a look at the honor roll in the upper school and read the names. It sounds like the United Nations. The American students are not held back. There are Korean, Polish and English names there."
The board's job, she said, is to make sure the school "is heading in the right direction, according to our accreditation" and the job of administrators is to figure out how to do that. Concerned parents "should be working better with the administration, not to say 'this is stupid, this is how we did it in my country,' " she added.
