ORAL HISTORY OF SUMMIT'S DRIVE TO

March 17, 2021

This here’s the story of that week, told by 20+ people in Summit’s orbit.

When It Almost Went Dark

Brian Helfrich, Summit CEO: On Monday, March 16, we knew things were about to get shut down because it was happening all around us.

Dora Callahan, Summit VP/Brand Development: The world felt super shaky and I just had no idea what to think about what was going to happen to Summit. I feel like it was also pretty rainy? I don't know - it was just a lot and an incredibly anxiety inducing time, personally, but also for work and what it meant for our staff and customers.

Brian: We had this whiteboard, where I jotted down a bunch of numbers that basically boiled down to, how much money are we going to lose? We really had no idea what to do.

Tim Helfrich, Summit COO: I had just finished a 15-hour drive from Connecticut, where I was still living. The meeting with you, Andrew, and Dora, in an office I had not previously stepped foot into, was my first official Summit meeting in a long time and probably the most somber and sober ever.

Dora: I knew y'all were there and I think I was coming to score trivia because I was already working at home and not loving it, and so I knocked on the door and the lights were off except one lamp and I almost left because I felt like I shouldn't have been there. Lots of numbers on the board and serious looks on everyone's faces.

Tyler Helfrich, Summit Artistic Director (and Brian’s wife): My husband is a problem solver, and a joy-maker. At the dawn of the shutdown, it was jarring to witness the fear and flickers of helplessness arise in him. How could we continue to bring joy, foster community, and take care of our employees with so much uncertainty?

Andrew Kelleher, Summit Chief Strategy Officer: I'm not easily thrown by obstacles or adversity. I can't remember another time in my career I've been reduced to tears. The feeling of hopelessness and uncertainty in light of the pandemic and shutdown was pretty crushing. I literally thought we were going to have to lay everyone off and feared for my own family's well-being and economic security.

Tim: The biggest implication, and the one that loomed the heaviest, was the possible impact on our employees. Could we drive enough revenue (safely) to keep people employed?

Dora: It was so hard to predict/plan ahead more than one day because something changed every hour it felt like.

Brian: We were pretty sure we were going to shut everything down, have to let everyone go. That was definitely the most likely scenario.

Dora: It felt awful. I remember feeling sick, actually. It was also shocking because it felt like days before we were pumped about our sales, thinking COVID wasn't going to affect us. And then the conversations shifted so sharply when we realized we were going to be affected.

Wes Fogg, Summit Operations Manager: I knew that our current operations had to change to keep us and our guests safe, but what that looked like, I had no idea.

Maddy Wolf, Summit barista: I look back on pictures of that time and how oblivious we were to what was coming. It was just the beginning but it felt like the end.

Sarah Woods, Outpost manager: I remember asking Jamie or Wes if I could help in anyway and everyone being pretty uncertain about what was going to happen. I never thought I would be working in any capacity since I was also concerned that Summit was going to have to shut down.

The Moment of Hope

Brian: It don’t want this to sound too cinematic, but I was literally walking down the same sidewalk I’d used thousands of times, and looked at this 80-square-foot vacant and quasi-broken down old bank teller drive thru. I was so stubbornly determined not to “give in.” I first called my wife, Tyler, I think, and told her we needed to open a Summit in this building that hadn’t been used in probably three years.

Dora: I remember talking about how there had to be some great idea, but the drive through felt so far fetched and when we kept hearing “nos,” everyone was trying to think of what we could do.

Tim: It felt like a real long shot. And I think we thought it had potential. But nobody thought it was going to be the thing that propped up basically the whole business for two months.

Wes: When we started talking about the drive to, it sounded like a way to keep everyone safe and have a ton of fun at the same time. We all needed some good news and it was great to be a part of that good news.

Sarah: It all happened very quickly when Wes asked me if I would be willing to work at a pop-up drive-thru when literally the day before he said he might not have anything for me.

Brian: The ups and downs of that week were tremendous. The ideas, the nos ... it was the start of an exhausting year.

Dora: It was exhausting but I also don't feel like anyone slept very much.

Wes: There was a ton of uncertainty about what our lives would look like in a month, 6 months, year, etc, but in those few days, the only focus was getting the Drive to ready. It’s so rare in life that we have the chance to put ALL of our focus and attention at work into one project, but when we get that chance, real progress that sticks happens.

One Great Shot to Save Summit

Brian: It was 72 hours from when all the necessary parties said yes until we opened that Saturday. In hindsight, the timing seems insane. But we started hemorrhaging money overnight and needed to do something.

Tim: The building didn't even have power!

Robert Maynard, CEO of Famous Toastery and owner of the development: Happy to be a part of this. You all did a great job making this happen so quickly.

Dora: We were super confident we'd be able to do it, and we sort of dropped everything to make it happen and enlisted everyone on the team. I guess, it's not really that wild of timing in the Summit world. It really was amazing though. Everyone had so much energy around it, probably because it was the one positive exciting thing happening. So we all just jumped on it.

Maddy: It was incredible to watch. That energy Summit was putting into creating the Drive Thru was contagious.

Katie Hotze, CEO of Grocery Shopii: Best pivot ever!

Wes: With all the chaos in the world and seeing entire infrastructures close it seemed like a lot was moving lightning fast. When I looked at what we were trying to accomplish and the team we had to do it, I knew 72 hours was fast, but I also knew it was 100% doable.

Brian: The first idea actually was to sell Kindred's Milk Bread ... donuts hadn't even been mentioned!

Dora: I think at one point it was gonna be cinnamon rolls? I can't imagine eating as many cinnamon rolls as I did donuts.

Tim: Once it was sketched, and sketched might even be a generous term, it moved very quickly and had a few turns in the road.

Therese Petersmark Snow, a Summit customer: Summit Coffee and Kindred Donuts stepped up and the community stepped out.

Brian: THE DONUTS. yes, the donuts. I'm not sure Joe and Katy Kindred quite understand what those donuts did for Summit.

Kelley Davis Brake, a Summit customer: My eldest is gluten free and I even let him have a donut. That’s how good they are.

Dora: That collaboration kickstarted our survival, really. And allowed us to figure things out so we could be where we are today.

Wes: We found a safe and fun way to merge two iconic Davidson brands. Kindred took their most popular item, deep fried it, and put icing on it.. Yeah, turns out that tastes REAL GOOD! That plus coffee. Right at a time when near everyone in the country thought every business was going to close (right at the same time a lot of coffee shops in Charlotte where actively closing), we teamed up with an amazing partner.

Rachel Walt, a local business owner: Loved this collab- it was truly a rainbow in the clouds.

Sarah: I remember people would come all the way from Charlotte, and we would be out in like 30 minutes, of 400 donuts.

That First Morning

Tim: I was up early and wanted to walk down to see what the operation was like and to grab some coffee. I live only a block away.

Dora: I wasn't on the official schedule, but I was ready to be backup - there was a whole plan for people to come over to the drive through at like 6:45 (we were opening at 7:00) because it was going to be such an easy operation. So I walked over, totally prepared to leave after I got some coffee, and I saw lines of cars as soon as I started to get close and I was super confused because it wasn't even 6:30. And I sent an emergency Slack to tell everyone there were 30 cars already.

Tim: It was completely dark outside, but even from a few hundred yards away, I saw all of the lights. I kept rubbing my eyes because it was so surreal. Then I got close enough to see all of the cars. I started jogging as soon as I realized what was happening.

Brian: We stopped traffic in Davidson, on Main St. In all directions.

Tim: I remember the cops pulling us aside and asking us to fix the traffic situation Not only did we not know how to operate a drive thru, I was like "I don't know how to fix a traffic problem."

Summit customer Kristen Coupal: It was a glorious spectacle!

Maddy: I remember seeing videos of the first morning and feeling like “oh! people are still here and they still care.”

Tim: Before I could get a cup of coffee I was told we were about to run out and Wes threw me the keys to the summit van (which I had neither seen nor driven) and I drove the backroads to get to Basecamp. When I got there, Jamie Boraks was behind the bar and I jumped in to do brew a batch and realized I didn't know how to operate the brewer! They had to show me, which they thought was pretty funny.

Wes: What have we done? At the time, we did not have wifi fully set up so we were taking ALL payments in “offline” mode. Basically not transactions would be processed until we got to wifi. If the handheld turned off, we would lose all those transaction. Given an environment of financial uncertainty, losing a full days of sales seemed pretty scary.

Brian: We really had no idea what we were doing. We were unprepared, we sold out of donuts in 9 minutes, ran out of coffee.

Joe Kindred, owner + chef of Kindred Davidson (in a text that morning): There’s no way you sold out! I really appreciate you doing this for our team during this time.

Tim: I went back and forth between the drive thru and Basecamp probably 8 times that morning. And we ran out of donuts very early, so at one point I was jogging down the street with two cases of scones.

Dora: There's a whole different flow of operations there.....and day one there were like 12 of us yelling orders to each other and weaving through two lanes of cars with gloves on (because that's what we thought would save us from Covid) trying to get everyone their drinks. It was actually amazing that we ran a café that way. And also amazing that for the first few mornings (before the golf cart), Brian and Tim and Andrew just ran to Basecamp like 200 yards away with empty urns and ran back with urns full of hot coffee. It was a really cool operation, actually. Especially once we had the golf cart and could drive that down Main St. (is that legal?)

Andrew: When we opened the drive thru, dozens of cars lined up in the dark long before we actually opened, I knew everything would eventually be OK.

Chuck Tate, CEO of Digital Momentum: Such a great idea and an awesome side benefit is the community seeing one another come together during a difficult time. When we rolled up at 7am only to see several other cars already in line, it was a great display of community! Good work Summit coffee, Kindred restaurant and Davidson!

Maddy: That truly is what the drive thru was. Service. No bells and whistles just employees standing out in the rain, sun, or wind handing out coffee and donuts. And lots of dancing. I’m still upset we didn’t go viral.

Sarah: It was sort-of like we had to work with what we had, which was donuts and drip coffee but people loved that. Thank goodness we had a golf cart.

Tyler: We are beyond thankful for all the eventual YESes we received to get the operation going. It wasn't fancy, it wasn't the smoothest, but it was filled with Overcoming, Joy and Community. Our staff showed up, the town showed up. It was a simple thing, yes, but also glorious...community as a verb.

We Lifted a Community that Lifted Us

Tim: It was a reason to be optimistic, a reminder of our resiliency and creativity, but more than anything it was so heartening to see the community show up.

Chris Ahearn, Executive Director of Our Towns Habitat: In times like these, companies that can be innovative win the day. Thanks for protecting jobs and continuing to serve coffee & community Davidson has come to count on.

Andrew: People still needed coffee, and, more importantly, we still needed each other. We just had to figure out how to meet those needs in light of our new reality, and the Drive Thru got us out of the panic.

Whitney Beré, a Summit customer: At that beginning point we weren’t leaving the house, so it was a big outing to get in the car and grab coffee and donuts. Such a special treat all around!

Dora: Gave lots of hope. I think the biggest thing was that we had so much energy and excitement around it and so many people wanted to be part of it. I think it signaled to people that we were gonna be okay, at least for a little bit, when everything else in the news/world was telling us otherwise. Also it was a really wild experience to get to hire folks for the drive through.

Mallory Brinkman, a Summit customer: I went to get a donut in my Pajamas one morning and legit looked so gross no makeup probably had a good amount of quarantine wine the night before, and of course the news interviewed me! The complete and total embarrassment was worth the donut and the “drive thru” coffee drinks.

Sarah: We all knew Covid was real, but the DT made it seem like everything was okay. It definitely gave me a purpose and I think it provided a sense of normalcy for some people, getting their daily coffee but in a safe way.

Catherine Joy, a Summit customer: We would plan our mornings so we could walk and get coffee and donuts before starting distance learning for our pre-schooler and starting work for the day. It gave us a sense of normalcy and predictability when we weren't going anywhere else, and the kids still ask for the donuts!

Ellen Drollette, a Summit customer: This is exactly why we moved to Davidson when we retired. Small town living and the best community in North Carolina.

Brooke Basinger, Summit designer: I remember being in total awe of the tenacity of our shop and of our community to rally and lift one another up in a time of such uncertainty. Standing there and seeing, what... like 60 cars deep (?) on that first morning of people just wanting to see this thing through hit me in the gut. In the best way. It felt like we were in this together.

Amanda Privette Roberson, a Summit customer: Toward the end of the venture, my daughter and I took a mid-morning virtual school brainbreak/field trip to score these beauties. My only regret was not trying them sooner.

Lasting Legacy

Brian: I think the Drive To totally shifted our perspective on what Summit can be. The size of the cafés, the simplicity of a menu … the reality, and the reminder, is that we’re not serving the commodity of coffee. It was much bigger.

Tim: I had been away from Summit operations for almost 4 years at that point, and this was basically my reintroduction. And it felt totally weird and different on the one hand, but also completely familiar. We've never done business in a pandemic nor have we ever operated a drive thru, but we've jumped head first into unfamiliar territory a bunch of times. Always with a great team effort, almost always either super early or super late. It really encapsulates a lot of what makes us who we are: a can-do attitude, a commitment to serving our customers remarkable products and experiences, a belief that partnerships with other businesses and organizations is fundamental, and a total trust in our staff to help us figure things out.

Sarah: It kind of made me realize that Summit isn’t just a coffee shop, but almost like a way of life? if that makes sense. We have emphasized the importance of creativity and flexibility in our cafes and communities and the DT is just one example of how well we can adapt as a company.

Dora: I know financially it was helpful, for sure, but I think the morale boost is really what did it, and the donuts were a massive contributor there. I also love looking back at pictures from that time because they're all so happy and silly which is probably not how most people/businesses remember that month.

Maddy: It showed the community that the world doesn’t have to stop. We - as a community, not just as Summit - can adapt, grow, and celebrate the small things. For some people, us handing coffee to them through their car window was their only outside social interaction. So, it was obviously about more than just coffee. It was about care and connection in small ways. I would finish a shift at the DT and be so exhausted but so fulfilled from seeing people and being able to create a safe space for people to come to.

About Those Donuts …

Brian: Let’s see, we were open for about 10 weeks, which means I had probably 25 donuts?

Tim: I only had a handful of halves. My kids got one each week.

Dora: Okay. I would estimate.....like 100? Okay maybe 80. 80. That's so many donuts holy cow. Haha I want to say less but I don't think it is less.

Wes: Didn’t really feel like a time in the world when calorie tracking should be a priority. I think I had about a dozen which means I probably actually had 3 dozen! Most of the ones I had were leftovers I froze and reheated in the oven. Sounds sad, but they were still truly incredible donuts!

Maddy: Oh no….. so I’m vegan. But you obviously can’t sell the donuts without trying them and you most definitely can’t sit in a small space with hundreds of donuts without trying them! So, i lost count of how many donuts….. the vegan police better not come for me.

Sarah: Wowwww. I probably ate around 10 the whole summer. And I think that is great restraint because I was surrounded by them all the time and they were delicious.