This year's Rookie of the Year Business - Grocery Outlet Bargain Market owners Liz Tafel and Tamara Davis talk about their insights as franchisees - their unconventional hiring process, how they have built success in Lake Oswego and the Bridgeport Village area and how they balance work and life as a couple in business. They're always happy to meet fellow business owners so stop by the Bridgeport Grocery Outlet and ask for Liz or Tamara - and hear more about how they have achieved 75% employee retention!
This month Krystal Hanna (Senior Mortgage Specialist, Lions Capital Mortgage - and a member of the Chamber's marketing committee) joins podcast producer Michelle O'Dell and Chamber CEO Liz Hartman for all April's chamber events. This is the place to hear What You Need to KNOW ... in LO!
Grocery Outlet Bargain Market Bridgeport
Hop at the Hunt - Saturday, April 19 - 10 am Title Sponsor Kelly's Pepper Jelly and Preserves
Sign up Genius for stuffing eggs, volunteering the day of the egg hunt
Michael C'est What
LIZ HARTMAN:: [00:00:00] This is Business LO, a podcast by the Lake Oswego Chamber of Commerce, which connects, educates, advocates, and champions, our business community. We have nearly 500 members from international corporations to home-based businesses, and we serve them all. Each episode of Business LO gives insider information to the local business community and the neighbors who support them.
And now let's talk Business Lo.
MICHELLE ODELL:: It's all about building better together conversations with the Rookie of the Year Community Award winner, the new location of Grocery Outlet Bargain Market. We have Liz Tafel and Tamara Davis here. We're gonna get great insights. I'm Michelle Odell, along with Krystal Hannah, a senior mortgage specialist at Lyons Capital Mortgage.
Right here at Lake Oswego and of course we have the much celebrated CEO of our Chamber of [00:01:00] Commerce, Liz Hartman, and she will let us know what chamber events are happening this month with what you need to know in lo. Now, first I wanna have Tamara and Liz tell us a little bit about yourselves and then Krystal's gonna start the conversation.
LIZ TAFEL:: I'm Liz. I am from Michigan and I came out to the west coast about six years ago. I met Tamara and then I got headhunted on LinkedIn and we moved from California three years ago, and we just love it up here.
TAMARA DAVIS:: I'm Tamara. I'm from California. I have two boys. They're about to be 14 and 17. And when this opportunity got presented to us, I was like, how are we gonna feed teenage boys one day?
And here we are owning a grocery store.
KRYSTAL HANNA:: That's perfect. Okay. Well Krystal, let's go ahead and take it away.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Well, let's start at the beginning. What made you decide a grocery store? Was it lifelong Dream, happy accident, something in between Hungry Boys.
Speaker 4: I was in the retail world for 20 years. Nike and San Franciscos company called [00:02:00] Finish Line, ran 14 stores across three states, and then Liz.
Ran restaurants for 20 years, and when she got headhunted we thought, all right, this isn't something we saw coming, but what thrived during Covid I grocery stores were about the only thing, right? So my stores, my malls were shutting down. Liz's restaurant shut down. Then just happened that she got headhunted on LinkedIn and we thought it was for her to be a store manager at one and found out, oh, you can own one of these.
So we went through the process. We'd stop when we found a red flag 'cause it seemed too good to be true. Liz's mom thought it was a Ponzi scheme. And here we are, we're still with them. So, yeah. And to feed the kids right. Plus I think the big thing for us was community. Hopefully we've been able to show that our first year and a half around us.
And we just want people to be treated. Nicely in the workplace, like we just sell groceries. We wanted to create that culture within a workplace that we weren't given during our 20 year experiences in both of our [00:03:00] industries.
Speaker 5: What a solid foundation to set you guys up for success. Both of you. It's like the perfect relationship to make it work.
That's awesome. How is it owning a franchise or being part of a franchise?
Speaker 3: It's way different. We came from high level management backgrounds, so then having two female high level managers come do one business was real interesting. I think the biggest thing we had to learn was how to work together and not work against each other, even though we all wanted the same result.
We wanted to go. A, B, C, D, and this one wanted to go Z-Y-X-Q-P. Yeah. So we were getting there though.
Speaker 5: So with that, what would you say has been like one of your biggest challenges?
Speaker 4: I would say communication between her and I. So we sit down on Mondays and kind of just check in with each other because we are with each other 24 hours, it's home and it's work.
And we come into work together, we leave together. So one doesn't feel like they're putting the extra work in at the business and the other one's not. [00:04:00] We've seen a lot of relationships within. People owning businesses together that don't make it. And we choose each other first before the business. So we just do those check-ins with each other, business wise and with each other.
How are we feeling for that next week?
Speaker 5: Do you guys have, like, I've experienced this before with owning a business with my partner hours that you talk about business. Do you have like a hard, like stop line when you get home? Okay, we're not gonna talk about it. Or is it kind of a free for all? All the time.
I'm the one who doesn't wanna talk about it when we get home. I would never have guessed that, Liz.
Speaker 4: I think it's one of those things, right? Like where things just pop up and we have to talk about it. So we are constantly clocked in. So it's one of those things where if something pops up, let's just say a random fire, I.
That happened outside last night. We are always on that clock. Right? So it's just troubleshooting with each other and making sure our team knows that we're there for them. But no, if it's up to Liz once we walk out the doors, we're done talking about it and my mind is like [00:05:00] a squirrel outside in these trees trying to figure out how to come in and grab that corn right.
So all over.
Speaker 5: So the grocery industry is constantly evolving. How do you stay ahead of trends while keeping your local feel? I think you guys do an amazing job. I just wanna add that I.
Speaker 3: I think everyone's really price sensitive right now and we carry the bargain brands. Everyone wants all these name brands that we have, like Cereal for a Buck 99 or even like the cereal you can get at Whole Foods.
We have it for 3 99 and not eight point 99. So when it comes to price sensitivity right now, that's what we're trying to tell people is please come here and check us out. We are not like a Denned canned food company anymore. This place is fantastic and it'll save you a lot of money.
Speaker 4: I think it's one of those things too, where they had asked when we interviewed for this, so the process to get into it is a 20 page business plan, a 10 page marketing plan, a whole year for a cash flow.
How are we gonna fit in with the community? And then we go through three hours worth of interviews to figure out if this is gonna be the right fit for this set of owners that comes into this [00:06:00] building. And is this community gonna support them if they go out and support the community Going through all of that.
And then get selected for the store. During our interview, they said, what are you most worried about? And we said, having the word outlet attached to our name when we know our customer service is gonna be top-notch. We know our store's gonna be clean, we know merchandising's gonna be well, we'll bring in the product surrounding what those customers want.
But having the word outlet, how do we get them in here? So our biggest thing is being in that community and just getting them to know who we are as people to say, just come in and give us one shot. And if it's not for you, thank you for the one opportunity. If it is for you, please tell friends. Our biggest thing has been word of mouth, and it's a lot through this lo chamber.
They have just totally ran rampant. I mean, we even met somebody today at the meeting with a charcuterie business and she goes, I keep meaning to get over to you girls 'cause I hear about what you guys have over there. So just making those connections. She didn't know we were here, but she heard about it through someone else.
If you guys are knowing how Grocery Outlet [00:07:00] works, it's all about opportunistic buying. So let's say Kellogg's has 60,000 units of Frosted Flakes. And they'll come to Grocery Outlet. It's like an Overstock. What are we gonna do with these? Grocery Outlet goes, we'll take 'em, but we only want 'em at this price 'cause we're only gonna sell 'em to our customer for a dollar 99 when everybody else is selling 'em for 5 99.
So then they'll say, okay, but you're also gonna take these crackers that go out in six weeks. So then that's where sometimes you'll see us have crazy deals, 10 for a dollar on some crackers, because we only have four weeks to sell 'em. But we're also giving you that bargain on that frosted flakes for a dollar 99 that they're selling across the street for 5 99.
Speaker 2: Liz Hartman is always talking about how, how they really maximized their chamber presence. Tell us how you did your marketing plan with the Chamber, and how did it differ from what they asked you to do.
Speaker 4: They don't have an ask on what you're gonna do in the community, so anything is all us. Any of the pantries, anybody we reach out to, that's all on the owner.
The owner can come in and do nothing if they didn't want [00:08:00] to. That's up to them. They would like the presence, but they can't require it because technically we're the owner of the business. You know, we just get our product through them. We just have seen in one of the stores we trained in, in Pleasanton, California, our trainer was big.
With the chamber, and we saw that firsthand. So we train in other owners' locations when you go through this and those owners take their time to make sure we're set up for success when we get our location. So that was one thing that we got from him was how big. Community involvement was anywhere. So that's why before the store even opened, we were knocking on the chamber door saying, we're coming.
Here's who we are. So everybody doesn't hear about us six months later, and then we don't have time to get there and say who we are.
Speaker 5: What have you done within the Chamber that you've found success doing? What would you recommend for other businesses listening to this? How do they plug in or maximize their benefit?
Speaker 3: Any to show [00:09:00] up, show up to those morning meetings on Friday morning. You show up and show your face and introduce yourself and get some announcements out there and give some shout outs and use the other businesses in the chamber as your partner because that's how we had to find a bunch of partners.
'cause we didn't know anyone here. We just moved here. So that's how we built a bunch of partnerships.
Speaker 2: And she specifically means the Friday morning networkings that happened every Friday except for a couple of year for holidays and that sort of thing. And all of that information is at the Chamber website just in case anybody doesn't know what that is.
Speaker 5: Can you talk about the recent partnership? I, well, I think work, you just had your second one maybe that you did with Broadway Cigars.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Billy text me and said, you girls wanna come over here and pour some wine? So we're like, of course, Billy. So yeah, we just bring up our table. We bring some wines that we know customers have been loving in our store.
I think a lot of people are pretty shocked with the brands we carry. And then when we go, yeah, this is five bucks instead of 25, [00:10:00] then that's even more of that wow factor. Right? And then Billy comes and. Buy the groceries from us, any barbecues for everybody who shows up. So we go over there and help promote his business with getting people there.
And then he's showcasing the food with the barbecue and stuff.
Speaker 5: Liz and Tamara, do you have any advice for someone thinking about opening their own franchise?
Speaker 4: Yeah. If you are interested, we have a recruiter that they can come in and talk to us and then we. Send their information to our recruiting team.
When we had got into this program years ago, it was one couple for every thousand people that actually got in that they interviewed. Now I think it's tripled or quadrupled that we went through a nine hour selection process, nine hours worth of interviews in one day with the executive team to even be able to be considered to train for this.
It's not like we can go, this is, we want the old DSW building and we're gonna build a grocery alley here. No. So not like that.
Speaker 5: What's up with the couple thing? Why does it seem like all couples own grocery outlet? There has to be something [00:11:00] behind that.
Speaker 4: I would not wanna do this by myself, so I know I seem like I'm the energizer bunny, but what she does on the back end with all the paperwork and the finances, and she does pretty much our scheduling.
Tamara, we're gonna be on a podcast on this day at this time. Okay. Put it in the calendar so I know what I'm doing that day. 'cause I also coach basketball and golf for Special Olympics for my son's high school. Along with everything else in the store. We also employ people on the spectrum. We have three on our payroll right now, and then we work with a couple of the local high schools as well to give them a first job opportunity and then we can write 'em reference letters and stuff too, so it's near to dear to our heart.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I remember you guys kind of sharing that story and you kind of talked about the special needs and why that's near and dear to your heart. Can you share it kind of from that angle?
Speaker 4: Yeah. My oldest son, Isaac, who Liz Hartman, recently got a meet. At the Chamber Awards, I brought the kids with us. He's on the spectrum.
Found out when he was two and a half, he was diagnosed and I was [00:12:00] eight weeks pregnant with my second at that point. So that was a lot to go through, but it was like, how are we gonna set this kid up for success? Had in homeschooling, he started regular school at three years old and now he's at an integrated high school.
His last two report cards, four point ohs, really thriving. So yeah. Everybody has a purpose for someplace. It might not be in the deli area, but maybe it's up there talking with the customers at the register. You know, it's great and the customers know it. Like, they're like, oh, there's Mikey dancing down aisle six again.
You know, it's Thursday. We know he is gonna be there. So they just go along with it. And I that, I love it. The
Speaker 2: community has
Speaker 4: everybody. Yep.
Speaker 2: That's exactly it. People are always talking about how great your employees are and how. Courteous and how friendly and how helpful they are. Do you have special training?
Speaker 4: What Liz and I decided going into this was we weren't gonna base our employees off of experience. 'cause her and I didn't come from grocery. So we based it off, are you a good [00:13:00] human? Can you have conversation? Do you smile all the time? Right? So if you can. Be that person with a customer service and just talk to us in an interview.
We don't sit there and read off interview questions, we just have a conversation and if you have a willingness to learn, we can train you, but I can't train you to be a good person. So we went off of, I will try, but that's how we based it off of that. We were like, we can train grocery, but we can't train the customer service portion of it.
So interviews I do ask one question. I love hearing the responses is what cartoon character you most like. And they look at us like You two are nuts. Right? But I'm like, if you say Garfield, we might have some problems. Right. So you say SpongeBob, I am on it. You are hired. Right. So it's just something, and that's still to this day, like when we went through all those hundreds of interviews before we opened to how we still interview today.
We base off customer service and we'll train real quick. I will touch on the people side though we were nervous coming into this [00:14:00] area with not sure who was gonna work, work at a grocery outlet store. We were able to retain 75% of our staff from day one for our first year, so 75% staff retention. And I fully believe, and I know Liz fully believes it's the culture within the store.
People. We did choose. They choose us too, you know, so that's pretty cool.
Speaker 5: Can you share with us the hours for Grocery Outlet Bridgeport, and the location for those of us that don't know?
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're open seven days a week, 8:00 AM to 9:00 PM and we are located right across from Bridgeport Village at 1 6 9 2 0 Southwest 72nd.
Well,
Speaker 5: this is the Business LO podcast. What other business advice do you have?
Speaker 4: Get out into your community. You can't sit there and wait for people to come through your door and complain when they don't get out there. We have met so many people through the LO chamber, like [00:15:00] even today, hearing somebody a shout out for washing windows, we're like, yes, we need that.
Grab the business card. You know? And we're like, we will be contacting you this week. Market yourself, market your business and go find them. And Liz Hartman, you've got some great ambassadors because let me tell you, Joyce Honda, she was on us from the beginning and Dan Brown, we use him and you've got some great people on that team, so keep 'em
Speaker 2: coming.
Alright, well thank you so much Liz and Tamara, thank you for joining us today and thank you for all of your insights.
Speaker 3: Thanks for having us. Thank you.
Speaker 2: Now it's your turn. What do we need to know? What is going on in lo?
Speaker: We have a new title sponsor for Hop at the Hunt. Kelly Calabria with Kelly's Jelly is this year's title sponsor and that is on Saturday, April 19th.
And we are looking for volunteers to help us stuff those eggs. We'll be at the Chamber of Commerce on. April 10th and 11th, [00:16:00] you can sign up on Signup Genius. But the really fun night will be at the Hunt Club, and that is on the 16th of April from six to 8:00 PM So if you really wanna see what's going on at the Hunt Club, watch people riding, you can come over to Stuff Eggs.
And as we mentioned, the Grocery Outlet is one of our sponsors brought the candy in. We have about 10,000 eggs that we need to fill with candy.
Speaker 2: 30 years to fill them. 10 minutes to deep.
Speaker: Oh. So come join us for third Thursday. On Thursday, April 17th. It will be from four to 6:00 PM Watch for the flutter flags so you know which ones are part of third Thursday.
It's been increasing every single month. How many have artists there? A number of them will have specials that evening. Michael from SayWhat will be back down at City Home and he has a great time down there. We have another member who is out at Bridgeport with an art exhibit, Brian [00:17:00] Geraths, who photographs a lot of our chamber events.
He has a special showing at the Art Gallery. At Bridgeport. So we are looking to refresh the ambassador. So if anybody is interested in being a Chamber ambassador, now's a good time to check in with the chamber. We are getting ready to plan for the 2026 Leadership Lake Oswego class. A big shout out to Greed Lo for featuring the chamber on there.
Front cover for the April publication features Alistair Furman, the chairman of the board, and Heather Graves Ramsey, the past chairman, Eric Sifford, who is the treasurer, and then they're all chamber photos inside of a whole lot of people who've been involved with the Chamber.
Speaker 2: Well, Liz and Krystal, thank you so much for helping out with this episode.
It's always a delight to talk with you. And remember, every day is a Chamber of Commerce Day here in Lake Oswego.
Speaker: The Lake Oswego Chamber of Commerce. Thanks you for listening to Business [00:18:00] Lo. We would love to have you as a member so you can help Lake Oswego continue to be one of the best places to live, work, and play.
If you wanna share an idea for a future episode or become a member, visit us@lakeoswegochamber.com and please like and follow us on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. And for help with your business podcast, go to podcast productions.com.