Like an espresso shot on a bleary morning, Dallas-based Ascension coffee went from a small coffee shop brewing high-quality drinks in 2012 to the largest independent coffee company in Dallas-Fort Worth in 2019.
It operated nine coffee shops across North Texas, with plans for a 10th. And then it all came to a grinding halt when the coronavirus pandemic took hold in early 2020.
“We actually used the pandemic as an opportunity to take a hard look,” says Bill Schaffler, who became president of Ascension in August 2019. The nine shops were built quickly, without a cushion for the crushing economic blow they didn’t see coming, he says.
They “used this crisis to revamp and retool,” he says.
Quickly, Schaffler and his team closed four Ascensions: two in downtown Dallas, one on the Dallas North Tollway in Addison and one at Willow Bend mall in West Plano. The move cut the portfolio nearly in half, from nine to five shops. To deal with the blow of the pandemic, Schaffler furloughed “most” of the employees in the company but kept all the managers. The company switched to curbside pickup.
Months later, they made another surprising move: The company opened a new shop — Ascension’s sixth — in Fort Worth’s WestBend development on Nov. 9. It was a challenging effort, one that started and stopped even before the pandemic. But Schaffler says it’s had “the best opening week we’ve ever had in terms of sales.”
Perhaps it shows that Ascension has figured itself out. And that Schaffler can make hard financial decisions when it matters most.
Schaffler finds commonalities between the remaining stores: “They all have really nice patios,” Schaffler says. “And they really fit the model, for what we want to do going forward.” They don’t rely on businesspeople, some of whom are still working from home.
Schaffler lowered the prices on menu items — both coffee and food — after learning in a consumer research study that Ascension ranked low in terms of “value proposition.” It was an interesting move, given that many restaurants raised their prices in 2020 to fight against rising food costs, higher third-party delivery expenditures and suffering sales during the pandemic. Schaffler was able to renegotiate costs with vendors, which meant the company didn’t carry the losses.
A cup of drip coffee at Ascension costs $2.50 now instead of $2.80. “You can get a really good cup of $2.50 coffee at a lot of places,” Schaffler says. “We felt like we needed to have one at that price point.”
The chicken manchego pane aria — a popular sandwich made with chicken, cheese and sun-dried tomato aioli — shrunk in price from $11.80 to $10.
The Ascension team also cut 18 items from the menu so that it’s more of a “greatest hits” for breakfast and lunch than an anthology, the president says.
The company is still down about 25% in sales compared to sales figures last year, largely due to a lull in businesspeople grabbing their daily coffee, but Schaffler says an uptick in weekend sales has helped.
Schaffler comes to the company as the former CFO of Nothing Bundt Cakes and La Madeleine. While Ascension founder Russell Hayward remains at the company, he’s now dedicated to running the roastery and sourcing the coffee beans: the part of the business Hayward was always passionate about.
Schaffler may grow the business larger than Hayward did, but the effort will be slower, he says. They may open one or two new Ascensions in 2021 in Dallas or Collin counties, he says. First, he wants to invest in the existing coffee shops. During the pandemic, the company launched its first app for online ordering and a new accounting system for the back of the house.
The original Ascension in the Dallas Design District, which opened in 2012, is getting a facelift as it expands an extra 1,500 square feet. The effort is costing the company $350,000. The larger cafe will give customers more space, a veritable requirement in a post-COVID era, the president says.
The team is also spending $200,000 to build a private room and install more comfortable seating at the existing Ascension at the Crescent in Uptown Dallas.
Since fall 2020, Ascension has paired up with Sixty Vines to sell espresso drinks at the restaurants in Uptown Dallas and Plano. In turn, Ascension is pouring a few of Sixty Vines’ wines at its coffee shops.
Ascension also sells Martin House Brewing Company’s beers at the new Fort Worth coffee shop.
From the beginning, Hayward wanted to differentiate Ascension from its venti-sized competitor, Starbucks. Nearly 10 years later, being an anti-Starbucks company is still part of Ascension’s identity.
“Starbucks is one of the best things we have going for us right now,” Schaffler says. He’s resolute: “They’re not exciting anymore.”
