Meet Emily Baker & Chase Strange | Serial Entrepreneurs & Owners of The Daily Grind

We had the good fortune of connecting with Emily Baker & Chase Strange and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Emily Baker &, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
For us, there were a couple of reasons to start our own business. (Although this isn’t our first) Our initial thought process was for “Time Freedom”! The freedom to do what you want when you want and have the flexibility that comes with owning a business. The next reason is for the many benefits of being a business owner (not self-employed) : delegating tasks so many tasks can be done without you doing them yourself, our employees run our business so we don’t have to be there all the time which gives us that time freedom we wanted and give us the opportunity to grow!
Creating your own business also gives you the ability to scale into multiple locations which will boost revenue, where as if you were an employee, you’re very limited by this one hour of work = this amount of pay..

What should our readers know about your business?
What makes TDG different? We wanted to create a full experience around coffee, not only delicious coffee, but a really cool environment that welcomes everyone and is like nothing you’ve seen before in the area. Having started a business previously from the ground up and making it well known in the city, in a sense, we knew how to replicate that. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what that is, but we know what it takes to make a trendy business. Getting everyone to hear about it just takes time! That’s called “Obscurity”- meaning no ones knows about you and you have to figure out the best strategy to get everyone to know about you!
Because we created a beautiful, friendly staffed and delicious business to start with, getting people’s attention really isn’t that difficult.

We’re “foodies” at the core and love to eat really good food so we wanted to have the best ingredients we could possibly put in the coffee. And those good ingredients and local vendor sourcing make a huge difference. Our brand The Daily Grind was intentionally designed to have a healthy product which comes from those local vendors and organic ingredients! 90% of coffee shops we go to just use whatever ingredients they can find like monin/1882 syrups to flavor their drinks because they’re easy to order online. Those syrups are typically full of artificial flavors, artificial sugars and lots of preservatives. In todays world that’s really nothing out of the ordinary but those things are not good for anyone to consume! So our goal is to never use those and really use the best ingredients we can use, even if it hurts our bottom line. and that’s why our coffee is so delicious!

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
In the morning, coffee at the daily grind comes first. After we get a little caffeine kick we head over to one of the local farmers market where we can find some fun plants and flowers! After that, we take a ride out to Granddaddys antiques and spend a few hours walking the isles looking for treasure. Once we get hungry we had over to Press in Graham for some amazing crêpes. Rest break after that big breakfast and then its family time!
Once the night time rolls around, its time to bar hop! Downtown Burlington has a few good spots like Tanners wine bar, D &J’s and Fitz and Falkner in Graham. Some additional good eats in Burlington include: (in no particular order)
1.) Tacos Azteca
2.) Simply Thai
3.) Tangent
4.) Dixon’s Jamaican Taste
5.) Steve’s Garden Mart
6.) Jack’s BBQ in Gibsonville (the cheesedogs)
There’s really not a whole lot to do in Burlington but most of our time here is spent enjoying all the family we have here! Other than working in our coffee shop of course

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
There is some literature that we feel is the first step of shifting your mindset from employee to self employed, “Rich Dad, Poor dad” by Robert Kiyosaki is Chases personal favorite, “Think & Grow Rich for Women” by Sharon Lechter is Emilys “must read” for entrepreneurship.
But in all honesty we both get the business bug from our families and without them and their constant support we wouldn’t have had the strength to go on after our first few failed ventures. You really know who has your best intentions at heart when you live in the shadow of failure, not once have our families ever said “Told ya so”. They have always shown up for us when in the valleys of business ownership and encouraged us to keep going. You need a good support system to stay grounded, level headed and remind you why started this adventure in the first place. We both come from lower middle class families, we both watched our parents work endless hours while also creating their own businesses on the side. They always wanted to shift the trajectory of our futures by sacrificing their time and seeing that as a child inspires you to do the same for them. Chases parents managed properties & had multiple businesses through his life, Emilys family owned and operated a catering business during her childhood. This instilled work ethic and hunger for more in both of us as children. Thank you Sarah & Eric, Angie, Pudgy & Marty for always cheering us on, we love you guys most.

Website: https://thedailygrindnc.com

Instagram: https://thedailygrind.nc

Facebook: thedailygrindnc

Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/the-daily-grind-burlington

Image Credits
@Glasbear_ on instagram, owned by Andy Augustyn.
Website: Glasbear.com