When Isaiah Harris, known as Izzy to his friends, was managing a shop in Bend, Oregon, he met a couple named Laurie and Michael.
The couple drove to Bend every week on Tuesdays and Thursdays for two years to visit their friend at the physical rehabilitation center nearby. It was about a 45-minute drive from where they lived, and they always stopped at Dutch Bros to order a coffee — a medium hot sugar-free kicker for him and small hot sugar-free mocha for her.
“It was like their big city adventure,” Harris said. “They’d see their friend and get coffee, and we’d chat it up for a little bit. We didn’t talk a lot.”
One day Laurie pulled up to Dutch Bros without her husband, and she asked to meet with Izzy privately.
“I walked around the back of the building, and she opened her arms and I hugged her,” he said. “She started bawling.”
She explained that her husband had died of a stroke, and they didn’t know why it happened.
Harris describes the impact of the moment as striking because they never had a close relationship. In fact, the extent of their conversations was usually asking about their kids, and that was it.
“My conversations with them were very short, not very in-depth,” Harris said. “But the little bit that we showed that we cared for her had really given her that kind of security with us.”
Harris found a great sense of purpose in being able to be there for her in a time of need.
“Her first instinct was to come into town and see us and get that sense of familiarity,” he said. “It’s just that safe place. There’s so much more impact at our window beyond the beverages. It’s a platform for the greater good. It wouldn’t have been possible without what we’ve built here.”
His advice for other broistas?
“Be there and just be present physically, mentally, emotionally with other people.”