The spacious coffee shop seats 48 inside and 20 on its patio.
Geoff Allen spent his teenage years exploring downtown Seattle’s coffee shops well before Starbucks was seemingly spreading to every American neighborhood.
He liked the vibe in Seattle’s indy coffee shops and the adjacent music scene, listening to bands like Mother Love Bone in the Free Mars Cafe. Two of Mother Love’s players later joined Pearl Jam.
As a kid from suburban Bellevue, Allen was smitten with Seattle’s coffee culture. “I fell in love with it as a young Seattleite.”
Forty-some years later, he’s the proprietor of his own shop – Foxtail Coffee Co. It opened in March at University Plaza Shopping Center next to Oregano’s. The spacious coffee shop seats 48 inside and 20 on its patio.
Foxtail’s decor features distressed wood, subway-tile walls, retro industrial light fixtures and a mountain mural. The aroma of coffee fills the room.
Foxtail’s baristas serve hot, iced and cold brew coffee, espresso drinks and teas. They also offer bagels, pastries, breakfast sandwiches, gelato and blends of Foxtail coffee beans.
Allen and his wife, Nancy, opened the first Foxtail franchise in Arizona. The Foxtail parent company started in 2016 in Winter Park, Florida. It has more than 100 locations, primarily in Florida but also Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, Michigan and Nevada.
Allen said Nancy, who had a long career in marketing, helps run the Flagstaff Foxtail shop, mostly behind the scenes.
Allen is no rookie in the hospitality, coffee and retail world. He worked for Walt Disney Co. in Florida, Starbucks in Seattle and San Francisco, and Apple in Las Vegas.
“What I learned at Disney was how to take care of guests,” Allen said. “Nobody does guest service, customer service, better than they do.”
“What I learned at Starbucks in the time I was there was seeing how (then CEO) Howard Schultz ran the company. I learned how to take care of people and how to do it with your heart.”
“What I learned at Apple was to put those things together with an amazing product. Bringing it all together.”
Flagstaff Business News sat down with Allen and Donya Hasiak, Foxtail operations manager, on a recent Friday afternoon to talk about Foxtail and Allen’s path to opening his own coffee shop.
“I was worried about finding talent but we’ve been blessed that Donya landed here to support this venture,” Allen said.
Hasiak, who once had her own coffee shop in Williams, said she was excited to learn Foxtail was coming to Flagstaff.
She sifted through 300 applications to find 14 baristas and staff for the shop. “Most did not have coffee experience but they are the kind of people who have embraced taking care of our customers,” Allen said. “Donya and I can teach them the coffee world.”
Hasiak said managing Foxtail has been “one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, but you’re never going to work for more honest people who really care,” she said of Geoff and Nancy Allen. “That makes a big difference.”
Allen has a big personality, radiant smile and an easy rapport with customers. He studied public relations and commercial recreation at the University of Idaho, graduating in 1987. He was the equipment manager for the Vandals football team and visited Flagstaff twice when the team played in the Skydome.
Allen said he had enough of cold weather during college. Upon graduating he headed across the globe to the inferno that is the Australian Outback.
He landed a job on the Atlantic Clipper, a 150-foot sailboat, taking passengers on 10-day adventures in the South Pacific.
In the late 1980s he returned to the States where he met his wife-to-be, Nancy, in Florida. He proposed. She declined, urging him to get a real job, Allen said. That summer he was working as a Daytona Beach lifeguard.
“So, I cut my hair, shaved my beard and took my earrings out.”
Disney Resorts hired him as a mechanic and later promoted him to management jobs. Allen said he worked for Epcot Worldwide, Walt Disney World and helped open Hong Kong Disneyland.
Starbucks hired Allen in 2002 as regional director of operations. The coffee giant at that time had 60 stores in Florida. Allen said he helped open hundreds of stores in the Sunshine State. That earned him a promotion to the corporate office in Seattle.
“I wasn’t very good at cubicles and working in offices,” he said.
Allen requested a new assignment. That led to several years opening stores in San Francisco.
Apple recruited Allen and moved him to Las Vegas where he spent a decade opening stores in the Southwest. A few years back, the Allens bought a cabin in Kachina Village as a cool weather getaway from Sin City.
“Two years ago, Nancy and I decided we had enough of corporate America,” Allen said.
They settled in Flagstaff but Allen said Nancy “didn’t like my retirement. She said you’ve got to do something. How about a coffee shop?”
“So, here we are.”
After much research, Allen said he chose Foxtail instead of an independent coffee shop, which was more work than he wanted.
“I really liked what they were doing,” he said. “I liked their coffee. I liked the vibe in their cafes. It’s been fun. It’s a lot of work but in three months we haven’t paused enough to appreciate it.” FBN
By Peter Corbett, FBN
Photo by Peter Corbett: Geoff Allen worked for Disney, Starbucks and Apple before opening Foxtail Coffee Co. in Flagstaff with his wife, Nancy.
