Eric and Destiny were drawn to coffee long before they ever planned to serve it. For Eric, it became a quiet ritual during years of work travel—landing in new cities, searching for a café, and settling into a space that made the unfamiliar feel a little more like home. When the two moved to Opp, Alabama, a small town with charm but no real coffee culture, that absence was impossible to ignore. There were no places to linger in the morning, no hum of conversation over warm drinks, no community hub stitched together by daily visits.
"There was absolutely no coffee shop in this town of six or seven thousand people. So we asked ourselves, what could we do that would be successful here?”
Rather than wait for someone else to fill the gap, they decided to build something of their own: a place where people could gather, feel known, and experience coffee as something more than a transaction. Their first trailer was humble, but it carried a sense of purpose from the start.
The response was immediate. What began as a modest setup gained traction, and the trailer became part of the town’s rhythm. It wasn’t long before they started thinking about something more permanent.
Growth That Was Always About People
Today, Grit + Grind operates twelve locations, with three more on the way. It sounds fast on paper, but the growth came from a steady and deliberate focus on the experience they were creating. Eric doesn’t view expansion as a numbers game, but as a function of trust, where customers return because they feel they can rely on and connect with the cafe community.
You see a company that's only three years old with so many locations and you ask yourself, how do they do that so fast? Well it's because I have partners like Dripos that helps mitigate that learning curve of opening a new location.
Running a single shop is hard enough, but building a network of them means reshaping your team constantly. Eric talks about growth as a sequence of people decisions. A barista becomes a manager, a manager needs regional support, a new role emerges to meet a need. Every new hire shifts the structure, which means the culture has to stretch without thinning. That requires attention, and a real understanding of what makes a good fit. Eric believes that how you treat people, employees or guests, is the brand, and everything else is secondary.
Hospitality Rooted in Perspective
Leadership at Grit + Grind is shaped by what Eric and his wife have lived through. They’ve lost everything before and rebuilt more than once. That history shows up in how they manage others. Their standard isn’t rooted in performance alone but in how you execute and follow through.
"We’re rich in the things we prioritize to be rich in. We’ve had nothing and we’ve had everything. That shapes how we treat people.”
Their version of hospitality is a practice that shows up in how staff greet someone walking in for the first time, and in how they remember the names of people who come every morning. Eric sees that as one of the few things worth being dogmatic about. Kindness has to be consistent to mean anything.
"Our culture is an embodiment of who me and my wife are. Energy attracts energy.”
Why Dripos Made Sense
The business grew faster than their systems could keep up. They had tried multiple POS platforms before: Clover, Square, Context— and each one added friction. Every feature seemed to come with a fee. The interfaces were clunky, customer service was hard to reach and at one point, Eric found himself on hold for nearly an hour with a Square support rep who couldn’t solve the issue.
A former employee mentioned Dripos. It was already in use at a shop they admired, so Eric looked into it. What caught his attention wasn’t the list of features. It was the responsiveness. He reached out directly to Jack, one of Dripos’ founders, and they began a conversation. Jack flew to Alabama, toured the locations, and helped them set up all three existing shops at once.
From there, things got easier. Scheduling, payroll, menu changes, loyalty, and marketing tools were all available in one place. No need to train staff across disconnected apps. No chasing support tickets across different vendors. They could hire one person, give them one system, and trust that the entire operation would hold.
"Every time we open a new location, there’s a learning curve. Dripos helps us flatten that curve so we can move faster.”
The POS also allowed them to pass card processing fees directly to customers, a margin-saving option that wasn’t possible on their previous platforms. On top of that, the built-in delivery integrations made order flow smoother. Instead of juggling DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Grubhub on separate devices, every order moved through the same pipeline.
Friction Is Expensive, Focus Is Not
For a brand scaling this quickly, every inefficiency gets magnified. Dripos removed a lot of those points of friction. The payroll feature alone meant they didn’t need multiple people managing time sheets and pay schedules. One team member could handle everything inside the same interface. The ordering system became more intuitive for both customers and staff.
Eric hears the pricing objection from other café owners often. He doesn’t push back with emotion. He just asks for math. Loyalty tools, email campaigns, third-party apps—all of it adds up. With Dripos, it’s already accounted for. What feels like a higher monthly cost ends up saving them money and time, especially at scale.
"What Dripos does differently is that it includes everything without nickel-and-diming you.”
The real win is the ability to grow without burning out. Dripos allowed them to open locations faster without increasing chaos. That way, their team can focus on showing up, rather than putting out fires.
“It’s rare for people to follow through on what they say. We try to live out our values in real time.”
Staying Local, Scaling with Intention
Grit + Grind opens every new shop with a focus on integration. They partner with nonprofits, donate coffee at local events, and make an effort to meet the neighborhood. They look for the less visible work like backpack drives and youth programs, and support those first. It’s part of what makes their regulars stick.
Eric doesn’t have patience for pretense. He knows when someone is selling instead of listening, and he builds his team to do the opposite. The coffee is consistent, but the goal has always been bigger than that. Grit + Grind is an engine for community, and they want to leave a lasting impact on people.
Eric wakes up each day with the same focus he had at the start. The company may be growing, but his motivation remains steady. Eric is setting out to prove something, and to show up well, again and again, trusting that that kind of consistency will do what it always has: bring people back.
"We’re not money-driven. We’re passion-driven. I need to wake up every morning and believe in what I’m doing.”
