Shine Coffee and Short Leash Hot Dogs are joining together to bring brunch to midtown Phoenix every Wednesday.
For the past six weeks, the Short Leash food truck has parked in front of Shine Coffee from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. to create “Shine and Dine.” Shine co-owner Christiaan Blok said the idea for the collaboration came from a long friendship with Short Leash co-owners Brad and Kat Moore and a desire for innovation.
Shine customers who may not have heard of Short Leash Hot Dogs can try the food truck while it’s parked outside of Shine and vice versa. Blok said the relationship brings together a recognizable brand with a well-known coffee shop.
“It’s a very symbiotic relationship. … People know their hot dogs, they know the service Short Leash does and people know us,” Blok said.
Moore expressed a similar sentiment about the relationship Short Leash and Shine have built.
“It’s nice when you have these kinds of relationships because it’s not competitive and everyone reaps benefits and has a lot of fun with it,” Moore said.
Moore added that Shine’s location in midtown Phoenix helped introduce the Short Leash brand to a new area with a customer base that may not have heard of it.
“They get extra traffic around that lunchtime period and we’ve been able to reach a new group,” Moore said. “It’s a fun way for us to cross-promote and take their space and add some fun extra activity to it and make it a little lunch hour out of it.”
Blok said it’s hard to measure the exact financial benefit because the collaboration is still very new, but added that Shine has seen an estimated 5 percent increase in sales since the partnership began. Blok also said the mobility of the collaboration made it even more convenient, as customers could experience Shine and Short Leash at the same place.
“The great thing is they have a very recognizable brand and they come to us. … This is such an ideal collaboration for them and for us,” Blok said.
Shine co-owner Laryn Callaway-Blok said Shine Coffee has been promoting “Shine and Dine” as a weekly lunch event that combines food, coffee and Shine’s new pocket park.
“It’s just nice to have this once-a-week lunchtime alternative on Vernon (Avenue),” Callaway-Blok said.
While the collaboration with Short Leash has been successful so far, Callaway-Blok said Shine does not currently have plans to expand its collaboration with other local food trucks.
Short Leash has previously collaborated with other businesses, such as Urban Cookie, in a similar way, Moore said. The collaboration with Shine follows the same model. Moore said Short Leash’s goal is to “find small businesses that share the same philosophy and same demographic and have some cross-promotion.”
Contact the reporter at Pallavi.Kunthara@asu.edu
