Dutch Bros. CEO Christine Barone goes one-on-one with Jim Cramer

I don't know. I think I'm never going to change. Some stocks are just so darn exciting I can't believe I get to speak to the CEO. Like, can you believe this rally in Dutch Bros? This is an Oregon-based coffee chain that put a spectacular quarter of Wednesday night. Solid stocks surged 28% yesterday, tackled another 5% today. At this point, the stock's now up nearly 50% for the year. Now, regular viewers know I'm a longtime fan of Dutch Bros, long before it ever came public, and I like what I'm seeing here. Not only were the numbers fantastic, but they're rolling out mobile ordering, testing out potential food options, expanding the menu. Maybe it could have a lot more room to run. Let's take a close look with Christine Barone. She's the president and CEO of Dutch Bros. We'll learn more about what's going on. Ms. Barone, welcome back to Bad Money. Jim, thanks so much for having me. All right, so, Christine, I get sometimes the superlatives don't work. I can't convey how much I love your place, so I'm just going to go right to the heart of the matter. Will you please tell our viewers what the 9-1-1 is? Okay, well, the 9-1-1 is, we'll have it hot or iced. Iced is always our specialty, and we'll add an extra shot in your drink for you. And how many shots? Can I get six shots in a 9-1-1? You can get six shots in a 9-1-1. Okay, well, people have to realize, because I think that everything's a little tawdry compared to Dutch Bros, because you guys understand the quality of taste, but also the excitement of coffee, and it's been lost in other places. I find that when I think about your place, the first thing I think of is great tasting coffee and then people who somehow remember my name. How can you, in this day and age where we just have to worry about throughput, do you have people who both remember your name and know your coffee? So since the very beginning, we've focused on speed, quality, and service, and it's all three of those things together. And I think the service is about your name, it's about connecting with you, it's about making sure that you're having a great day at Dutch Bros. You know, I went on Reddit today, just to see what people are saying. I got this one. I haven't been to a Starbucks in months. Dutch Bros is so much better, and they always have a great selection. Sugar-free, protein milk, energy drinks, the combos are endless. Tell me about the combos. Yeah, so one of the things we're focused on right now is our holiday beverages. In fact, I'm having a candy can mocha right now. We make drinks for however you want it. One of our specialties is really personalizing for you. Jim, I know that you love the Annihilator, but we have all different ways we can make the Annihilator for you. So it has chocolate mac in it, we can add protein milk, we can make it skinny for you, all different types of things. Now when I hear about the problems Starbucks had, and Brian Nichols coming, you know, he's there and he's going to make changes, I keep thinking that they had trouble with all the different permutations of drinks. How come you guys don't have a similar problem? So I think since the very beginning, we've been about iced, we've been about convenience with connection, we've been about speed and really just connecting with you and all of that personalization has been a big part of us since the very beginning. So I think we've really built our operations and we've built our brand around the ability to personalize really well. Now when you try to hire people, you've had to hire people because you're opening a lot of stores. Are you searching for people who have good memory of names? So I think who we're searching for is we're searching for people who want to be a part of Dutch Bros. We're searching for people who want to be a part of a team. They want to come in together and support the person that they're working next to. And we feel like we can teach them everything else. We have an awesome training program and we really invest in learning the drinks. We invest in, you know, connecting with your customers. And I think one of the biggest things is we give our bros just time to connect with their customers. Now, one of the things I thought was amazing is, is that a couple of years ago, I would ask your company before you got there about labor and there was such labor shortage all over the country. It was difficult. Could you please tell people what the ratio is now of people who want to work at Dutch Bros versus people you hire? Yeah. So we shared this quarter that we've gotten 400,000 applications this year for 11,000 positions. Wow. I mean, that's incredible. And of course, obviously when you're expanding, you have to take that into account. How are you? Are you? I know that there was talk about how you were going to do a certain number of stores and it was a little bit less, a little bit more. How are you thinking about expansion given the fact that there's not an endless pool of great labor? And I think it's sometimes when Dutch Bros fell, the stock fell badly before you. I thought there was too much expansion. How are you modulating expansion? Yes, the way we think about real estate, the strategy is really working. And I think about matching your process, the data and analytics, what you're bringing in so that you know what your AUDs are going to look like as you grow. And I think we really have all of that dialed in and matched. And so we have tons of learnings from all of the expansion that we've done. We're more rapidly feeding in in those models and I think we're really getting that real estate strategy right. Okay. Now switching from real estate to the actual matter at hand, coffee, coffee prices. I learned from the great Howard Schultz never to overdo the cost of coffee. It's only one small part of the company. Is that similar with Dutch Bros? Because we know coffee prices are spiked. Yes, that's something we absolutely watch closely as we look at our overall cost basket. Coffee is a little bit less than 10 percent of that overall cost basket, but we do look at it closely. All right. And then as you are expanding, when are you thinking about making a big push into the Northeast? So that might be a little while. So as we expand, we're getting people ready. All of our growth is predicated on people. We've got 400 operators ready to open markets, but we're really growing in a contiguous way so that we're growing across states that are next to each other. We just had the ability to enter Florida this year. So we still have a lot of growth ahead of us. We will be there, but it'll be a little while. Actually, if you had told me it's going to be within the next year, I would say you guys are expanding too fast. We don't want that. The slow and steady win the race in this business, even as Wall Street doesn't want that. Wall Street wants willy nilly expansion. And then frankly, they don't care. So you are a terrific steward of the Dutch Bros brand. Christine Barone, president and CEO of Dutch Bros. Thank you for coming on the show. Thanks, Jim. All right. Next time I call 9-1-1, I got to be very careful because I want six shots in mine. Thank you so much. See you soon. All right. Everybody's back after the break. Coming up. It's not easy being green. Sweet green shares wilting after earnings. Kramer breaks down the action with the CEO next. Don't miss a second of Mad Money. Follow at Jim Kramer on X. Have a question? Tweet Kramer. Hashtag Mad Mentions. Send Jim an email to madmoneyatcnbc.com. Or give us a call at 1-800-743-CNBC. Miss something? Head to madmoney.cnbc.com.