We wanted to give a big thank you to China Millman for the great write-up in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette today. She’s really been a positive force in the coffee community and it is just a blessing for small business owners like us. The article mentions risk taking and thinking back, we did take a leap of faith, by the time we had prelim designs from Evolve and were in the mist of negotiating lease contracts, the economy was slowly crumbling. Ultimately, we decided to push forward. Now almost 6 months after we opened our doors, we’re slowly becoming a part of the community and the neighborhood. We’ve had such a diverse crowd come in to support us and we’ve met an array of just amazing people. The relationship that we’ve build with some of our customers in such a short period of time is quite incredible and makes waking up in the morning worthwhile. So thanks to all of you really, all of you who continuously come in and support us, you’re the reason we’re still standing here today. Thanks to all of you who blog or twitter about us, thanks for telling your friends who then tell their friends. Thanks to all of our friends and families for helping and putting up with us for the last 2 years. You’ve listened to all of our ideas and you’ve shared our excitement and our tears and you’ve drunk plenty …
Being a small business owner is quite a challenge, there are so many variables that must be thought out beyond the daily running of the store…When the lights are turned off at night, and the Synesso goes on idle, our brains are still on full throttle, we certainly have more respect and compassion for others like us now. Jake (a barista from Beaver Falls) posted on his blog regarding the closing of Beleza and raised the question how does a coffee house survive on just selling coffee. I can see why and how tempting it can be to want to start changing your concept and adding more food items to bring in more revenue. I wish we could delegate the accounting aspect to someone else, or have an endless amount of cash flow. So, sometimes in a panic, business owners may try new things, or cut down on cost by switching to a lesser quality product. It is a challenge when your sole income is based on a $1.65 cup of coffee, especially when your focus is on quality versus quantity and profit. Barb and I are determined to keep our focus on the coffee and its farmers. We certainly achieve this on a daily basis by the wonderful partnership we’re building with our roaster 49th Parallel. We want to become a prime destination for our coffee and our attention to details and this is why you’ll just get a smile back when you suggest us having Panini’s and soups or salads...it’s not that we don’t appreciate the suggestions, but we believe that the farmers who brought us this coffee deserve it being the center of attention. Sometimes when everyone goes Zig, it’s good to go Zag and while we’re no way trying to say we’re expert at our craft and that we’re setting an example here in our community, we’re just glad that we’re sticking to our beliefs. Perhaps they will save us in the end.
Nice!
Posted by: Luke | June 04, 2009 at 02:58 PM
China Millman does rule... and so does Voluto.
Posted by: Bobby | June 06, 2009 at 09:06 AM