Coffee By Thirty

These past five days have been a whirlwind of activity, with more progress in this time than the past couple months.
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Two coffee shops. Both alike in ambiance, living harmoniously with one another on either end of a busy street. Shop A offers espresso from a shiny superautomatic - the coffee’s consistent, but manufactured as a Big Mac or a Twinkie. Shop B runs a manual espresso machine, but doesn’t know about coffee as much as it thinks it does, producing sometimes mediocre, sometimes dreadful brews.

From the coffee perspective, which shop is the better of the two?

I’m going to chew on that for an evening.

I’ve added a new segment to the navigation bar at left: Currently Drinking. It’s a brief history and personal observation about whatever kind of beans I’m brewing at the moment.

It’s not meant to be an end-all review, more of a casual thought about the coffee at hand. Something about the coffee besides just the name. Sometimes I’ll offer only a paragraph on a certain roast, other times I may get caught up in the history or other element of the beans.

As my coffee education and skills in cupping grow, expect better descriptions and personal discoveries about coffee. For now, consider these the ramblings of a rookie.

Enjoy.

It’s weird what you get exited about when you’re opening a business.

The good kids at JavaStock sent me a box of sample cups and lids in the mail. That’s right, a bunch of empty cups and lids. Paper ones, plastic ones, double-insulated ones with waxy coating. It’s all stuff as consumers we take for granted, yet this is one of the most exciting pieces of mail I’ve gotten in a while.

Maybe I just really like getting mail.

From day one, I’ve planned my shop to be along one of the major traffic corridors in my city which, interestingly, has never seen a coffee shop.

The area is approaching the end of it’s growth, with the last of the available retail lots undergoing construction right now. I called on one of these lots today, and learned something very interesting.

I’m no longer alone in seeking a shop along this street.

Starbucks, Beaners, and Caribou have reportedly all been sniffing around this new retail space. My space.

The landowner claims the space is first come, first served. He has one of the three scheduled to come in Thursday to sign a lease, with someone else coming in Saturday should the first deal fall though. If I can sneak in and sign a lease before Thursday, I can secure the space.

But I’m not ready yet. I still have a few details to iron out, the least of which not being the fact I need my lawyer to go over a proposed lease, make changes and negotiate the modifications before Thursday. This “sneaking in” thing; I don’t like it.

I’m pissed at myself, thinking that somehow, if I’d worked at this a little harder or done something sooner, I could’ve locked my position along this street. I’m pissed the first coffee shop in the area I’ve lived in for twenty seven years will be a corporate, mediocrity-spewing chain store. I’m pissed at the landowner’s curious way of doing business; it smells fishy to me, like tactics to get me to hurry up and sign.

Still, that’s the space I’ve been eyeing since day one, and the fact some suit is gonna take it really hurts. I’m not totally sure what I’m goinig to do yet. I’m not sure what I can do before Thursday. Excuse me while I go sulk in the corner and revise my business plan.