1 Year Anniversary!

Wow! I cannot believe 1 year ago today we were opening Coffee Buzz's doors for the first time. This year has been completely amazing, challenging, gratifying, stressful, frustrating, exciting and exhausting! It was a real labor of love getting this place ready and opened.

We've had some amazing days, we've had some horrible days, we have some unbelievable regular customers and we've had some pretty terrible customers, we've been robbed, we've come back from being robbed.

Everyone says your first year of business is the hardest, so I'm glad we've got that under our belt and can move on to a super successful year 2!

Also, thank you SO much to everyone who voted for Bailey! She made the cut! The contest is now down to 50 from 1,000 dogs!!!

The second round voting is all this week so PRETTY please vote for her here:

http://startribune.upickem.net/engine/Details.aspx?p=V&c=27073&s=6926574&i=6#SD

Coffee Shop Manners

Between Coffee Buzz and my previous coffee shop job, I’ve been at this for a while. I feel like at this point I’ve seen it all….I’ve made amazing friends, I’ve watched customers go from first date to married, I’ve seen people complain about EVERYTHING and ANYTHING, I’ve been robbed, I’ve been excited, happy, cheerful, frustrated, pissed and every other human emotion you can feel while working in this industry. After an EXTREMELY frustrating experience with a customer I decided to pass on some of my learned wisdom. I’m sure every one of you has been in a coffee shop at one point or another, some of you may go every morning. Here are some coffee shop rules and manners to follow so that you don’t piss off your barista or the other customers around you.

*GET OFF YOUR CELL PHONE! We strive to get customers in and out the door quickly. We know you’re busy, we know you’re on your way to work and we’re going to get you your coffee as quickly as possible. Because we’re doing you this courtesy please do us one and put the phone down! It takes about 5 seconds to order something and another 25 seconds to be rung up….if whoever you are on the phone with can’t wait 30 seconds….you shouldn’t be wasting your time talking to this person. It’s rude. It’s annoying for the person at the register to take your order when you’re not paying attention and it’s annoying for the people behind you in line. Just don’t do it.

*DON’T POUR COFFEE IN THE TRASH!!!! This is my number one biggest pet peeve. When you throw hot coffee in to the trash it burns the bag and causes a leak, which is a HUGE PAIN IN THE ASS for whoever has to take out the trash. If you need more room for cream, kindly ask to have some coffee dumped out. The barista will be more than happy to give you some extra room, especially if it saves them a disaster of a trash can. If you are drinking-in and have some of your drink remaining, ask if we can dispose of it for you…we’ll dump it in the sink and then toss the cup. People will LOVE you for this, especially if you say, “I didn’t want to throw this in the trash? Can you dump it for me?” You’ll earn major points!

*SAY HI. We greet people when they come in, the polite thing to do is say “hi” back or at least acknowledge that someone has just spoken to you.  All you mothers out there----teach your children this! It’s unbelievable the social skills most people lack.

*IF YOU DON’T LIKE IT, TELL US. We’re here to get your day off on the right foot. If something tastes bad or isn’t made right….let us (or them, wherever you’re going) know. Even if you’ve left, let us know the next day. The last thing any (good) coffee shop wants is unhappy customers. Plus, you’ll probably get a freebie out of it and that will really make your day! Mistakes happen and the worst thing you can do is get angry….just inform us (or them) of the mistake and it will be taken care of. Then everyone is happy, no one is crabby and we can all move on and have a great day.

*LEAVE A TIP. And I’m NOT saying this because I need/want tips….I’m saying this on behalf of ANYONE who works in a coffee shop, or the food service industry for that matter. Would you go to dinner and not leave a tip for your waitress? Would you go to the bar and not tip your bartender? What is the difference between a bartender and a barista? I understand that a cup of coffee is less than $2.00 but we still have to make it. Just throw some pennies in there to show you appreciate it. We have some customers who don’t tip every day, but then once a week they’ll throw a dollar in there….great! We love it and appreciate it! Most people working in a job like this aren’t making a ton hourly, so every little big helps. Plus, when you tip, we remember and we know you appreciate our hard work which motivates us to work even harder.

*DON’T DIG IN THE TIP JAR!!! Needing to make change is one thing….but ask the cashier for change before you go digging in the tips. Grabbing money from the tip jar to supplement your payment is so beyond inappropriate it’s unbelievable. And it happens….more than you’d think. Someone gave that money to us. Therefore it’s our personal money! If we offer to help you out with some change from the tip jar, then lucky you. But, by no means should you expect it or just take it!!!

*DON’T STEAL. We want our TV back! We want the glass on our front door back! We want our piece of mind and restful nights back! Stealing is wrong!

*THIS ISN’T YOUR HOME. This is a business, not your living room so please conduct yourself in an appropriate manner and be mindful of those around you….don’t take your shoes off, don’t rest your bare feet on the chair, don’t rearrange the furniture without permission, don’t shout profanities in to your phone about missing the bus while someone is trying to study, don’t throw up in the bathroom and not clean it off the walls, , and throw your damn trash away. And yes, those are all things that have happened.

*BUY SOMETHING. If you’re using anything in the shop (wi-fi, bathrooms, a table for a meeting) you NEED to buy something. Every little thing in a coffee shop costs money (even the cleaner and towels used to clean up after your meeting) so buy something to help us pay for all the amazing things a coffee shop offers you.

*THERE’S A REASON….most places don’t take checks, or make you sign the receipt, or don’t let you add tips to the cards, or only take certain credit cards. Deal with it. Find another way.

*MIND YOUR Ps & Qs…”please” and “thank you” go a LONNNNNNG way!  

I hope my rant was helpful. It sure helped me!

Thoughtless, Heartless, Thursday

Yesterday, Wednesday October 6th, at 3:34am my cell phone rang notifying my that Coffee Buzz had been broken in to. J and I both lept out of bed and the words coming out of our mouths were less than ladylike. The feeling I had when I thought of someone breaking in to my coffee shop, my business, my baby, my life was unlike one I have ever felt. It was like a combination of the feeling you get when you're about to get dumped and you know it's coming and can't do anything to stop it and the feeling you get when you know you're really in trouble. I was sick to stomach, angry, sad, confused and scared. I spent six minutes in the car on the way to the shop crying in fear, then I had to pull it together. This had to be dealt with. We pulled up to Coffee Buzz and saw this:



I was lightheaded. I didn't know if I should cry, kill someone or throw up. I was sickened, frustrated and heartbroken.

We have an alarm system (thank God) that was triggered when the a-hole(s) entered the shop. The system notifies the police first and then calls us. The police were at the scene within minutes. The a-hole(s) used a giant rock to break through the front door....the rock was found at the very back at the shop meaning they had to throw it REALLY hard for it to break through two panes of glass and fly the lenghth of the shop. They ripped our flat screen TV off of the fireplace and everything else was untouched (thank God).

Shortly after 4am the Crime Lab showed up. It was like an episode of CSI, they dusted for prints and everything. The only thing they could determine is that the a-hole(s) had gloves on. He did share with us that they've seen this kind of crime a lot, apparently there has been a fair amount of flat screen TVs that have
been stolen that are then pawned for drug money. If you wanted drug money I would have given it to you....it would have saved me a lot of anguish, a-hole(s).

By 4:30am the police and Crime Lab had gone and J and I were left standing in our beloved coffee shop alone surrounded by broken glass. The glass was everywhere. From the front to the back, everywhere.

J looked at me, gave me a hug and said, "Well, let's start a pot of coffee." Not long after that our guardian angels arrived, J's step-mom Judye and his little brother Travis. We called them because we have one broom at Coffee Buzz and we use it to sweep up crumbs. It would have taken us three days to sweep up the glass with that. So Judye and Travis came to the rescue with brooms, dust pans, a vacuum and a leaf blower in tow. We started by knocking all the glass left in the door out and then had to clean off and move all of the tables and chairs. Luckily, we have a vacant space attached where we could store everything while we swept, vacuumed and mopped the floors.

Five hours later, around 9:30am the store was cleaned up and back in order. But, we never skipped a beat, we were open for business at 6am just like any other day. Our customers we so extremely patient and supportive. The amount of love and support we have received from our family, friends, customers and neighbors is overwhelming. All of these wonderful people have really restored my faith that most people in this world really are good.

Even thought I am incredibly angry and upset I am thankful that this happened after hours so no one was hurt, the front door was the only thing vandalized and the TV was the only thing taken. It's unfair and cruel but it could have been so much worse.

I also need to publicly thank my amazing mother. Aside from my six minutes of tears very early in the morning, I held it together really well yesterday. There wasn't any time to get upset. We had to clean the store, file a claim with our insurance, order new glass for the front door and of course help customers. Then after work J's parents came over to watch the Twins game, so once again I was distracted. It was when I laid down to go to sleep that anxiety set in. I became super nervous and super scared. I had to open in the morning. It would still be dark out. I would be alone. The glass guys game and boarded up our door, which is great but not real reassuring for a girl who has to open the store alone 24 hours after a robbery. I was texting my mom hoping she would calm me down and give me some comforting words. Well, she comforted me to the extreme. My beautiful mama was in the Coffee Buzz parking lot this morning at 5:45 so that she could open the store with me. She stayed with me until 10am and helped more than I think she realized. I am so grateful and nothing I could type right now will adequately express how much it meant to me that she was here with me this morning. Thanks M.

Century Club!

This is officially my 100th post!!! WOWZA!

I started this blog in November of last year as a way for our family and friends to follow along in the progress of Coffee Buzz as it was being built. I had such a great time creating this blog and sharing the trials and tribulations of starting a business that I decided to continue writing. I found family and friends are just as interested in ready about my every day life and opinions as they were in the process of opening the business. And now, I have followers from the blog world! I am just amazed to see that anyone cares about what I have to say. It means a lot.

This blog has been such a positive thing for me. It's a great way for me to express myself but more importantly it's given me a creative outlet. I get to tap into some of my creativity with Coffee Buzz, but definitely not writing wise. I've always loved to write and I'm having so much fun doing that here. I thought it would be fun to re-post my very first entry!

Monday, November 9, 2009

Baby's First Pictures

A few weeks back, we went and saw the inside of the future Coffee Buzz! Consider these the "Before" pictures!  

This is our store front! If you look closely you can see a little puggle at the front door! :o)

This is a view from the inside looking out to the street. Eventually, this will be a view from behind our counter.

A view from the opposite side, the fireplace will be in the left corner--next to the window.

This is the view from the front door. Soon, you'll be able to see our counter, the hallway with the bathrooms and the attached dry cleaner.
WOW! I can't believe how far we've come since then! Not only Coffee Buzz, but the quality of this blog! Thank you so much to my followers! I get to so excited to see another one of you follow and LOVE all your comments! Thanks for reading!

Since, this is MY blog, I need to rant about something that really has me riled up. Yesterday, the Star Tribune printed an article about bar's hosting "Ladie's Nights." According to the Minnesota Department of Human Rights Ladie's Night is illegal gender discrimination. This week the department is going after five Minneapolis bars saying that by having ladie's nights they are denying men the equal right to "full and equal enjoyment" of their business. I understand how this is considered discrimination, I get it. BUT IT'S SO STUPID! It's a bar special and people are really so concerned about it that they have to make a discrimination case about it. PLEASE! Why can't people focus their time on something meaningful. What is the ridding of Ladie's Night going to accomplish? Homosexuals still can't get married! Women still get paid less than men! Until people stop being so damned ignorant there is going to be discrimination....frickin' bar specials aren't the cause or the cure for this major conflict that can only be blamed on stupidity. Until everyone starts thinking like equals and treating others like equals there will be discrimination! I'm going to stop now, before I really go off an offend someone. Oh, and one last thing...there are Guy's Nights too. I know because I've been to Guy's Night at Majors on SEVERAL occasions. Here's proof:

Where Does the Time Go?

Wowza, I had every intention of getting all my pictures uploaded and writing a super long post about my trip to NYC, but I actually had a lot of work to get done today. I've been away from the shop for basically a week, so needless to say, I had a lot of re-organizing to do. I am kind of a spaz about where things go and how things look, so even though the shop has been running beautifully without me, I need everything back to the way I want it.

Plus, I am really excited because we have decided to sell Papyrus greeting cards at the shop! Once we decided to add them I got really wound up about getting to pick out the cards, and while this process has been fun it's also been really daunting. They sent me a catalog with 100 pages of cards to choose from...we're talking over 1,500 cards here people! And if you've ever seen their cards you KNOW that they are really stinkin' cute! So, for our minimum order we need to order 82 packs of 6 cards. So that's 82 different cards, and it was super hard  figuring out how to split them up--how many birthday cards, thank you's, blank, get well, sympathy, wedding, baby, anniversary, etc etc etc!!! The hardest part was looking at the cards objectively, because of course I would order all of the ones with puppies or shoes on them...but I gotta please the audience! Don't worry there are a few super cute puppy ones along with some adorable shoe ones but I think I've got a good variety! So now that we've selected the cards we like I have to go back through and add up the cost to make sure we hit a certain number but don't exceed it, organize the cards we want so I don't have to flip through 100 pages every time I want to find one, fill out the Resale Certificate for the IRS, place the order, buy a display, wow....this list is getting quite long! Hopefully, the addition of the cards will be a hit and serve as a convenience for our customers! And because I love my followers so much, here's a little sneak peak at my FAVORITE card we're ordering!

How cute is that?! It's blank inside and TOTALLY fits with Coffee Buzz's bee theme (and my personal bee theme!) I think it's safe to say I will most likely be buying all six of these for myself....maybe I should order two packs?

Step Into My Office

Even though my business card says "Owner," my daily job is much more than that. I figure I have shown a ton of cute Coffee Buzz pictures, now it's time for you to see the shop from my perspective.

OWNER
On a day-to-day basis the owner title doesn't really come in to effect, except when I'm talking to customers. A lot of them will see my business card and ask, "Are you Kristin?" After I say yes it opens a whole slew of questions..."What made you start your own business?" "How did you get in to the coffee business?" "Have you ever considered doing ______?" "Would you be interested in donating _______ to _________?" The best part of this job is most definitely meeting people and getting to talk to all different kinds of people but, being 100% upbeat, positive and polite 100% of the time is definitely difficult. Most of my actual "owner" work gets done here:

Yikes! I definitely need to get this bad boy organized. J is in charge of the finances and bookkeeping, which puts me in charge of the scheduling, placing the orders and creating/maintaining our super cute website: www.CoffeeBuzzMN.com

CASHIER

Another major aspect of the job is the cashier role...ringing people up, grabbing/making the drip brew coffee, getting their bakery items/sandwiches. The main purpose of this position is to schmooze! Likely, you're the first person a customer will see when they walk through the door, so you're their first impression. Sometimes you are the first person someone will see in the morning, which gives your the opportunity to set the tone for their day. J usually mans the register because he is much better at small talk than I am, plus I prefer being behind the bar.

JANITOR

The not-so-glamorous aspect of the job is all the cleaning. It's amazing how quickly things get dirty! And don't get me started on coffee grounds...they're EVERYWHERE! No matter what you do those little ground show up all over the place. There's a lot of wiping things down, washing dishes, sweeping, mopping, cleaning bathrooms, etc, etc, etc!

BARISTA

Behind the bar in the barista role is where I spend most of my time and what I most enjoy. I love making the drinks! I get the chance to talk to people quite a bit but usually if they're standing on my side it's because J has already put in the time schmoozing and now we are able to have a real conversation. I absolutely love when there's a line. I totally strive when there's 2+ drinks on my screen! It makes it so fun and means my business is doing well!

So there you have it. The exciting life of a full-time business owner and a part-time everything else.

On another note, these next few days are going to be sooo busy and sooo fun! I thought I'd share my psycho jam packed super fun exciting crazy schedule for the next week!

Today: Working Open-Close, then going to my friend's housewarming BBQ
Sunday: Working Open-12, then going to the Twin's game @ 1:00, then dinner at my dad's
Monday: Working Open-Close, then babysitting, then I have a hair/brow appointment, then I'll most likely packing until the wee hours of the morning since I currently don't have any clean clothes and have no idea when I'm going to find time to do laundry!
Tuesday: Open at Coffee Buzz then head to the airport around 8:00am, then catch our flight to NYC at 10:00am. Land in NYC around 2:30 their time and then the insanity begins!
Wednesday-NYC craziness
Thursday: More NYC craziness
Friday: Leave NYC and arrive back in MPLS around 3pm, then head to my friend Brianna's Wedding Rehearsal and Rehearsal dinner.
Saturday:  Work Open-Close
Sunday: I'll be partaking in all-day bridesmaid activities then BRIANNA and MATT's WEDDING!
Monday: Memorial Day....i'll either be on a boat or in my bed. Depends on the weather!

Cripes! I'm getting tired just looking at it!

Milestones

This weekend was filled with milestones!

On Friday night, Carolyn and I went to Mary Kay’s Bridal Grand Opening party for their new location, but they were also celebrating their 20 year anniversary! We had an absolute blast! We met some great people, had some amazing wedding cake AND were forced by the owner to try on dresses! It was so fun to put on those beautiful wedding gowns, even though I had no business being in one, at least Carolyn is engaged and she even found one that she loved!

Me and Carolyn with Mary Kay! 

Me and Carolyn with Mary Kay's daughter, Ashley!

On Saturday, Coffee Buzz celebrated our 2 month anniversary! I can’t believe it’s already been 2 months! We’re still open and we’re still alive!

 J was super smart and went to the website MeetUp.com, which is a site where people can set up different interest groups and plan meet ups to partake in activities within that interest. There are several different coffee meet up groups and Jason is getting in touch with the organizers of these groups and setting up meet ups at Coffee Buzz. On Saturday, we had our first one! It’s was wonderful! We had a great turn out of 20 people! Every one was super nice and we got rave reviews! With the group there and a few other customers we had every seat in Coffee Buzz filled for the first time!

Saturday night, J and I went out to Gluek’s downtown to celebrate his best friend, Colin and his wife, Sharisse’s 30th Birthdays! We had such a blast. It was so great to see so many people we haven’t seen in a while and have a fun night out together!

 Me and J with Colin and Sharisse celebrating their 30th Birthdays!

Today was the first day that J and I had a day off together since we opened. For the first time, we entrusted Coffee Buzz in our two employees. They said everything went great! I got a phone call from my brother who stopped by and he said they were doing awesome. It’s such a relief knowing we can trust them and that they can handle upholding the high standards we’ve set for ourselves and the store. It was like leaving a child with a babysitter for the first time. It was so wonderful to actually have a day to ourselves, and we used it wisely….we slept the ENTIRE day and then met my dad for dinner.

What a great weekend!

ONE MONTH ANNIVERSARY!

I cannot believe it's already been one month since we opened our doors for business! I am really excited about how everything is going so far! We're averaging about 50 tickets per day, which is a decent flow of traffic. Of course, it's slower than we would like but it's only been a month! We're finding that Saturday is our busiest day, and while Sunday used to be our worst day we're seeing it really start to pick up! We're currently working on getting some patio furniture to add some outdoor seating and I will also be attending a drink workshop in a couple of weeks and will hopefully get some great ideas for a couple of special summer drinks! We recently had an ad written in the St. Louis Park local news paper, so hopefully that will drive in some more traffic! 

Thank you so much to all of our friends and family for your undying support and for bringing in so much business for us! We love you!

Week One

It's Sunday afternoon and Jason and are winding down and finishing up our first week of business. It has been quite the week. The 4:00am wake up call is definitely an adjustment! It's getting easier each day but boy is that early. We get to the shop between 5am and 5:30am Monday-Friday but I must say we are becoming quite efficient in the opening tasks, so we may be able to get an extra 10-15 minutes of sleep in each morning.

As for business, it's been good. Being that it is our first week, we have been slower than we'd like but the future is very promising. We already have probably 10 regulars who have been in 3+ days this week! A couple of them were even kind enough to write up some five star online reviews!

On a personal note, today is one of my favorite days of the year....THE ACADEMY AWARDS! I have always loved the show but after my three semester stint as a film major I have a greater respect and a greater interest in the industry and the academy. Every year I push myself to see as many of the nominated films as possible, but being that I have been slightly distracted the past few months I think I have only seen 9 of the films. I am on my fourth year of running a very cut throat Oscar Pool where everyone fills out a ballot for their choice of winners and pays a $5 entry fee. The past few years I have seen twice as many of the nominated movies and have never finished in the top 3, maybe now that i'm completely guessing like everyone else I will have a better chance!

Shout Out!

I have to give a shout out to our friend, Per! Per and my best friend Libby have been a huge help and support during this process. Per, however, was a major help in the creation of our website. Being the completely un-computer savvy person that I am, I had toyed with the idea of hiring someone to do our website--which costs a fortune! After a lot of great advice from Per I felt like I had the potential to attack this mission myself. Per did some research for me and found a great site with some easy-to-use software that allowed me to (what I think is) successfully build our website. If you haven't already seen it, check it out:

www.CoffeeBuzzMN.com

Welcome to Coffee Buzz, Can I Take Your Order?

Today was a major day! Our POS systems and security systems were installed and the menu boards were hung!

 

 

We also had a preliminary walk through with the Health Inspector. After our walk through our contractor told me that it couldn't have gone any better and it was the smoothest walk through he's ever had. RELIEF! She gave us a couple of things we need to do to really meet the codes but for the most part she said everything looked great! 

Tonight, the magic cleaning angels are coming to give it a really good scrub down which I could not be more excited for! The shop is so dusty and so dirty from all the construction and all the people coming in and out. I cannot wait to get there in the morning and see it sparkle! I have a small order coming tomorrow to add to a huge order I got yesterday, so my day will be filled unpacking and organizing all of our smallwares. Basically, I'll be getting everything set up and organized out on the front counter and start stocking our back room. Then, tomorrow afternoon we have our electrical inspection, Thursday afternoon we have our building inspection and on Friday at 11:00am we have our FINAL HEALTH INSPECTION!!! If we get all the inspectors approval and signatures by Friday afternoon we will have our license and be ready to start training and open on our terms! FINGERS CROSSED!

Meet the Team!

Jason and I are so excited to have wrapped up interviews and offered three wonderful ladies a position, all of which accepted!!! So, it's time to meet the Coffee Buzz Team!

Sara Walz, is a twenty-five year old graduate of Crown College with a degree in Intercultural Studies. She is currently working in the very early stages of creating a non-profit clothing line. Sara spent a year living in Nashville after her and two friends decided to move there without jobs or a place to live! Sara also has almost six years of coffee shop experience!

Leslie Spriggs is a forty-nine year mother of three who just recently moved to o Hopkins from Mankato to be closer to her kids. After twenty-two years working for a bank, Leslie, decided to start her own Interior Design business. With the slow times and the growing amount of energy Leslie finds herself having, she needed something to supplement her business. Lucky for us, Coffee Buzz was just the thing she needed!

Josi Krawec is a twenty-nine year old graduate of the Culinary Arts program at MCTC. Josi works part-time at the St. Paul Cheese Shop and is quite the cheese expert. She has an amazing knowledge and appreciation of food and beverages. Josi will be an awesome addition to Coffee Buzz and I think we will all benefit from her passion for fine food.

So those are the ladies! Don't they sound great? If you want to get to them better you'll have to come buy a latte and meet them! :o)

¿Dónde está el baño?

Things are slowly wrapping up over at the Buzz. As you can see, our bathrooms are dangerously close to being completed!

 

  

As for interviews, Day 4 went well and I am finally done with round one. We took 200 applicants and narrowed it down to 25 interviewees. Now we have 5 people that Jason is going to interview a second time, that's 5 people for 3 spots.  I am so excited about the people we have left and I have no idea how we're going to choose. Some VERY EXCITING news though, we did hire our first employee! More on that next week! 

This coming week is a big week, it could potentially be the final week of construction! We have a walk through with the health inspector on Tuesday afternoon which I am praying goes well. I am hoping for some criticism though, so I know what needs to be done for the final inspection .

On a personal note: it's VALENTINE'S DAY!!! One year ago today, Jason and I had the absolute best day of both of our lives! I surprised Jason and brought him to Arizona to watch his favorite basketball team the University of Arizona Wildcats play a HUGE game against UCLA. We had an awesome time driving from Scottsdale to Tucson, exploring the U of A campus, standing for 2 straight hours while McHale center cheered the cats on to a victory and even met some of the former and current players! 

It was a day we'll never forget!

Interviews: Days 2 and 3

The last two days of interviews have been quite interesting, I have learned so much! Hopefully, I won't have to but if I ever do need to interview for a job again I will be more than prepared. It is amazing the difference between a good interview and a bad interview. A good one makes you feel excited and energized and hopeful. A bad one just drains you. Over the past three days I have interviewed 17 people! I'd say 20% have been AMAZING, 50% have been really good and 30% need not be discussed. I will say this though; I had two people over 20 minutes late, a no show and one person say "prick." Yup, that's right, "prick" in an interview and not used like "prick your finger:"

I have 4 interviews today and 3 more tomorrow then I am done! From there Jason gets to start this magical process called interviewing and hopefully by the end of next week we will have our crew! This has been a great learning experience and I am excited about these potential employees but by tomorrow afternoon I am going to be so fried I will probably look like this:

Staging Area

The current condition of Coffee Buzz can only be described as dirty to quite dirty. On top of the dirtiness there are people coming in and out all day long. When it came time to get our big ticket items ordered and delivered (ie; the TV), I really didn't feel comfortable having it delivered to a store that doesn't always have someone to accept deliveries, that is dirty or that has strangers working day in and day out. The solution? Have everything delivered to our place.

It might not look like much...but if we unpacked all these boxes our living room would look like an aisle at Best Buy (except I don't think BB is carrying Puggles...yet!)

I am super excited because by the end of the week all of these boxes will be out of my house, unpacked and installed at Coffee Buzz! The POS systems get set up on Thursday and the TV, speakers, etc get set up on Friday!

*On a side note, Day 2 of interviews is still in progress and I will be updating on today's candidates later!

Interviews: Day 1

After nearly 200 applicants, Jason and I narrowed down the resumes to 25! So this week I will be conducting 25 interviews, of which today was my first day.

I had to text a couple of my close friends last night because as I was prepping for these interviews I felt like I was getting ready for sorority recruitment. It is very exciting and very nerve racking, picking the right person (or the wrong person) will shape the furture of your sorority, I mean business. I have to give a mini shout out to Alpha Omicron Pi (especially Jessi Atkinson) for making me a good recruiter and hopefully a good interviewer.

Overall, the interivews went well. 1 great one, 3 decent ones and 1 terrible one! About the terrible one...I realize this is a casual job and a casual atmosphere but you still need to dress to impress. NEVER EVER show up for an interview of any kind wearing a zip up sweatshirt, jeans and tennis shoes. One other girl did show up in jeans, but they were tucked into very cute boots and paired with a cute sweater and a really, really cute scarf that I wanted to steal--this is totally appropriate.

Big Day

Friday was a huge day for both me and Jason.

After almost four years, Jason put in his two week notice at Miller Davis. I know it was hard for him, but luckily his boss took the news really well and was supportive. In just two short weeks Jason will join me as an official full time employee. As Jason says, "We're all in" Now that he is leaving his job and we're so close to opening, those words have never been more true.

Friday was a big day for me for completely different reasons. I walked in to Coffee Buzz at about 11am for a meeting. I walked in and the first thing I saw was my SCONCES! I actually gasped out loud! I didn't expect the scones to be up until Tuesday, so seeing them was a huge surprise. And I must say, they were worth the wait. They look amazing! They are everything I hoped they would be and more. I wish I could take them and hang them in my house! Here's a couple of pictures of them!!!