Tiling Chalk Line

I had a meeting with our contractor this afternoon and was thrilled to hear things are still moving along according to schedule. I was shocked to see that the guys had already completed the wall tiling in BOTH bathrooms by the time I got there! It's looking great!

The picture does not do it justice but the tile looks amazing against the yellow walls.

Here the guys are getting ready to lay the quarry tile which will be behind the service area and in the back room. They measure out each square so it's even, something which I am sure is common knowledge, but I've never tiled anything before. I stood there and watched them measure with this chalk tool for at least 10 minutes, it was fascinating. When I told Jason about it he just laughed, I mean "duh". For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about I have included a picture of this marvel tiling tool below!

Check out this link for tips on how to use one of these sweet things...
http://www.rd.com/how-to-use-a-chalk-line/article17911.html

We're Comin'...

Our banners are up! The neighborhood knows we're coming! I am really happy with how they turned out!

I had a meeting with Eric, our contractor, today and he confirmed that the wiring is officially taken care of and we can FINALLY move on. On tap for this week: tomorrow they will be taping and prepping to finish painting, Wednesday--they'll be painting the ceiling and then finishing up the walls, by Friday--our wainscot will be installed! It's really going to start taking shape this week, which will be really refreshing after 3 weeks of looking exactly the same. Next week we'll get our floors and the stone on the fireplace will be installed! I asked Eric to give me a time line and he said if we're really ambitious it could be done in 3 weeks! However, we have to keep in mind that we have to pass inspection. So far, the inspector has approved everything that's been done but St. Louis Park is notorious for being difficult. Hopefully, I can I bribe them with lattes and mochas and they will pass us with flying colors!

On another note, hearing the "3 weeks" made me realize how much I still need to accomplish. I'm not going to share for fear that seeing it in writing will send me into a major panic attack but lets just say I really need to get my ducks in a row. Thank goodness I got that yoga package to try to keep me calm, at least for an hour or so.

Shout Out!

I haven't given a shout out in a while, but I've been saving up for a good one. This Shout Out has to go to B&W Specialty Coffee Co. and namely Chrissy Kelsch.

B&W is a local roastery and will be supplying Coffee Buzz with the most important aspect of our business--our beans (among many other things). B&W roasts all of their beans to order so we know we are always getting the highest quality, freshest beans. One thing that I am pretty passionate about, and a reason I really love B&W, is they offer a great selection of Organic and Fair Trade beans.

Fair Trade is an equitable and fair partnership between consumers in North America and producers in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean. The chief concern of the Fair Trade movement has been to ensure that the vast majority of the world's coffee farmers get a fair price for their harvests in order to achieve a decent living wage. Fair Trade guarantees to poor farmers organized in cooperatives around the world: a living wage; much needed credit at fair prices; and long term relationships. These fair payments are invested in health care, education, environmental stewardship, and economic independence. For more information on Fair Trade go to http://www.globalexchange.org

I am very proud to say that ALL of the coffee and espresso that we will be serving at Coffee Buzz is Certified Fair Trade and Organic!

Back to how awesome B&W is...Chrissy has been my contact at B&W since day one and has been nothing short of amazing. She has been such a huge help! She has answered so many questions, given us so many samples and has made me feel really excited and proud of the choices I have made. Every time I go to B&W everyone is so nice, so interested in our business and so helpful. I cannot wait to show Chrissy the finished product since she has wanted to come check out the space since last January when this all got started--but I keep holding her off until there is actually something to see. I can't thank Chrissy and B&W enough for what they have already done and I am really excited to continue this relationship and work with them for a VERY long time!

Schedule of Events

As things are wrapping up construction wise things are adding up on my schedule, here's the schedule of events for the next week and a half...

Friday, 5th: *Meeting with Cocoa Cola-we'll be ordering bottled Coke and Diet coke. *Meeting with Aramark-they offer a great service that will be a huge help to us! They supply towels, mats, and aprons and then once a week they'll come with clean ones, take the dirty ones, wash them, then do it all again the following week..*Towel, soap and toilet paper dispensers will be delivered-seems dumb but those little things add up! *Craigslist ad will be removed and we will narrow are near 200 applicants down to 20 interviewees.

Monday, 8th/Tuesday, 9th: *The electrician and plumber will come to finish up their work, which means SCONCES will be installed!!! They will also hook up all of our kitchen equipment and sinks. *I will be doing a first round of interviews as well!

Wednesday, 10th/Thursday, 11th: *Meeting with Espresso Partners-they are supplying our espresso machine and coffee brewer (some pretty key items), they'll come and just double check that all the plumbing and electrical have been set up properly for the machines. They will also test our water so they can determine how to set up our water purifier. *Pre-inspection Inspection. Our contractor is going to set up an inspection one of these days so that the health inspector can come and check out the progress. She will give us a to-do list on things we need change, complete or make sure we have by the time of the real inspection. I am nervous for this but I am glad we'll have a good idea of what she'll be checking for in our real inspection. *I will still be doing round one of interviews.

Friday, 12th: *The Geek Squad will be coming to hook up our TV, speakers, stereo etc. *A company called In-Focus who did a lot of our wiring will also be coming to hook up our POS systems and our Security System. *The handy man will also be coming this day to install our toilets; doors; towel, soap and tp dispensers and other little odds and ends. *Our menu boards will also be put up this day, which I am so excited for!*I will be finishing up round one of interviews.

Monday, 13th: This is most likely be the day that the espresso machine and coffee brewer will be installed! Once this is done that should complete the construction and installation!!! I am hoping that Jason will be able to start the second round of interviews this day as well!

From there we will have a cleaning crew come in and give it a really good scrub (it needs it)! Then the painter will come in and do some last minute touch ups. We will hire a couple of people and start training, training, training. THEN...it will be time to open!!!

Whew, us luck!

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)

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!

Wainscot (pronounced wān'skät)

Last night Jason and I were able to bring our friends Libby and Per to Coffee Buzz and show them around. The wainscot is complete and has been painted. I am really excited about how it turned out! I am very anxious for next week to see the floors go in! Until then, Go Vikes!!!

Here's a couple pics of how it's looking now:

Shaking with Excitement

As I'm sure you could tell from my previous post, this morning was a little rough. Just as I said, however, there is always something exciting waiting in the wings. We made a pit stop on the way home from signing a ton of bank forms and were thrilled with the progress they have made this week!

Monday, we had a little problem with the wainscot---they had it measured at 52 inches up the wall but our chairs only measure 35 inches, isn't the purpose of a chair rail to meet the chairs? So after some last minute adjustments they cut it down and started getting the wainscot up and its looking great!
It will be black by the end of the week! 

Our track lighting is up! It's amazing what just a small amount of lighting can do! There's still a lot of different lighting to be installed but this is a start and I think it looks great!

AHHHHHH! This is what totally made my day! As you can see this amazing man from Boulder Creek Stone is putting the finishing touches on the stone around the fireplace! What a difference! It looks so amazing! Wait until you see it in person!

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.

Where the Magic Happens

This morning Jason and I spent almost four hours breaking down our costs, finalizing our menu and figuring out our prices. Until construction is done our office is at our townhouse in our guest room/office. It's amazing the amount of paper you collect while trying to open a business. The desk is not normally this cluttered but I thought I'd give you all a sneak peak on where everything goes down.

And yes, there's two computers...one for iTunes and one for everything else.

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!

Holy Coffee Shop, Batman!

Tears were definitely flowing when I walked into Coffee Buzz this morning, good tears! The millwork is complete and it actually looks like a coffee shop now! Everything all of a sudden felt really real and I realized that it's all coming together how I imagined and in within weeks we will be up and running! I am so happy with how everything is coming together.

These pictures do not do it justice and it doesn't help that the store is filthy (I cannot wait for the cleaning crew to come!)...

 

 
 

  

 

It's Official...

Coffee Buzz now officially has TWO, that's right two, Certified Food Managers. The Minnesota Department of Health requires that every food establishment has a food manager. In order to become a food manager you need to jump through several unpleasant hoops. Those hoops being: a 10 hour online course (which you have to pass with 80% or above), an additional 4 hours of studying and memorizing food borne illnesses and the internal temperatures of cooked meat (yup, always make sure your shellfish is cooked to 135 degrees, especially at a coffee house) and finally taking an 85 question exam that you need to pass with 80% or above. After all of this Jason and I proudly passed and are officially Certified Food Managers! This means you can all come to Coffee Buzz and drink your mochas comfortably being certain that the mug was properly sanitized.

It's Coming Along

Coffee Buzz is really starting to take shape. The walls are done and they started painting today! The next step is for Best Buy for Business (yes this is a plug) to come in and do all the wiring for our sound system, tv and computer. We also have someone coming in to do the alarm. Once that stuff is done they'll paint the ceiling and start on the floors! The guys are moving so quickly that they're actually going to have to take a couple of weeks off while we wait for all of our equipment to be delivered! We're estimating that everything will be done by the second week of January!!! From there we'll need to hire, train and practice then it will be time to actually open for business!!!!!! Here are a few pictures I took today---how much do you love the yellow walls?

This will be the front counter and service area!

View from the front door

Here is our fireplace! We're going to mount a tv over the mantle, it will also be covered with really cool white stone.

This is the second window we put in! The frame is all set, now it's just a matter of getting that bad boy in there!

Here's the view from the other side.

This is our back storage room and office.

This is one of our bathrooms!

Starting to feel like Home

We were at Coffee Buzz this weekend and there were a couple of new additions, one being all the tracks for our lighting, which is very exciting. As you can see from the picture they also put up the mantel on our fireplace! Love it! They did not get to the wainscot like I was hoping, but that just means there will be even more going on this next week! I can't wait!

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!!!

Everything AND the Kitchen Sink

Today was a busy day at The Buzz, all of our kitchen equipment came! Our back room actually looks like a back room! There was a slight problem though, which is a bummer. There is a requirement by the city that there needs to be at least a three foot walkway between all walls, equipment, etc. There was some mis-measuring in the back room and there is only two and a half feet in between our hand sink and shelves. The good news is it's a very easy fix, we can just scoot down the shelving to create the space. The bad news is that moving the shelves only leaves us three feet for our desk. That's not only a tiny desk but we need room for a file cabinet and a safe. Needless to say, it's going to be crammed back there. Hopefully, we'll be so busy up front we won't really need to be in the back too often.

Here are a couple of pictures of how it's looking today: 

 

Check out that bakery case!

Back room-that's the freezer on the right. 

Other side of the back room-that's our refrigerator and our ice machine!

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

Coming Soon!

Today was a  very positive day, very refreshing after the past couple of days. We have some re-wiring being done tomorrow and hopefully after that we can continue with construction. In the meantime, I am having some banners made up to put in the windows. I just got the proof today and am very excited! Don't you think these will look great hanging in the windows?

If These Walls Could Talk

As you can see from the pictures below--WE HAVE WALLS! The construction is moving so fast and the guys are going a great job!

This is the view from the front door looking in. The dropped cieling will be over the service area.

This is the hallway and the two doorways on the right are our bathrooms!

This is one of our super cute little bathrooms!

This will eventually be our fireplace!

Here, they are starting to tear out the wall to put in a new window!