getting to the coffeehouse

All right. A brief outline of how I came to be opening a wee coffeehouse.

And seriously, it’s wee. Truly bite-sized. Here’s how big it is: Open your mouth. Is it open? Okay. It’s smaller than that.

Background:

Back in September, our store — which is part of the #2 coffee company in the US, appaaarently — and 43 other locations from here to Portland were sold down the river to that hated Green Monster, Starbucks. Actually, only the retail portion of the company was sold; the wholesale side does gangbusters. Huge business. And our store does a huge businesss, too. Just a rather sizeable chunk of the stores in Orange County sucked and sucked deeply.

So here we are. Our store closes its doors on Tuesday.

But for the last four months, it’s been the long, hideous goodbye. Customers are losing their home, their hub, the place that grounds them, the place they feel less lonely, the place they’re not rejected. Most of them are gay men. Many of them are sick with HIV or full-blown AIDS. I’ve had men coming in literally crying because their place is closing. They don’t live what most would consider a mainstream life, so they certainly don’t want their beloved coffeehouse becoming a cookie cutter place that serves crap coffee with a snotty attitude. (Sorry, but it’s true. I used to love Starbucks, until I actually had good coffee. Once you discover you don’t have to settle for Starbucks — that there’s better coffee to be had out there — you’ll never go back. Plus, they’ve been real JERKS through this whole transition. Whatever lingering warm nostalgia I may have had towards Starbucks before this has completely died. Ka-poooey. Unfeeling cads.)

So where was I?

Okay. So back in October, a customer with a rich daddy saw and heard all the outrage about the Starbucks invasion and decided to open a new, independent coffeehouse a couple of blocks up the street. Get a wholesale contract with The Beanhouse (not its real name, but you know that, right?), serve the same menu, just call it something else. Can’t use the company name anymore on a retail entity, but you can serve their coffee and espresso drinks.

Then he disappeared to Costa Rica or Venezuela or somewhere for about two months. Didn’t contact anyone. He’s fabulous, but kinda flaky, you know? During his absence, the guy from up the street — the potential landlord for the new venture — decided the deal was off. Then one day, my boss, who’s moving to Denver or she’d do it herself, said to me, “Trace — why don’t YOU do it? I think you should.”

And suddenly, I thought to myself, “Trace — why DON’T you do it? Maybe you should.”

So … I talked to MB. He said yes. Talked to the guy up the street. He was excited.
Started taking email addresses in a guestbook from customers who want to fight the ubiquitous Starbucks machine. I have over 500 names in the book so far.

Oh, and don’t get me wrong. This is all being done on the thinnest, scrappiest of shoestrings. If last year made nothing else clear — we have no money! Hooray!! But, well, we’re getting very creative about it. Last year also made this clear — take a chance, you know? We came so close to losing what other people call “everything,” only to discover that it wasn’t everything. We still have we.

Anyway ….

The space where we’d be operating is part of a huge huge building. One side is a tea-deli, the other a wine lounge that operates only in the evening. In the front of the wine lounge is a small separate space; a kind of foyer, for lack of a better way to say it. That’s where we’d be. To keep start-up costs low, we’re opting for a sleek, probably black L-shaped espresso cart configuration. Nothing needs to be built-in that way, see? We’ll be able to have sidewalk seating out in front and use of the byoootiful private bamboo patio in the back of the lounge.

And suddenly, people from corporate headquarters are bending over backwards to help me. “You’re starting your own place? You’re gonna sell Beanhouse coffee still? Lemme see what I can do for you.” There are so many good people in this company. (Not counting the CEO who sold us down the river — but kept just enough of us so he’d still have a job. Oh, and got a nice bonus for the sale too. Bleah.) I mean, I came home from work the other day to hear some man talking on our answering machine. I heard him say, “Beanhouse” and picked up the phone without even knowing what he wanted: “This is Tracey.”

“Oh. Hi. Uhm, would you be interested in buying the contents of the store for (an insanely low amount of money)?”

I couldn’t even take it in. Really. I mean, initially I told him no, that’s more than I need, blah, blah, I can’t use all that stuff.

THEN … of course after I hung up, it started dawning on me: The espresso machine alone is worth that amount of money. It’s top of the line. The real deal. Not a thingy where you just push a button like some strangely popular places. (But I’m not bitter.) Anything I don’t use, I can resell. Hello, e-bay! And “contents of the store” means — literally — anything that’s not bolted down: tables, chairs, lights, furniture, grinders, brewers, plates, mugs, pastry cases, shelving units, etc.

Insane.

So I called the guy back. This kinda slow-talkin’ old-timey sounding guy. So nice. “If I can get that price lower for you, I will.” LOWER? I couldn’t believe it.

I still can’t believe any of this. I mean, I can’t even make sense anymore. My brain feels like it’s pounding against the walls of my skull. Overwhelming. And every day, at work, men coming up to me, “When? When? When are you opening?” Which is great, but then …. occasionally, there’s just the deadly crushing weight of people’s expectations.

And that I haven’t told my family ANY of this. And I won’t unless it’s successful.

So the head will be spinning for a while, peeps. Sorry.

And yes, I do have a name. I’ll be revealing it …. shortly.

And yes, I’m pretty much scared outta whatever wits I now have left.