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I'm Opening a Coffee Shop! (1 Viewer)

BrianW

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I use Armando's Blend from Crimson Cup roasters in Ohio. The beans not only have the best flavor of all the beans I "auditioned", but they are sourced through Growers First (www.growersfirst.org), which I'm proud to be a part of.
 

Cees Alons

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How's the shop going, Brian?



CoffeeDrinkers.jpg



Cees
 

BrianW

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Thanks for your interest, Cees. It's going great.

Being an independent gives me the flexibility to choose the very best beans and roasters, and it really makes a difference. Every single day, I have customers tell me they had no idea coffee was supposed to taste this good. It's really gratifying to hear.

My Yelp reviews are better than I ever could have imagined. It actually warms my heart to read some of them. I really do have the best customers in the world, and I treasure their patronage.

I recently did some "renovation" to the shop, installing pressed tin ceiling tiles, a vintage-look ceiling fan, and more light fixtures. These were things my wife and I planned to do from the beginning, but hurricane Sandy delayed delivery of the tin tiles, so we opened the shop with plain white acoustic ceiling tiles and no fixtures. What a difference it makes! No more looking like a cookie-cutter sandwich shop.

Business is still growing. I get new customers every day, and not one has left unhappy.

I also get daily compliments on the music we play in the shop. Instead of contemporary pop music, I play Jazz (mostly piano/bass/drums trios -- not much sax) from the 40s, 50s, and 60s, Big Band from the 30s and 40s, acoustic, melodic New Age (no, really, there's some good stuff, if you look hard enough), and intricate guitar pieces -- all without distracting lyrics so students can study. The music is provided by Pandora (licensed through DMX, so I have a commercial license to play it in the shop), and building/tweaking the station has been a lot of fun. I mean, really, who knew there was a version of "Take Five" played on guitar? That's just cool. I don't know of any coffee shop that plays anything remotely similar to what we play, and our customers (even the "kids-these-days" customers) love it.

It's been a lot more work than I thought it would be, but it's also been a lot more fun than I thought it would be. If I can keep it up, I think I'll have a pretty decent business in a few years.
 

antmumford

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Hi Brian, relatively new to this forum and just came across your post whilst having a search for new threads to follow. The moment I saw coffee in the title I was all yours [emoji14] I loves me a good coffee.
I'm from England but my wife and I are travelling the world soon and the first leg of our trip is a road trip across the US. We'll actually be driving up through Dallas heading into Oklahoma so I'll endeavour to drop by, say hi and sample this liquid gold of yours.

We've put together a travel blog website that we'll be updating with new stories as we make our way round the world. If you're interested in taking a look, it's www.wepackedourbags.com

Will definitely give you a shout out on there when we come visit as part of our Dallas post
 

t2smith

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Congratulations on the business Brian. I'm a little envious because all the local coffee shops in my area closed down causing me to become a Starbucks customer a couple years ago. I was a regular at a local Dawn Donuts for over 10 years and still haven't found a coffee I like as much as theirs.
 

Cees Alons

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Great achievement, Brian.

And the comments on Yelp continue to be highly positive.


Congrats!



Cees
 

BrianW

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Anthony, it would be great to see you when you make your way down here. It's a big metroplex, however, so I'll certainly understand if you can't swing by. Iceland, New Zealand, and Australia? I'm jealous! BTW, Australia's coffee culture is second to none. Be sure to sample it while you're there.


I'm sorry about the local coffee shops in your area, Toby. I'm doing my best to keep the locals on the map. All the local coffee shops around here support and recommend one another. Each one offers a unique experience, and they all have just the best coffee.



Not to brag or anything (but, yeah, it is to brag), but we also have all Five-Star reviews on Google-Plus. And Google came in and made a virtual tour of my shop. Check it out:


https://www.google.com/maps/place/Firewheel+Coffee/@32.946037,-96.611405,3a,75y,22.09h,90t/data=!3m5!1e1!3m3!1s1me36OuZHu8AAAQpkAORrw!2e0!3e2!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0x9c6538f6c3f06777!6m1!1e1


It's something new Google is doing in their conversion from Google Places to Google Businesses, and my shop was one of the first they fish-eye-photographed for the virtual tour. (Yes, I'm a guinea pig.) They came in with motorized Cameras, tripods, a LIDAR sensor, and a special device that temporarily transports customers to an alternate dimension so the cameras can have an unobstructed view of the shop. (Okay, I'm kidding. They didn't actually have a LIDAR.) Yeah, that's me behind the counter making a Frappa-Dappa-Doo, or something.


I love it when customers go through the virtual tour on their computers while they're in the shop: "Wow, it's almost as if I'm really here!"
 

antmumford

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BrianW said:
Anthony, it would be great to see you when you make your way down here. It's a big metroplex, however, so I'll certainly understand if you can't swing by. Iceland, New Zealand, and Australia? I'm jealous! BTW, Australia's coffee culture is second to none. Be sure to sample it while you're there.
Thanks for the response Brian. My wife and I have made the most of being so close to Europe so we've visited a few cities over the last couple of years. Now we've caught the travelling bug we're selling up and taking a year out to see the world.
Will definitely be sampling coffee in every country we visit. I may even do a regular coffee blog post on our site to review places that serve great coffee.
Was thinking of doing a Coffee tour in Columbia too where you learn the process and choose your own unique beans to keep. Just can't wait to get going and start the adventures.

Anyway I will definitely stop in at yours and sample this award winning bean once we're over in your neck of the woods :D
 

Rodney

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Brian: Haven't seen much activity here, but aren't you celebrating a 4-year anniversary? CONGRATULATIONS!
:cheers:
 

TonyD

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I still get a notice from his FB page every know and then.
 

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