Seattle Coffee Works

Tuesday, July 14 marked the birthday of our new Coffee Drinking Man. The 14+ foot sign arrived early morning, ready to be hoisted into his new position atop our cafe and roastery.

The other day some of the Seattle Coffee Works team visited Essential Baking, our pastry and bread supplier. Other than the good time that was had by all, we were impressed with the vision and the execution at Essential.

Just like us, Essential is working hard to make a difference in the world. Essential’s basic principles revolve around: 1. Unwavering customer service; 2. Relentless pursuit of quality; 3. Minimizing the environmental impact; 4. Respect for all stakeholders.

I may be mixing up our experience with the company’s stated vision. Let it be said though that all of us coffee people came away deeply impressed after seeing the operations behind the flawless service we receive, 362 days a year.

We found some things especially impressive. Essential operates around the clock. Most baking takes place at night, 24 trucks deliver the goods in the wee hours of the morning. So many things can go wrong: a driver might not show up, a vehicle might break down, an oven might need maintenance, a flour delivery might not have happened, and the list goes on and on. Of course large industrial operations face these kinds of challenges all the time; but for a relatively small business like Essential to deal with and successfully overcome all of these potential issues is truly impressive.

Photo: At the end of our tour, we posed with Essential’s founder and head baker George DePasquale (far right.)
Photo Credit: Polina Notik, our indefatiguable summer intern, who loves using the self timer on her new camera (Polina jumped into the picture next to George.)

Time flies! We moved a month ago and have barely had a moment to breathe. It’s probably in keeping with our small-n-real business character that we moved before we had all i’s dotted and all t’s crossed.

A reviewer on yelp liked what we’re doing a lot, but knocked us down a star because our slow bar wasn’t quite there yet when she stopped in. Now it is.

We’ve continued to have to roast off-site at Velton’s as the permits for the roaster took a little while to snake themselves through the various agencies. Thanks to all of our inspectors and reviewers we may have managed to get a coffee roaster through the process from permit submittal to approval faster than anyone before us, at least here in Seattle. (And you’d think it would be easy to start a roastery in the Coffee Capital of the World!)

A couple of weeks ago, vinyl decals went up on our windows so folks knew what we sell.

And, finally we’re about to welcome the last member of the team: Drinking Man. We received a sneak preview from the shop. Stay tuned for the dude!

Oh, how we’ll miss that 111 Pike Street address that gave name to our first espresso blend: 111 Pike Street Blend! Earlier today we made the move out of the t-shirt shop into our own lil’ café.

Everyone here at Seattle Coffee Works is tired and very happy. Tomorrow morning we’ll be making coffee in our new 107 Pike Street location. The roaster is here and almost ready for action.

During the last few days, Katie took some pictures and I took a picture of Katie– check out:

Katie cut the ribbon as the new Diedrich IR-12 arrived

We wanted to see, once and for all, how many people could fit between counter and “grinder hutch” in the old 111 Pike location - almost the entire team fit. From left to right: Erik, Vicki, Elie, Amir, Pipo, moi, Ryan, Brooke, Daryl, Patrick, Katie, and Juan. Not pictured here: Max and Eric.

Katie took this shot of one of the many Home Depot shopping lists we created and filled during the last few days. 

Today there is only space and time for a HUGE THANK YOU to everyone who helped us make our dream reality; you know who you are. Soon, we’ll have the real-deal VIP party followed by a very grand Grand Opening.

Construction in our new cafe is humming right along. It’s amazing how much a fresh coat of paint and a good scrubbing can change the face and feel of an interior space. Our construction crew has been working around the clock to clean the old restaurant space into our new cafe– from painting the walls in our warm and inviting colors to varnishing our new countertops with a rich brown coat to polishing our sleek new concrete floor.

Thank you to all Seattle Coffee Works friends who’ve helped in demolition, construction and soon, cleanup! We’ll open as soon as possible in June and can’t wait to show everyone our new digs!

Keep your ears to the ground and your palates whetted for tasty coffee… the new Seattle Coffee Works is coming soon!

Yup. You heard right. It’s now only $5 to ship coffee from the Seattle Coffee Works roastery to your home.

For ages we’ve been shipping coffee via United States Postal Service. So far they’ve treated us and our coffee customers well. Our packages arrive reliably within two to three days all across the U.S., each complete with a tracking number to monitor the coffee on its journey. But shipping prices have increased again and we’ve heard murmurings through the grapevine that it’s just getting too expensive to mail coffee.

So we switched to a model of flat rate shipping. Instead of dancing around price fluctuations based on weight of package to the various shipping zones, we’re now charging only $5 to ship our delicious coffee! One price. $5. So whether you’re sending one bag to your sister in Dillingham, Alaska or twelve bags your cousin in Toledo, Ohio, it’s the same price. That way you worry less about shipping costs and more about which tasty coffees you want to enjoy!

Just know that you’ve saved a little money each time you find that Happy Coffee package on your front doorstep!

Woohoo! Let’s drink some coffee!

We’ve seen some truly amazing people walk through the doors of the Seattle Coffee Works café. From architects to students, city planners to night-shifters, we’ve met them all. The quality of character never ceases to amaze us.

This year, one of our ambitious and loving customers is planning to amaze us again since she began training for her second half-marathon. Adrienne Anderson will be competing in the BMO Vancouver Marathon this May in honor of her mother who died of Hodgkins Lymphoma in 2006. Her goal is to raise $3,000 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

Adrienne asked us to help her meet her goal this year. So to show our support we created the Northwest Runners Blend, pledging to donate 15% of each purchase to her cause.

We’re inspired by Adrienne’s perseverance and hope she can inspire you, too. So while she’s pounding pavement to find a cure for Leukemia and Lymphoma, you can support her efforts with us at Seattle Coffee Works.

You can also read more about Adrienne’s training adventures here.

A while back we repriced everything in our store so that *after* tax all prices ended in quarter increments: x.00/x.25/x.50/x.75. The new pricing structure has worked very well. We have been able to increase our speed of service without giving up one bit of quality. The bean-counter guy also noted that our daily cash reconciliation has become almost error-free because of this small change. 

We also got rid of another nuisance: we don’t EVER need any more rolled pennies, nickels, or dimes from the bank. We thought we’d found the solution to all change-bank issues. Alas, the ordeal wasn’t over.

While we weren’t returning any coins other than quarters to our customers, our customers gave us all their change — maybe a by-product of their general economic woes. Nowadays we seem to see at least one customer a day who pays for her entire coffee with coins. Because we have no outlet for the small change, time and again we find our till overflowing with … pennies. We’re talking hundreds of pennies. Counting pennies at the day’s closing went from being a small chore to a major time sink.

From my days in the field of industrial supplies I remembered that the folks in the warehouse never counted all those little screws, nails, grommets, and sprockets. It was much faster to weigh them. Yesterday, our own little weight-to-count-conversion spreadsheet went live. The counting of coins which used to take 300+ seconds every night has become a weighing of coins. Time used to weigh / count 1,500 coins: 54 seconds. Yahoo! 

Next we need to find a funnel to put all those loose pennies into little paper rolls; and off they go to the bank.

Photo Credit: Frog Museum

I know it’s lame to not have reported this earlier on this page – yet we ARE indeed moving. We have leased 107 Pike Street (former Johnny Rockets), and we’ll have both more space for our coffee experience project and, yes yes yes, a roastery!

The roaster is being made as we’re speaking, so far all is on track. Here is a first picture of the place which shows our friend Eduardo toiling away on the floor removal.

A BIG THANK YOU to Bill, Daryl, Bruce, Axel, Eduardo, Valli, Pipo, and everyone else who’s generously chipped in with the demolition; and also a very BIG THANK YOU to Kristi, Katie, Eric, and Brooke, who’ve kept the 111 Pike store running. Next week we’ll be starting with some beautiful new construction. Stay tuned!

On the eve of Barack Obama’s inauguration, do you get the feeling that we’re on the cusp of a new era?

* first African-American president - this inauguration makes you believe in the dream that we can overcome the past to create a nation of equal citizens. (Yes we can. Hunh. After all, why not?)

* first president with deep ties to the developing world - Obama’s experiences growing up in Indonesia, Hawaii and later visiting Kenya mean that the new occupant of the Oval Office can relate directly to the struggles and perspectives of people living in traditionally exploited, colonized (and coffee-growing) regions of the world

* most challenging economy in 50 years, with two wars, health care issues and climate change weighing in - despite this daunting outlook, the incoming President voices a positive, pragmatic conviction that we can solve these problems. He’s proven that he can bring together smart advisers, implement brilliant planning and speak articulately and candidly with real people.

BLAH Blah - I know, you’ve been hearing this non-stop on TV, radio, Internet for weeks. But geez, if we’re supposed to keep up with this guy — and he’s asking all of us to get involved in the work ahead — well, I don’t know about you, but I’m going to need some serious caffeine. Good thing my husband is knee-deep in coffee. Seriously, if you’ve been in Seattle Coffee Works, you know that Sebastian, Kristi and Katie are SERIOUS about great coffee, great community, and trying their hardest to make sure everyone in the chain, from the customer to the coffee grower, is getting a good deal. That’s just part of their mission in life, making GOOD coffee, sustainably, for everyone.

So when they tossed around the idea of a special edition coffee in honor of the inauguration, with a $2benefit to go to a non-profit, I had a few suggestions. There are dozens of “benefit” coffees out there, many of them sold by students, to benefit a particular village, school, region, or endangered species. Most of these coffees are UNDRINKABLE, because they were roasted ages ago, often in the originating village. I know people who keep it in their freezer for years, because they don’t want to throw it away, but they can’t stand drinking it either. Rancid coffee has no place at 111 Pike, so we decided to make this edition for just ONE week. That way everyone knows exactly when the coffee was roasted and its vintage. When you buy the Inauguration Blend, be sure to drink it well within the first 100 days, ideally by Feb. 28. You can frame the bag, but please don’t keep the coffee beans as a memento. A good coffee is a terrible thing to waste.

The next question was which non-profit to choose as a recipient. We wanted to honor the new president, but political parties, PACs etc. were obviously out of the question. International development NGOs, Coffee Kids, Rain Forest Action Network and the NAACP were all great possibilities, but we thought that a one-time contribution might get diluted to just a drop in the bucket. Then we came up with Facing the Future, which in name alone, captures the spirit of this unique moment in time.

Here’s more reasons why Facing the Future fits:

- their lesson plans for K-12 students transcend issue areas, highlighting the connections between environmental sustainability, the global economy, poverty, migration, education, conflict and resource use — all timely issues that we care deeply about;

- their materials are rigorously tested and used by teachers in classrooms in 50 US states and 42 countries, with plans to reach 12.5 million US students by 2020, a new generation of citizens and voters

- all the materials are well-researched, pragmatic and promote positive solutions

- the lessons are just plain fun. (Have you ever tried to pick up chocolates through a straw?) We’re not sure if the President-Elect likes to have fun, but in any case, WE do!

- $2 makes a difference - that’s how much it costs to get Facing the Future programming to one student, so for every bag of beans you buy, one student is gaining access to critical thinking skills, increased global perspectives, timely topics and engaging role plays and exercises. More than 90% of teachers surveyed say these materials actually improve student achievement in areas ranging from reading and writing to math and social skills.

I’m so impressed with Facing the Future that I’ve been volunteering with them, and they recently accepted me on the Board of Directors! If you’d like to learn more about Facing the Future or get more involved, please let me know.

Photo Credit: Obama Coffee