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So Many Choices

What the Heck?? There is a high pitched squeal of rubber as it submits itself to pavement. Teenage angst made audible. But, this is not a car in the parking lot, it's the soft serve machine. This overpriced piece of crap equipment that is supposed to have folks lined up in here like crackheads waiting for their next fix. This thing our Costa Rican barista has named ,"The Son of the Devil," and crosses himself whenever he's in the path of its malevolent gaze.

Yet everyone loves it. When it works. It sends forth a creamy delectable mixture twisted with any number of variations of eight different flavors. Blue Goo, Bubblegum, Green Apple. Over three hundred combinations are possible. This is either the dumbest or best thing I ever brought into the product mix. I reserve judgement until after the first summer season. So far, it mostly costs me time and money.

You need an engineering major to disassemble the thing, clean it and put it back together. Which must be done every few days. I swear the last time I reached for the power switch, it spoke, "Dave? What are you doing Dave?" before lapsing into a warbly version of "Bicycle Built for Two" and finally winking off.

And really, does being bombarded with all of these options make us any happier? Our culture has more choices than possibly any other culture in human history. Right down to the variety of our prescription anti-depressants.

So in the future, when you just can't make up your mind, don't get distressed trying to figure out the perfect combination. Just go with your gut and enjoy it without any second guessing (that's the part that leads to anti-depressants). And remember to give a nod to those who help to keep your soft serve flowing!

It's a Good Thing

I'm no chef, but I'm a big fan of experimentation and artful living and all that. But definitely NOT in a Martha Stewart way. The way I imagine that sniffs in condescension if the presentation is off. To me, that's form over substance-which drives me crazy! These are people that don't have the patience to see that beauty resides in all things slightly askew.

These are my thoughts as I peer at my somewhat lumpy, rustically crimped apple pie. This pie is fabulous! The crust is light and flaky, the filling is homemade with many layers of apple rummy sweet tart flavor. It's a ribbon winner at county fairs for godssakes! But Martha would cut out fussy little apples and leaves from the left over crust to decorate a perfectly executed top crust with symmetrical and even crimping at the edge.

Her love seems to be in the details and mine in the essence. Perhaps I secretly envy those who make everything such a special memorable occasion. Maybe I'm just lazy.

When I married, my fiancee was coming back from Alaska just days before the wedding. I suspect there were betting pools on whether or not he WAS coming back. I didn't have a diamond (see, I don't do jewelry either) People were suspect.

I had come home that summer and was living in the same old farmhouse where I had attempted lemonade stands and selling worms. My folks had long since moved to town. I lived in that rattley old place with Joey the dog and a horse borrowed from the neighbors. I was going to milk cows for them that summer and saved gas by riding the 2 miles back and forth.

That whole time, I threw together a brief wedding list. Someone to sew a simple dress, a small cake, immediate family only for guests, a justice of the peace, reserve the Legion Hall ( I was a bit prickly about church at the time) and a family dinner at Wicker's Restaurant for the reception. There. Finito.

The rest of the summer was spent working and adventuring with a childhood friend that was home that year and lived just down the road. I believe she did everything in her power to make sure I was certain that marriage was really for me. Those are stories for another time.

In the end, the fiancee returned, we got married, and are still married in fact. When I recently told someone I had been married for 25 years, her jaw came unhinged as she cried,"TO THE SAME PERSON?!?" Yes, and would a $100,000 special event have sealed the deal? I think some of that showiness might just be a cover for insecurity.

Instead, eat up, I say. Enjoy that elixir of the tangy tart and sweet of life, the perfect counterpoint to a flaky melt-in-your mouth crust. You don't need the fancy extras. In life, as in a pie, it's the experience that counts and imperfections only make the juice sweeter.

Big Ideas

"You and your BIG IDEAS," This is what my Dad often said to me, usually while turning away and shaking his head. Another pithy observation was "Feet in the cowshit, head in the clouds."

I have actually usually been pretty practical-hardly any day dreaming and I like to work hard. I'm generally conservative with money--just a student loan paid off early, a car loan once just to build up credit.

So what prompted me to step out into the abyss at near 50 (not knowing the world's largest financial crisis EVER was looming on the horizon) for a small time coffee shop? BIG IDEAS.

Besides, I have been around enough well-to-do people to have concluded "If THEY
can do it, I SURE as hell can." I didn't consider the reserves these people might have behind them to help as they winnowed through their mistakes. I went in without a net. An annoying consequence of BIG IDEAS.

But here I am, and I don't mean to sound unhappy. In fact it is exhiliarating. as well as damn scary, to hold your arms out from your sides and step over the cliff; offering yourself up to a passionate will to succeed at something you know absolutely nothing about.

Of course I have loved coffee since childhood. First as that wonderful aromatic fragrance drifting up from the church basement on Sunday mornings.(Possibly because this signalled the end of the sermon.)Next in the form of sugar cubes infused with the stuff and offered on a spoon for my chubby cheeked delight. And then as bohemian college rebel, drinking the heady brew because it was cheap and limitless at the Pannakuechen Haus (open 24 hours). Many of life's mysteries were revealed to me there in the wee hours. Those waitresses must have hated us. I'm sure we didn't tip. I even visited the "Coffee House Extempore" in Dinkytown, where Bob Dylan started out.

All of this simmered in my subconcious through the years to form a smokey, illusive, mysterious grail. It occurs to me this coffee house business is a gasping last attempt to regain my youth. Still, it is a hell of a ride!

I say this as the wind whistles past my ears, sometimes snatching away my breath. Remember, I'm still in that (what I hope is bottomless) abyss. But for the record, it's not empty like you'd expect. It is filled with hope and joy and delicious experience, and while I've been here, I've learned all of the nuances required to brew a damn fine latte.

Anybody Out There?

Starting a coffee shop isn't for the fainthearted. It is for optimistic fools firmly entrenched in denial.

First, the margins are abysmal, even in the age of "FourBucks"--after all the accompanying paper cups, sleeves, half gallons of cream that people put a splash of coffee in---you see what I mean.

You need VOLUME to make this work. New York City, Seattle--but Winter Park Colorado?? Did you see the traffic on our major highway? I'm not even ON this desolate street, I'm a block off.

Still, I'm here, while others have fallen to the wayside. Can I hang tough through the economic downturn? Should I?

The joy of entreprenuership is not new to me. As a kid I tried a lemonade stand and selling worms to fishermen. Did I mention that I lived fourteen miles from the nearest town? We had highway frontage alright. Rural Route #2-a gravel township road about twelve feet wide that spewed a plume of dust every time the odd neighbor sped by on the way to a nearby field. Do you see the theme of optimism and denial?

LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION. Why do I NEVER GET THIS?!?

In the Beginning....

I'm always sympathetic to the labor pains associated with starting a new business, especially one as important as putting food in front of a stranger. The reason for this is, I know about mistakes. When I watch "Hell's Kitchen" I feel slightly better knowing that even seasoned and well qualified chefs have bad moments.

One big fiasco happened my first season. I was always in a hurry and trying to get food out like I was McDonald's. At times, my attention to detail left something to be desired. One of our regular customers came in to order a ginger chicken salad (still on the menu today)(AND he still orders it). Its great-ginger, chicken, soy and sesame dressing, artichokes etc. served on a bed of organic greens.

Our customer ate his salad outside in the sunny courtyard. He came in later and said he needed to talk to me. "Oh, just leave your plate on the counter," I say. "I'll pick it up later." "How was everything?"--He comes back to the kitchen-"No, I really need to talk to you." Hmmmmm--he brings the dish back and lifts the napkin to reveal-----a grasshopper!!!!

"I was just wondering what killed it."

Have a sense of humor, fix problems when they come up (they will), love your customers, and make sure whatever it is--its pesticide free!

Spring Break

It's too bad that spring break comes at the end of the season . We are tired, shell-shocked by the long hours, and unrelenting human contact. Still, even when I am most tired, something funny or entertaining happens and I am reminded to enjoy what I do. Today some silly testosterone laden boys came in and ordered dessert. One of the young ladies here, delivered their mile high brownie sundaes. She went to clear the table after they had gone and came back laughing hard. In chocolate syrup, and with a swizzle stick, one of them had left their phone number on a napkin. Creative AND a go-getter!