Why I Love Singlehood by Elisa Lorello & Sarah Girrell

Author:Elisa Lorello & Sarah Girrell [Lorello, Elisa]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: AmazonEncore
Published: 2010-12-01T06:00:00+00:00

21

I Spill My Beans

NORMAN SEEMED GLAD to be able to fully dedicate his attention to something unyielding, like our agenda.

Actually, it was more of a glorified to-do list than an agenda. We always met once a week to go over all business pertaining to The Grounds. Usually, the meetings were routine: reviewing inventory, making sure bills were paid on time, considering new suppliers or products if any came our way, et cetera. But lately the meetings were about bringing more money into the business. Most days, with the exception of holidays and the occasional torrential downpour or tornado warning, we were slammin’ busy. Since opening, The Grounds was finally breaking even rather than operating at a loss. Our intake went right back into salaries and benefits for Norman, Susanna, the revolving door of seasonal part-timers, and me; making sure the place was up to health code and green standards; and, within the past year, updating the coffee machines and kitchen equipment.

To increase revenue, Norman came up with the idea to make T-shirts that said I spill my beans at The Grounds. Minerva had a friend who was a design student from her undergraduate NCLA days, and we commissioned her to design the T-shirt in exchange for three months of free coffee. She created a cup spilling coffee beans over a saucer, and The Grounds’s name along with the slogan in both men’s and women’s styles—taupe scoop neck and cap sleeves for women, and basic tee for the guys. We gave freebies to all the Originals and Regulars, twenty percent off for six-month regulars (“new Regulars,” we called them), and the rest sold for fifteen bucks a pop. They went like hotcakes. Baseball caps followed at ten bucks a pop. Pretty soon we had requests for different colors and other merchandise: decals, mugs, tote bags, the kinds of things a sizable donation to National Public Radio would get you. We even started selling them through The Grounds’s Web site.

But I still wasn’t satisfied, so this afternoon I consulted with Norman in our little closet of a back office.

“What are the options?” he asked.

I took in a breath. “Well, one is to extend the business hours at least one night a week.”

The thought of staying even later made me shudder with dread; I already spent twelve-hour days here at least once a week, and it was becoming clear that little in my life was non-café-related.

“Or we could expand the café and reduce the size of the reading room,” I said. “Most days we’re bursting at the seams as it is.”

“That could work,” said Norman. “But that’s going to take a lot more capital, not to mention we’d probably have to close for the expansion—knock out the wall that divides the café and the reading room, for starters.”

“True. Besides, I’ve always wanted to keep the setting small and intimate, to be open fewer hours than the chains and develop the very atmosphere and rapport we have with our clientele. Even though expanding the café would likely fit more people, more isn’t necessarily better.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.