As you know, we enjoy drinking coffee nearly every day, sometimes multiple times a day. It’s great from home, but sometimes we miss that simple act of spending dollars upon dollars to have someone else make it for us! Dollissa and Manny both used to work at, and live above, a cafe in Newark, NJ, and here at the Sneer HQ, the nearest one is like a MILE away! Imagine any of us dragging ourselves out of bed to walk for twenty minutes just to get coffee and take a moment to laugh hard.
How is there a dearth of coffee shops a little further south in Covington, KY? Are all of the coffee drinkers living in the first ten blocks from the river? Is that what they think? They had better not think that because they are WRONG.
Originally, when we were researching potential locations for our headquarters, one of the things we would check was the proximity to a cafe. The joke was on us, though, because we have since discovered that a lot of very dive-y bars are called “cafes” here. What is that about? It’s a trick! It may be that we could get coffee there, but I’m not sure that is the right path for us to take. In fact, I think our paths are:
- Walk a full mile to coffee and then, eventually, a full mile back
- Wait for a person to take the risky plunge of entrepreneurship to begin developing our neighborhood in that way
- Or, just open up our own, where we want it, how we want it, soon
Dollissa has a nice work from home job, and I have no people skills, so it is up to Manny to run the cafe branch of our many-armed empire-to-be. Yes, this is going to be yet another “we are looking at real estate listings” article, so?
Our First Need: Location
As already mentioned, we need a cafe that is close enough to walk to comfortably. Ideally, this would be on our own block, but apparently there are only like twenty places listed in the whole city, and only three are close enough to us at this moment. I know that this would all be solved by just setting up in our own kitchen, but part of the point is to get out of the house sometimes. Also, I guess another point is “making this part of Covington nicer, too.”
The closest available place is like two blocks away, which we can accept. This building has been empty the entire time we have lived here, so it is about time for it to become Manny’s Corner Cafe (all names in this post are pending, I promise).
There is plenty of room for pastry making, probably whole meals to be offered as Manny is a skilled cook, and it looks like even space for an arcade or small roller rink. And would you just look at those outside blank walls yearning for murals by me!
Our Second Need: Still Location
This place is like right next to that last one. It would probably be wise to buy both of them together and use a little of our entreprenerd article ideas, too.
The interior is so unmade that it could be anything, which is both perfect and terrible for our dreaming and scheming kinds of minds. At first, it would be just Manny standing next to a coffee pot, pouring cups for us as Dollissa and I sweep this industrial floor and we discuss decorating. We would still let the public in while this is happening.
I think people would love it, love the “realness.” They will also love the exterior, which will look exactly like it does now with a parody sign that differentiates it from being a warehouse of some sort. People will wonder “is this a cafe? Am I about to walk onto the floor of a small factory and be asked to leave?” That’s a perfect start to any day. Success.
Third Need: A Lot of Space, Suddenly
This building is ALMOST too far away (umm like six blocks?? Outrageous) but look at it. It was built in 1860 and was recently a day care! There is a huge amount of space and it looks like leftover playground equipment so this would be ideal for not just a cafe, but a full venue! I know that we only need a simple cafe but who dreams small or realistically? Not us after we get warmed up to idea-making!
By day, things will be relaxed and at night, the pace will pick up considerably. We will help Manny arrange music acts, a liquor license, multiple employees, and second floor puppet plays. We will import Saxon full time in order to bring more food and cafe skills to the premises. Life will be a merry go round of excitement and all of the local papers will speak well of us. Furthermore, we can use the third floor as a publishing house, in order to fulfill the dreams I have made for Dollissa, and we will be our own local paper, distributed within only our business, with our demographic being specifically our customers.
I think this is all a very good direction to take. It helps our empire plans, our community, and it helps us! I don’t know how money works, but this all seems very much like a very easy, achievable plan. All of it. All three.
I guess it’s time to split Manny into three equally capable people. I forgot about that limitation for a moment, but as with any obstacle, this too can be surmounted.
Update 1/23/20: Bean Haus 2 is opening a cafe about three blocks away from Sneer HQ, proof that wishes come true.