The Run Away Business Meeting

In light of recent events, Mona and I decided we needed to have a business meeting.

The way this business meeting came about, is the same way most business meeting happen...

I went home on my lunch break and I found Mona sitting in our living room with her bags practically packed telling me she's running away RIGHT NOW!

Me: Can we wait until I get done with work to run away?

Mona: Well, I was going to run away without you, but I was to lazy and now you're here.

So, I got out of work early, we canceled our evening plans, cashed in our coin jar ($83 dollars!), downloaded a playlist, and hit the open road.

We rocked out to Nero/Skrillex 'Promises' and set out on our path for Milwaukee.

We ended up in the Historic 3rd Ward District. Super cute area of Milwaukee we have never been before. It has lots of cute little shops and restaurants!

Our "business meeting" was held at the wonderful Cafe Benelux. I loved the look and atmosphere of this place. The food was unique and good!

www.cafebenelux.com

We had  the pork belly satay, sesame cilantro slaw, peanut sauce, for an appraiser and then we split the  sprocket, which is a burger on a baking pretzel bun with bacon, cheddar, duck fat fried egg, garlic aioli, and tomato jam. We also had the traditional frites and the sweet potato frites along with the roasted garlic and red pepper aioli dipping sauces.

Wonderful!

I wish we had places like this were I'm from. It was very inspirational setting for our meeting.

We talked about where we are and where we want to be when it comes to opening our own coffee shop. And getting out from under The Man or in our case The Man-dy.

The ways things have been going with our coffee boss, Mandy, right now, is highly motivating. It's forcing us to kick start our own shop into high gear.

One of the tricks I learned in business school is to set a definitive and measurable goal. Using numbers and deadlines.

So, our goal is to save $60,000 and open our coffee shop by the end of 2015.

We are going to have to save 2,500 to 3,000 every month for the next two years to reach our ambitious goal. It's going to be a lot of hard work and cheep meals, but we can do it!

We both have two regular jobs. We both get tips. We both dogsit.

I am going to start donating plasma again and try to sell some of my artwork.

Mona is going to find more paying gigs for her music and she is going to try and win jingle contests (she already has a few in mind).

Once our lease is up we are going to move to a cheaper apartment.

We are going to completely get rid of our TV bill by cutting even basic cable and cutting down our electric bill by making sure to shut off lights.

And we are going to eat as many meals at my parents as we can without them realizing what we are doing.

We are going to save every possible penny. 

After dinner, with our stomachs full and our goals set, we took off for the Miramar Theatre on Oakland Ave to hit up their Tuesday open mic night.

There were quite an assortment of musicians and poets.

One skinny, nerdy looking white kid unexpectedly wrote rap lyrics.

Another rapper (obviously rap is popular in Milwaukee) reminded us of how Tom Haverford from Parks and Recreation and how he would act if he tried to rap.

One musical looper was having technically difficulties so he tried to do a comedy routine. Not good.

And a poet was talking about vaginas and whores fairly explicitly and then apologized several times afterwards for if he offend anyone.

You could say the experience was interesting. 

Mona was by far the best person to preform and I don't say that due to bias because she is my sister or the fact that I helped write the music.

At first she was a little thrown because she had never played on an actual stage with lots of bright lights and all before.

Afterwards she said she didn't know how to act because she couldn't see the crowd and get people's reactions, so she felt like a fool.

I, of course, agreed with her 100%.

No, she did an awesome job and even gained a few new fans!

By this time it was after 10, and being the party animals and expert runner away-ers that we are, we headed home and went to bed.

Coffee Shop Relocation

The coffee shop I'm working for, the one that's also a Mexican restaurant and also has been having some partner relationship problems, is relocating.

They are relocating downtown, because the rent was raised $700 where they are now. The building we are moving into is smaller, but has the option to grow.

They are getting rid of the Mexican restaurant (but not the business partner) and just going with the coffee shop in the move, but the coffee shop is still going to be serving taco's on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights.

I am glad they are getting rid of the Mexican restaurant, but I personally think that still serving taco's on the weekend is a big mistake for several reasons. And I am going to tell you guys why, because they refuse to listen to me and I need to vent.

1. Coffee shops and taco places attract two VERY different types of customers. They say they want to draw in the hip modern sophisticated coffee drinking crowd. The taco place will drawn in the drunk hicks. 

2. We are in a fairly large town (63,000) and there is no coffee shop downtown. This is a GREAT unique opportunity and you will monopolize the downtown market!! There are already two other taco places downtown. One is an very unique authentic well priced great Mexican grocery and restaurant. We will make an average overpriced taco.

3. It's a small place. If people are taking up space waiting for their tacos it is not going to leave a lot of room for the people who are there to sit and drink their coffee. 

4. Coffee and tacos taste terrible together. It's true. It's absolutely terrible. You can try it if you want, but I wouldn't recommend it.  

If they go this way they are going to continue to drive away their customers!

I know that if I'm at a coffee shop on a weekend night, it is because I'm trying to avoid the drunk bar crowd and I don't want to be at a place that is selling tacos to them. 

I know that I'm just their minimum wage Barista/Waitress, but I'm not getting my B.S. in Business Management for nothing! These are things I have learned. I can't help, but want to help, but nobody's listening!!

HappyCappi

Welcome to Friday! I love Friday's that start with a piece of White Chocolate Raspberry Coffee Cake and a cup of Colectivo Coffee (Colecivo is the new Altera. My coffee shop is just behind the times with their cups). Coffee just makes my day a little brighter (I am a crazy coffee addict, so I would go through major withdrawal symptoms if I didn't get my coffee and you do not want to be around me during withdrawal symptoms) Mona and I call coffee our HappyCappi because it makes us instantly happy.

Anyways, while I was waiting for my HappyCappi today, I was chatting it up with the Batista and apparently she is going to school to be a Forensic Investigator (And yes I envisaged her on CSI right away).

I just think this is brilliant!  I  thought about becoming a Forensic Scientist for a minute, but sadly I did not end up following that path. So you could say that I had a moment of jealousy.

Instead of Forensics I am studying Business Management. I find it to have way too much math, but the end goal is going to be worth it! Mona and I want to open up our own coffee shop!

At one point we did talk about becoming Private investigators and combining the Coffee Shop and PI business together. PI Coffee has a nice ring to it...don't you think? Or Crime-Scene Coffee?

Mona and I have a problem with wanting to do everything, from opening a Coffee shop to being Rock Stars, from becoming PIs to being gypsters (I went to type gypsies, but it corrected to gypsters. I like the idea of gypsters more, so that is now what I want to be instead), but right now we are focusing on just the coffee shop. We still have a few years to work it out, so who knows what we will end up being when we grow up...maybe we will be PI, Baton twirling, gypsters who run a zoo that serves coffee!  Anything is possible right?