Thursday, March 5, 2009

We have the books, we have the space, now for all the 'stuff'...

Where would we be without Craigslist, hey? Jefferson and I should be the 'official faces' for that site. Not only did we source all of our book inventory from that site, but also all the cafe equipment we're gonna need.

In keeping with our mission statement, where we 'care about Mother Earth', we have tried to use 'pre-loved' inventory and equipment to fit out our store wherever we possibly could. We'd rather have used furniture and fixtures to deck ourselves out, rather than having them deck out a local land fill somewhere and buy all new stuff.

So, back to the Craigslist thang - Jefferson found a coffee shop on the other side of Denver that was going out of business. Here is the offical add that grabed our interest...


We struck a deal with the owner after visiting the cafe while it was still operating and in business...
... then in February we rented a truck, and shipped all the stuff over to our Golden location. What you see in the photo below is not only the second load of all the equipment and fixturing we bought, but a tired Julie posing in front of truck 2 of 2 holding our life's savings in dollars converted to 'stuff'.
At least we had the luck of a sunny clear February moving day. That forced tired smile would have definitely been a frown if we had to deal with snow as well as two truck loads.

Monday, March 2, 2009

I think this is it!

We found a spot! Just a short walk from our home sweet home.

It don't look like much at the moment, but imagine it with walls and a ceiling, flooring and tables and chairs, people drinking coffee and reading books... aaahhhh. Can't wait.


We met with the architect this week and have a floor plan mapped out. So now all we need to do is get the bank to hand over the money and construction can begin.

Here are the views from the store windows that I took when we inspected it for the first time back in January.