PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE: Another year, a new location

We are three years in. As a café that is. As a business, five years. The time has grown like a little child. First an infant, a small helpless infant that was the very cutest ever but also very fussy and impossible to tame, keeping us up way too many late nights with all kinds of problems we weren't prepared to handle.  A little reckless, like the best babies are.  And oh so very resilient, despite us worrisome parents squirmishing over every tiny bonk of the head.

Business ownership is glamourous, I won’t lie. I love this life, and I love what we’ve built. But its also very un-glamorous.  I keep finding myself compare it to raising a child.

The business cried a lot – you know, “feed me” (with literal money). Like, invest all this time and energy into me, I can’t do it on my own. We had to figure out how to finance it, find the money, and where to put the right money in the right place. We had to buy machines we’ve never bought before. We had to apply for complex financing mechanisms we’ve never heard of before, to buy the machines we had never bought before. We had to build systems for things we’d never done before so we could keep the machines we had never bought before (backflush the espresso machine, check fridge temps twice a day, buy the special tool to clean out the floor drain at the end of the month). We had to find and train and build the culture of a team to use the machines that we had never bought before. And don't forget to have a few convivios, with each other, with the team, with the actual cafe. That's what we're doing this all for, after all.

At some point, the little baby became a little kid. Going off to school on its own giving mom and mom a much needed "me time", feeding itself in some ways, “independent play” with others while we finish the laundry and household bills.

The most incredible part of Convivio Café this year is our team. A little business team that could. They are more independent and can live on those systems and those machines and those operations thats we built up over the last three years.

And yet, the baby still cries. I mean, come on, its only a kid!  So I don’t want to say we’ve got it altogether. But what a joy to watch this baby become a child. To grow its own personality beyond Kristin or Vivi or what we have taught it to be. To find its own essence, influenced by all the lovely humans that interact with it every day.

So, where do go from here? More growing up. growing out. Finding the limits to its own little business body.  We’re opening a mini “convivito” (Still haven’t landed on the name yet).  A convivio to reach more people, new areas of town, new crowds, new conversations and revolutions to spark, more Guatemalan coffee to wow the pallates of passsersby.

When thinking about a second location, we always said we wanted three things: 1) a better landlord. Someone who cares, who actually drinks our coffee, who wants to use their assets for good, even if they have to charge what they have to charge. (2) a place that’s already built out. Our sweet little innocent hearts of 2020 that thought it was fine to finance the build out of entire café and kitchen are…. Dried up. Still sweet hearts, but we don’t want want more debt. (3) More density. Convivio Madre, as its now lovingly known, is our forever love. That building, that history, the NorthSide, its forever a part of us. But we have had to work very hard to make it the destination coffee shop it  is, with very low density or foot traffic around it. For a second location, we want thousands of passersby to have easier/more access to our amazing product.

This new spot, is just that. Hit the nail on all three things.  

So, what will the next phase be? When will Convivio become the rebellious teenager? Stay tuned. And join the journey.