Shout Out!

I have to give a shout out to our friend, Per! Per and my best friend Libby have been a huge help and support during this process. Per, however, was a major help in the creation of our website. Being the completely un-computer savvy person that I am, I had toyed with the idea of hiring someone to do our website--which costs a fortune! After a lot of great advice from Per I felt like I had the potential to attack this mission myself. Per did some research for me and found a great site with some easy-to-use software that allowed me to (what I think is) successfully build our website. If you haven't already seen it, check it out:

www.CoffeeBuzzMN.com

Welcome to Coffee Buzz, Can I Take Your Order?

Today was a major day! Our POS systems and security systems were installed and the menu boards were hung!

 

 

We also had a preliminary walk through with the Health Inspector. After our walk through our contractor told me that it couldn't have gone any better and it was the smoothest walk through he's ever had. RELIEF! She gave us a couple of things we need to do to really meet the codes but for the most part she said everything looked great! 

Tonight, the magic cleaning angels are coming to give it a really good scrub down which I could not be more excited for! The shop is so dusty and so dirty from all the construction and all the people coming in and out. I cannot wait to get there in the morning and see it sparkle! I have a small order coming tomorrow to add to a huge order I got yesterday, so my day will be filled unpacking and organizing all of our smallwares. Basically, I'll be getting everything set up and organized out on the front counter and start stocking our back room. Then, tomorrow afternoon we have our electrical inspection, Thursday afternoon we have our building inspection and on Friday at 11:00am we have our FINAL HEALTH INSPECTION!!! If we get all the inspectors approval and signatures by Friday afternoon we will have our license and be ready to start training and open on our terms! FINGERS CROSSED!

Meet the Team!

Jason and I are so excited to have wrapped up interviews and offered three wonderful ladies a position, all of which accepted!!! So, it's time to meet the Coffee Buzz Team!

Sara Walz, is a twenty-five year old graduate of Crown College with a degree in Intercultural Studies. She is currently working in the very early stages of creating a non-profit clothing line. Sara spent a year living in Nashville after her and two friends decided to move there without jobs or a place to live! Sara also has almost six years of coffee shop experience!

Leslie Spriggs is a forty-nine year mother of three who just recently moved to o Hopkins from Mankato to be closer to her kids. After twenty-two years working for a bank, Leslie, decided to start her own Interior Design business. With the slow times and the growing amount of energy Leslie finds herself having, she needed something to supplement her business. Lucky for us, Coffee Buzz was just the thing she needed!

Josi Krawec is a twenty-nine year old graduate of the Culinary Arts program at MCTC. Josi works part-time at the St. Paul Cheese Shop and is quite the cheese expert. She has an amazing knowledge and appreciation of food and beverages. Josi will be an awesome addition to Coffee Buzz and I think we will all benefit from her passion for fine food.

So those are the ladies! Don't they sound great? If you want to get to them better you'll have to come buy a latte and meet them! :o)

¿Dónde está el baño?

Things are slowly wrapping up over at the Buzz. As you can see, our bathrooms are dangerously close to being completed!

 

  

As for interviews, Day 4 went well and I am finally done with round one. We took 200 applicants and narrowed it down to 25 interviewees. Now we have 5 people that Jason is going to interview a second time, that's 5 people for 3 spots.  I am so excited about the people we have left and I have no idea how we're going to choose. Some VERY EXCITING news though, we did hire our first employee! More on that next week! 

This coming week is a big week, it could potentially be the final week of construction! We have a walk through with the health inspector on Tuesday afternoon which I am praying goes well. I am hoping for some criticism though, so I know what needs to be done for the final inspection .

On a personal note: it's VALENTINE'S DAY!!! One year ago today, Jason and I had the absolute best day of both of our lives! I surprised Jason and brought him to Arizona to watch his favorite basketball team the University of Arizona Wildcats play a HUGE game against UCLA. We had an awesome time driving from Scottsdale to Tucson, exploring the U of A campus, standing for 2 straight hours while McHale center cheered the cats on to a victory and even met some of the former and current players! 

It was a day we'll never forget!

Interviews: Days 2 and 3

The last two days of interviews have been quite interesting, I have learned so much! Hopefully, I won't have to but if I ever do need to interview for a job again I will be more than prepared. It is amazing the difference between a good interview and a bad interview. A good one makes you feel excited and energized and hopeful. A bad one just drains you. Over the past three days I have interviewed 17 people! I'd say 20% have been AMAZING, 50% have been really good and 30% need not be discussed. I will say this though; I had two people over 20 minutes late, a no show and one person say "prick." Yup, that's right, "prick" in an interview and not used like "prick your finger:"

I have 4 interviews today and 3 more tomorrow then I am done! From there Jason gets to start this magical process called interviewing and hopefully by the end of next week we will have our crew! This has been a great learning experience and I am excited about these potential employees but by tomorrow afternoon I am going to be so fried I will probably look like this: