Nemo's News 9-21-2007

What is going on this week???

Well, we had a 'sort-of' record set this week. Last Friday, we did $968.42 to set a single day sales record. That figure included a $255 sale for catering on Monday of this week. That means our actual sales that day were approximately $713. We did $792.58 on Thursday of this week, which would have blown that record out of the water. But since we did have that catering sale, then $792.58 is just a 'sort-of' record. Either way, it was very encouraging to have such a busy day.

We followed that very busy Thursday with a horrible Friday today, with sales of $362! I guess everybody spent all of their money yesterday.

We are down to only ONE WEEK until Brad Ewing of "Unseen" plays here live Friday night. I listed the event in the Independent, the Gazette GO! Magazine, and on the on-line city planner events calendars. I will also be putting up fliers in the store this week, and I set it up as an event on my photography meetup group site (which has 94 members). We hope to see a big crowd here for Brad's show!

I have had lots of people from our photo group, and others outside of that group ask me to teach Photoshop classes here. I checked the Meetup.com website and there are no existing Photoshop groups here in Colorado Springs. There were, however, about 65 people who said they would like there to be a Photoshop group created. I bit the bullet and organized a Photoshop Meetup Group tonight. Our first meeting will be on October 12 (Friday night) at 6:00pm. I will be charging a nominal fee of $3 per person per meeting to help pay for a projector, and to cover printing costs for Photoshop user guides I'll be writing for each class. If you have ever wanted to learn Photoshop, this is your chance. If you are interested, go to www.meetup.com and search for Photoshop groups in Colorado Springs.

We ordered a new Bunn G1 bulk grinder and it is sooo very cool. It is bright red and grinds coffee like nobody's business! We are going to have Neil Dana laser cut another menu board from steel stock, and we will get it powder coated and put it up in the shop. It is going to be our menu board for whole bean coffee. We would like to start driving whole bean sales. My initial goal is to sell two pounds of coffee a day in the first month or so. I'd like to get to where we are selling fifteen pounds of coffee a day by the first quarter of 2008. That would add $850 in sales per week if we can accomplish that goal.

We also ordered about $250 worth of small accessories and equipment for the shop this week. We have new steaming thermometers, a latte art pitcher, some cool blue mugs, logo shot glasses, logo 16 oz glass tumblers, a knock box stainless steel shield, etc coming.

I am also researching a new convection oven for the shop. We bake cookies, scones, brownies, and an occasional chicken pot pie here on site. We have been using a small oven provided to us for free by our cookie dough vendor (Otis Spunkmier). We joke around about it being our "Deluxe Easy Bake Oven". We brag about it having two light bulbs instead of one!! Actually, it is a non-adjustable electric convection oven pre-set to 285 degrees. It has served us well so far, but it is starting to cut out without notice. 1/2 size counter top convection ovens run anywhere from $800 to $1300, depending on size, programmability, and other options. I think I am going to go with a basic model without the programmable LCD displays. Heck, we have made it for 5 months with an Easy Bake Oven, so why spend the extra money now??

Well, I need to close the store and go home and SLEEP!!

Take care,
JD