Post Party, Now 100% OPEN

GOOD AFTERNOON! Happy Tuesday! It’s the first day of my work week here and it’s been alright! I’m drinking some espresso from Social Grounds, it’s a 50/50 washed colombian ethiopian it’s great! All the crazy processes are cool but a solid washed is outstanding! Thankful they saved me with this after the Saturday rush, should have Valor back on spro tomorrow morning. Listening to homeshake, testing out some house vanilla syrup. There’s so much to say! It’s been a crazy last couple of weeks! Let’s get into it!

Party Recap!

About the food/drinks! As I told everyone in person leading up to the event, I expected around 50 people. I tried my hardest to secure free food and drinks, I tried to get lots of prizes together, for those 50 people. We ended up with wayyy more people! Like 100+ all night! But! We pretty much had enough food and drinks for everyone. I was able to stretch it by doing some vegan pizza and some booch, encouraging people to try both and take the free lattes coming out. We barely made a dent in the beer, mostly killed the kombucha pizza and lattes that went out! It was awesome. I think people were excited about tasting the latte art even if it got wrecked transferring to a paper cup.

About the giveaway! I was worried about having both enough stuff for all the guests, and enough stuff for all the baristas. I was also worried about complying with FL raffle laws. So for the guests I stressed that paid entry was optional, and threw out some free prizes. We had a ton of clothing, and it seemed like we got prizes to most of the people that entered! Plus we had a ton of raffle entries regardless! As for the entrants, we hand printed shirts for everyone, and was able to include a couple of additional random small prizes. The guests who filled spots for no-shows also got shirts because I kept some backups!

All in all! Everyone got stuff! The atmosphere was really exciting the whole time! People were stuffed out the door and laughing and having a great time! Even through the rain! I’m sure that everyone who got to go will remember the event! It was great! Better than I could have hoped! It ruled! Best throwdown I’ve ever been to! And I’ve been to a ton! all over the states! Of course I’m biased but still!

Thoughts on the actual competition

We could have had a lot more people, though I don’t know if it would have worked as well in the space or for the atmosphere. We had a lot of people asking to enter after the spots filled, and people telling me they entered too late. My goal in capping it at 24 was to keep the party tight. I wanted to have at least 30 people there as we wrapped up, and we did! I wanted it to take 2-3 hours and it did! I’m sure the free stuff and giveaways helped.

What happens at a lot of comps, is everyone shows up, and then as their friends get out or they’ve seen the space, they leave to go get food or do something else. Especially if they came in from out of town. They want to go see the city! So to try and keep a captive audience, I had some free giveaways and free food. Tables inside and chairs outside. It worked out great for keeping the party going.

The quality of pours was consistently solid too! What can happen at these events, is you have a lopsided bracket of those who pour really well and those who don’t pour anything or spill. I was able to keep the scene mostly local and without any bracket snipers, by not having a cash prize, and personally reaching out to a lot of local shops immediately. If you announce a cash prize and focus on rewarding the top three only, it’s not a very fun or consistent bracket.

I just want to say that i’m proud of all the baristas in Jax,you guys did really well. uncommonly solid.

What the party cost

I intended the $15 cost of entry, assuming we got at least 20 entrants, to cover the shirt production, and most of the milk/coffee we used. I was going to buy some pizza and water bottles out of pocket. I was also going to make some tote bags and other prizes / merch to sell and fill in the gaps. Things like logo shirts in addition to the entrant shirts.

Somewhere along the way I decided that if throwing a fun party was so important, then everything should be free. If anyone can have fun, everyone will have fun. My solution to this was bothering everyone I could find for free stuff, a lot of people offering to help pay, and a “pay what you want” raffle ticket system. I didn’t have confidence this would make enough money to help us much, but it would be something to maybe help a little. In case it did make money, I let people know the money would go towards construction bills, which was true, those bills are all I could think about.

So I sold tickets a few days in advance online, and then in person. It didn’t feel responsible selling tickets further out, since it was an in person giveaway. Turns out though, a lot of people bought tickets just to support the shop, and didn’t care whether they won prizes. That was very cool and we ended up making a few hundred dollars, which was just enough to help us pay for construction bills yesterday 7/25.

So what now?

We’re totally open, we did it! It feels great, everyone has been really positive and my body is holding up to the 60-70 hour weeks well enough so far. I’d like to maintain pace and keep growing. The difficult thing is having patience and squeezing by financially. I know that i’m doing well for a new business and I should be grateful, but it’s expensive to run a business! haha.

I’m also concerned about being a good boss now that I have someone shadowing weekends. more on that, next-week-ish. gotta keep making money to pay them for now!

Thanks for reading! Have a great week! - Elias