Soft Open So Far
GOOD MORNING! No more writing blogs at noon, I’m out here at 6am dialing in, at Tetherball Coffee! It’s been an outstanding week so far. We opened on Tuesday secretly and it blew up, we’re now open for real on Wednesday-Sunday 7am-3pm. It’s been absolutely wild, i’ve gotten to listen to so much music, drink so much good coffee, and talk to so many awesome people who’ve been following the blog or us or whatever! Let’s talk about it!
Day 1
So we announced our opening as Wed-Sun, but came in Tuesday to hang out and invite friends/family. That got some social media peeps talking and we were pretty busy! it was a good way to break things up and set the bar for expectations. I was struggling to keep up a little bit having to actually run bar, but everyone was cool with the wait. I was flexing my vocal cords a lot more than usual too, and being a sort of awkward guy I felt like I landed on my feet there. Overall I felt like we did a great job for day 1, and we exceeded our general sales goals by a good bit.
Days Since
The next few days have been slow and steady, I don’t think i’ve ever been off bar for more than 30 minutes. It’s been a good mix of people from online and around the neighborhood, lots of either “I’ve been watching you guys online forever” or “I’ve been staring at that “opening soon” sign forever” haha. It’s true! I had to put that sign up when we first started and i’ve been at it for about 10 months since last August, but honestly it’s worked in my favor! All that time has let people know that we exist, and formed a sort of mythos around whether or not we’d even open. It’s like i’ve introduced myself for better or for worse, and made myself part of the community.
Speaking of Community
It’s been pretty unreal how supportive and excited everyone has been, I’ve heard so much “this area never had a good independent coffee shop until now.” I’m just like “me, good?” Lots of joggers and people with dogs. Lots of people on there way to work or on lunch stopping by real quick. It gives me hope for local guests in the long run! I’ve heard lots of “i’ll definitely be back!” too! I’ve had one or two “i’ll be the judge of this place” type guests, but hey it seems like they enjoyed the place, and I’ll keep pushing my positivity forever!
& Sunlit Vibes!
When you come in at like 8am, you get the sunrise through the windows and it looks incredible. All the colors in here are super bright and positive, I’m ditching the typical all black barista look, I’m pushing the uplifting look! It feels good in here, it’s somewhere I want to be every day and it’s somewhere I’m hoping employees will want to be every day. It feels like the ideas have translated and people get it, it’s sweet! I’m getting a lot of “this shop looks cute” and “how did you come up with these colors.”
I think cool is subjective, and like, the all black “cool” is a race to be the edgiest which feels like kind of a losing game. If I can just be myself and do something I like, and that happens to be unique and get people talking, that’s my best case scenario. That’s what I’m gonna do. Next week we’ll have pastries, see ya then! - Elias
