One of the things we think about all the time is how to create and maintain a sense of community at our coffeehouse.  One of the main strengths of San Francisco is its reputation for having a strong sense of community and for being a city that cares.  My family's goal in opening Coffee to the People was for it to be a center for our neighborhood community, a quintessential San Francisco coffeehouse that respects what the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood stands for. So I was a little saddened when I recently received an e-mail from someone who found our cafe, and indeed our city, lacking in that very sense of community.

Are we becoming more self-absorbed, preferring to live our intellectual lives through the windowpane of our notebook computers or holed up in books instead of interacting with our neighbors and others who come to this neighborhood looking for real, warm-blooded, face-to-face, human interaction?

What do you think Coffee to the People can do to foster a stronger sense of community and social interaction for those who visit our shop? I would love to hear your thoughts.

Meanwhile, this heart-felt message, and my response (both dated November 4, 2006), may be of interest. Here is the message:

hey folks,

I think your coffee house is totally cool, I really love the things you people stand for (as stated in your "Philosphy"), as well as the way you've decorated the place, but I don't think I'm ever coming back there again. Not because of anything your establishment did, or is responsible for -but because as is always the case whenever i go to a coffee house in the City I think should be a real cool place where people come to get together, socialize, and just give love to each other, this turns out NOT to be the case. In the hour or so that I was there today, tho I made it a point to sit in what should have been a kind of "community area", as soon as anyone else sat down, they'd bury their nose in either a book, or whip out a laptop, or put a pair of headphones on. The only time people ever intereacted was if they already knew each other prior to arriving. AS is always the case here in Berkeley, people did not interact with anyone outside of theri own race. Say what you'd like about the Bay areas supposed "diversity'" -as a person who is Bi-racial, I'll tell you it's not what they make it out to be. i"m fed up with going into places where such a large emphasis is (supposedly) put on overcoming this type of behavior, only to find out it is much to the contrary.

I know that you cannot "Make" people interact with others outside thier own race or be more freindly, but is there anyway at all you might be able to rectify this situation?

I love your coffee house very much, and would hate to have to put it off forever.

IF nothing else, they need to be reminded about a lot of the things the Haight stood for in the 60's!

Thank You.

--------------------------------------------

My response:

Thank you so much for your message. My first, quick appeal is that if you haven’t left the area yet, we actually have a social night tonight, our monthly “Game Night” that starts in less than 1 hour (7 pm) – I am going to try to be there for it, although I have a childcare issue I am still trying to resolve tonight.

If you can’t make it, or just don’t want to, I understand. I have to say it saddens me to hear someone looking for a sense of community and not finding it at our coffeehouse, because that is the main reason my family opened the cafe a year ago. I agree that in our laptop age, it is a little off-putting sometimes to come and sit only to find a “group” of people who have decided to each have his or her own individual experience instead of interacting with others. It really depends on the particular set of people that comes in at any time. Personally, I think a coffeehouse should be a place where someone can come in and just read a book or study or use their computer – sometimes. But it should also be a place people come together to meet each other, talk, laugh, debate, create, and learn more about each other, and often in San Francisco these days we are a little too self-involved to do that.

When I was at the shop a little bit ago today, I noticed a couple of people playing chess, and another small group talking, but I was a little surprised how many computers where out and faces buried, which isn’t what I would prefer on a weekend. We have been contemplating changing our policy on weekend afternoons to shut down the wireless and put up signs announcing the time as “social hour” for the very reasons you have noted. We are a little worried about the blow-back, but if you visit the shop in a couple of months you might see that we have taken that step – your e-mail has served as a strong plea to push that idea to the forefront.

Beyond that, I do want you to know that at Coffee to the People we think constantly about how to be the best community coffeehouse we can be. To that end, we have set up several regular community social events:

• Every Tuesday night is an open mic where anyone in the community can come play or listen to live acoustic music
• The 1^st Saturday night of each month is Game Night from 7 - 10 pm, where we invite everyone to come play games and hang out. It is often loud and fun, although some months it is a little more happening than others.
• The 1^st & 3^rd Mondays of the month we have a knitting group open to the public
• Every other Sunday at 10 am we have a children’s story hour
• Most months we have at least one or two special events, often with musical guests

All of our events are free, and we have been looking for more of them, so long as we find someone who seems passionate and good about keeping the event running on a regular basis.

I love the Haight. I live here with my family over on Ashbury Street, and I started the coffeehouse with my sister, wife, parents, and in-laws because I felt that we didn’t really have a place in our neighborhood that served as a true gathering place for our community (and that had good coffee and cared about the environment). I feel like we failed you today, and I am sorry. I am a member of the Haight-Ashbury Neighborhood Council, and I see people there that definitely remind me of what this neighborhood stood for in the 1960s, and I can see a lot of those ideals live on today around here. Some of those people are regulars at our shop, and my dream is to make Coffee to the People into a place where you could come and feel at home with these people. We will keep working on it. In the meantime, I hope you don’t completely give up on San Francisco. In any big city there are many types of people, and I hope that one day you will wander back into our coffeehouse and find what you (and I) have been looking for all along.

Yours truly,

Bob Harkins

What do you think?  Should we implement a "social hour" (or social hours) on weekend afternoons, shutting down the wifi and encouraging people to actually talk with each other?   What other things can we do to bring out our neighborhood's sense of community?

Good news! For the first time since we opened, last month our revenues exceeded our expenditures. We aren't out of the woods yet, but this is a very promising sign heading into tourist season.

Thanks to everyone who has been pulling for us. Each time you tell a friend or family member about CTTP or write a positive comment on one of the many review websites, you bring us one step closer to success.  With your help, Coffee to the People will be around for many years to come.

We love you, San Francisco!

100 Things You Should Know Before You Open A Coffeeshop

This is another one of those tips that sounds obvious until you start to think about it. More important than what coffee you serve is where you serve it. Coffee is a convenience, so don't expect people to inconvenience themselves to get it.

When choosing a location, think first and foremost about places where large groups of people naturally congregate.  The best spots tend to be near shopping, schools, and offices. Our location just off of Haight Street is a great location because it is near one of the top shopping areas in San Francisco, it is within walking distance of two universities (UCSF and USF), it is next to four bus stops, and the neighborhood is a major tourist destination.

Once you find a great location, determine where people in the neighborhood currently get their coffee. Don't automatically rule out an area just because it already has several coffeeshops. Rather, find out whether the market for coffee in that neighborhood is fully saturated. Although it may seem counterintuitive, sometimes the best place to open a new coffeeshop is a place where there are already several other coffeeshops in existence.

When we opened Coffee to the People, there were at least half a dozen other coffeeshops within easy walking distance of our location, but we were not deterred. Why? Two reasons. One, the mere fact that there were so many coffeeshops meant the demand for coffee in the neighborhood was strong. Two, the coffeeshops already in existence were doing a poor job of serving their customers: they had slow service, low-quality coffee, poor hygiene, and few amenities.  It was obvious to us that this was a neighborhood full of people who would appreciate the type of  high quality coffeeshop we were planning to provide.

This point was brought home to me a few weeks after we opened when a customer thanked us for opening the shop. She said that when she heard a coffeeshop would be opening in our location, her first thought was that the last thing the neighborhood needed was another place to get coffee. But after visiting our place, she realized that in reality our neighborhood really needed a community coffeeshop like ours. Now she visits our store every day.

Of course, if you find a location where people congregate, but where there are no coffeeshops already in existence, that could be even better. But be careful. Before you rush to capture the local market, make sure there is one. Maybe there is a reason no one has opened a coffeeshop in that area. Maybe someone already tried to open a shop, but it closed because demand for coffee in the neighborhood was too low to support a business. If there is a market for coffee in the neighborhood, people must be getting their coffee somewhere. Find out where. Then figure out if you can compete. If people in the neighborhood don't seem to be getting their coffee anywhere, then they probably aren't coffee drinkers and you should find another place for your shop.

100 Things You Need to Know Before You Open a Coffeeshop

In the early years of our marriage Bob and I spent a lot of time drinking coffee at our favorite San Diego coffeeshop, Cafe 976. Then one day when we decided we could cut our monthly expenditures by making our own coffee at home instead of buying so much coffee out. We purchased good beans, a good grinder, and a quality espresso machine. We taught ourselves how to foam our own milk and pull our own shots. Eventually, we got to the point where the cappuccinos we made at home were even better than the ones from 976. 

But in the end, we didn't save a dime. Why? Because we still went to Cafe 976 just as much as before.

It turned out that while we thought we were going to the coffeeshop for coffee, we were really going there for the experience. We liked the cozy window seats next to the flower garden, the lively buzz of conversation, and the familiar tunes coming through the speakers. We liked being able to get away from home for awhile. We liked being in a place that was tranquil, clean, and friendly; a place where we could hang out and read and play games without being disturbed by the phone; a place where there was no need to do dishes or cook dinner or worry about the bills. 

The coffeehouse experience is the heart and soul of the coffeeshop business and cafe owners need to keep this  fact in mind at all times.  The allure of the coffeeshop rests not so much in the coffee as in the accoutrements of coffee. Roasters and road-side stands sell coffee. Coffeeshops sell experience. The better the experience you offer, the better your business will be.

I've been mulling over recent suggestions for improving the range of services we provide at Coffee to the People while staying conscious of our bottom line. One idea that keeps coming back is the notion of offering special discounts in exchange for assistance from people in the community.

For example, as many of you know, in recent months we have been struggling with technical problems with our wireless routers. While we have tried to resolve these issues in a timely fashion on our own, we are limited by our lack of knowledge (we are coffee experts, not computer experts) and lack of time. It would be great if we could find a professional IT person who would be willing to donate some of their energy and expertise to the shop in exchange for free or discounted products.

Likewise, one area of our shop that has been relatively neglected in recent months is our "Political Action Center." The idea behind this billboard is to keep customers apprised of ways they can get involved in making our world a better place. However, we've been so busy simply keeping the store afloat that we've had trouble keeping the board current.  It would be great to have a volunteer interested and involved in local community activism to maintain this board in exchange for store credit.

If you or someone you know might be interested in pursuing one of these arrangements, let us know. We would be very interested in talking with you.