It was an early summer evening in 2001, Yiching called me and said, "I think we should start our own (coffee/tea) business."
I was making the bulk of my income delivering pizza at the time, "Let me run some numbers," I replied. I spent the next several hours driving around, furiously jotting down notes and figures on a stack of napkins, until I eventually called her back.
"We can do it." I said. The napkin never lies.
And at that moment, we forever changed our lives.
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| From an early feature on caffe d'bolla |
A seminar or two from the Small Business Development Center. Determining how to best fund our venture. Two years of traveling to CoffeeFest, and the SCAA with each of us taking different sets of classes with reams of notes, and figuring out by the following year what was and was not relevant to us. This was followed by months of hitting numerous coffee shops and espresso bars locally, in the Pacific Northwest, and overseas, where we quickly developed an understanding of why that first sip is so important.
We also sought out those owners who were doing something special and did our best to pick their brains with what limited understanding we had at that time. Sprinkled in the midst of it all was an on-going search for wares and ceramics, as well as eighteen months of location searching and lease negotiations until we found the right spot. Design decisions, planning, re-drawing, and more planning. Menu development, espresso testing, and a whole host of other decisions made on the fly, which was only possible because of our extensive research and planning. And that barely scratched the surface of what happened.
The beginning comes and goes so fast that you barely have time to appreciate it. There were many relationships being built behind the scenes, most which we still maintain today. It was a time of discovery and a time of challenges, but soon a greater challenge loomed ahead. There came a day for both of us, in the early summer of 2004, when we said goodbye to the our former lives, unlocked our doors and pulled the string on the OPEN sign for the first time.
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| caffe d'bolla first year store front |
When I look back to how this all started as an idea some fourteen years ago, just a few short months after we were married. I am most proud of the support and belief we had in each other so early in our lives to know that together, we could accomplish anything.
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| Best of State 2015, our third straight. |
And as soon as Alex learns how to pull shots, we can think about our next adventure.
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| Alex, Yiching, and me. Kansai, Japan 2015. |
