Hard work, good coffee

The three days following our opening weekend we were closed. David spent his time painting shelves, fixing lighting, defrosting freezers, etc. Basically he figured out what worked and what didn't. If it worked, he tried to make it work better; if it didn't work, he figured out why and tried to fix it. For the things he couldn't fix himself, like the aforementioned plumbing, we called in the specialists.

I spent most of my time on the phone. I set up bank accounts and arranged for delivery of vegetables, coffee, and ice cream. I created spreadsheets to keep track of just about everything I could think of. I also spent a good chunk of time in the kitchen cooking up our new menu.

All this sounds highly organized and well thought out. What really happened was we would show up with a list of three things to get done, work for twelve to fourteen hours and then notice that we still had the same three things on our list. I don't mean to imply that we wasted time. Rather, we vastly underestimated the amount of work there was to be done!

For example, it took three weeks to finally get the bank card terminal switched to my name. First I asked at the bank how to do it. They said to call company A. Company A said to call company B - the people whose name was on the machine. This seemed reasonable, but nearly impossible to accomplish. After several long periods of time (20-30minutes each) on hold only to get dropped or have my phone sabotage me, I finally got through to a person at company B. That person said - you don't want to talk to us, you want to talk to company C. I said thank you, wrote down the phone number, hung up and redialed. That number was no longer in service, but their website offered an alternative. Relieved by the lack of a long wait on hold with company C, I explained to their operator that I had taken over this coffee shop effective three days ago and would like to switch over the bank account that was linked to the terminal. The man took all of my information and said he would call back when he got the new number. After a week, I hadn't heard from him, so I gave them a call. Oh, they said, we need all of that information in writing. So, I wrote it all down and sent them an email. This time I did get a phone call back within a half hour, but my phone (in the process of dying) just felt like ringing and not letting me answer. After I borrowed a cell phone and called them back, I spent roughly five minutes on the phone and the bank terminal was reprogrammed and funneling money in my bank account!

On Friday of our first week, we left the coffee shop in the trustworthy hands of the art gallery administrators, Ingerid and Ingebjørg. David and I, along with Inger and Claudia two of our employees, were headed for a barista class offered free of charge by our coffee supplier. Arranging the class was one of the first things I did when I started thinking about the coffee shop. I knew how the coffee should taste, but not necessarily how to get it to taste that way; I figured the people at Crema could help us with that. What we got in return for our 4 hour each way drive was lots and lots of interesting information about how the coffee is produced, from growing on a tree to putting it in the bag. We also learned about preparing coffee and tea, cleaning our machines, and some milk steaming theory. Saturday, we returned to the coffee shop and gave all of our coffee machines a thorough cleaning. By the time the customers arrived our coffee was tasting better than ever!

The following Monday-Wednesday we were closed again and once again we seized the opportunity to fix everything that needed fixing before we couldn't anymore. David, in his admirable and unending quest to locate and understand everything in the building, discovered an interesting drain pump under the stairs on Sunday evening. The waste water from our sink (not in the kitchen, but in the coffee bar) runs first into a bucket, containing the pump, and is then pumped up and out. Coffee grounds, milk, and other sediment like things hang around in the bottom of the bucket and should be cleaned out once a month or so. That cleaning had not happened in a long long long time. When the customers left and David was allowed to open the bucket, I thought I was going to pass out the smell was so horrible. David persevered and managed to clean off the pump and the bucket and get everything screwed back together. Fortunately we had those three days closed to let the building air out. Unfortunately, we were working in the building those three days. By the time that Thursday rolled around (July 1st) we were ready to be open every day for the rest of the summer.

Opening Weekend

We opened for real the same day as the summer exhibition opened. In the week between commencement and the opening, we focused our efforts primarily on getting paperwork in order. I had foolishly assumed that everything would be in working order and that we would just show up and start running the shop. Fortunately for us, things were functional, just not optimally functional.

We opened the doors at six pm and were more or less ready. We had our case filled with cakes and our refrigerator filled with milk. My milk steaming skills needed work, but I had planned a trip to our coffee supplier the following week, so I just had to survive until I made it to the barista class. While there really wasn't much new that first evening people seemed positive to seeing us behind the counter.

The first sign of trouble popped up while we were trying to get some wax out of a candle holder. David filled up our main kitchen sink with hot water and in went the candle holder. Later, when I ran the dishwasher, the water didn't go down the drain - it came up in both sinks! As can be imagine, I was not particularly excited by this sight, but I was relieved that it didn't come cascading over the lip of the sinks and onto the floor (which we have now learned slopes away from the drain). To be fair, it must be mentioned that the wax was simply the last straw in a very long list of problems with the drain. The solution for the evening was, thankfully, David driving home, getting our emergency drain cleaner (the Norwegian equivalent of Drain-O) and pouring it down both drains.

Once we got the sinks functioning, I could get back to work on the dinner that I was preparing for the artists and board members. Things were rolling along, granted slightly behind schedule, when we discovered that we didn't have enough flatware for 19 people. Ingerid, one of the administrators, drove home and brought her own personal silverware to save the day. I served couscous with ground beef and vegetables and tzatziki in tomato boats. For dessert we had chocolate pudding with blackberry-ginger sauce topped with whipped cream. Dinner was a success.

The following day we were open regular hours, plus we hosted two concerts. As part of the Haukeliseter Festival, we had a concert with Ola Bäckström and Per Gudmundson. They were wonderful, the room was filled and people enjoyed the new tastes we had to offer. We started on a positive note building a reputation for good coffee, good food, and a good place to meet people.

The second group was a cowboy band from Oslo with some connection to the local population. The audience was considerably (and surprisingly) smaller - seven band members and fifteen audience members. As thoroughly accustomed to folk music concerts as I am, I was shocked when they announced that they would be taking a break and then playing a second set. I actually thought they were joking, so did David. So they played a second set and by the end of the evening they had earned enough money to pay for their food (but I was nice and gave them their coffee). One thing we have learned as music students is to always negotiate your contract beforehand - if you want a deal on food, let someone know that upfront so things don't get awkward when it's time to settle the bill.

We had survived the first weekend, now the real work was about to begin.