Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Coffee talks pt 2

As my coffee talks with Dwayne continue, we've started thinking not just about coffee and it's need for quality and flavor, but carrying that out throughout the rest of the coffee shop.

A coffee shop should have several rooms. Each room should be unique and beautifully decorated. Small, intimate rooms should be there for old friends to meet up and talk for an hour... or to study quietly. There's a quality that these small rooms should have.. a specific 'atmosphere' that's perfect for study or intimate chats. They should be small and intimate with bookshelves lining the walls. Dwayne recommended making it a 2nd-hand bookstore as well. Brilliant. But they would have to be GOOD books... not just endless copies of john grisham novels left over from a thrift store somewhere. I have my own idea of 'loading' the bookshelves with schaeffer, lewis, sproul, and other christian authors. I wouldn't restrict it from having the occasional copy of a marx or neitzche either, but i would want to spawn conversations of God... which coffee is perfect for. I originally had this idea in St. Louis. There's a PCA seminary in St. Louis and I thought it would be a neat opportunity to open a coffee shop nearby a strip of gay bars, and invite all the seminary dudes to come live above the coffee shop, and work there, and to use this area as a place of ministry.

My own personal coffee shop vision also includes one large room that you could fit several people in, to build a good sense of community. There should be people playing Go or Chess or Settlers or playing cards or just sitting around enjoying being around other people. The atmosphere wouldn't be quite so 'intimate' as the others, but it has other purposes. Along the wall of the larger room, we would hang artwork. Good artwork. I could review artists work, be as choosy as i wanted, then if the artist 'made it in', i would allow them to sell the artwork there, and even hold openings for their shows. If i found some REALLY good artwork there, i would probably buy something and strategically put it in one of the smaller rooms. This art-room would be not only for visual, but audible artwork. I would invite poetry readings, jazz, blues, experimental, bluegrass bands to play at the end of the room - Not rock shows... This is a coffee shop, not a sports bar. The final use of the large room would be a movie theatre. On Friday nights (or some set schedule) I would darken all the lights, pull a screen down from the ceiling and show vintage movies, or independant art films, or whatever i could get the rights to show.

How cool would it be to invite a bunch of people together to go have a cup of coffee over a Marx brothers movie? Or for the local college to lift us up as the ideal location to show their masterpieces?

Art, study, community, ministry... this isn't a coffee shop, it's a vision.

Friday, October 06, 2006

Coffee talks pt 1

I've been having several informal chats with my co-worker Dwayne Carr about coffee shops. We've got some ideas for a coffee shop, and we're even giving vague thoughts to opening up our own. These conversations with Dwayne are good. They're very uplifting, because we're not just talking about coffee shops, we're talking about life.

The coffee shop should have Good, quality coffee. This is a big deal for us since we've recently started roasting coffee ourselves, and seeing what a great difference it can make in quality. Coffee suddenly isn't just "coffee", it's a bold, smooth Indonesian coffee. Or it's an earthy bolivian coffee. Each coffee has a very unique flavor, and they're all completely different, and they're all better than "folgers".

This is where the talk of coffee shops began. It's the paving stone of our further coffee shop conversations.

Quality is important. Marx had a few things right. We lost something in that whole 'industrial revolution'. We lost tradesmen. We lost fine crafts. Hobbyists are starting to figure this out, but without recognizing superior quality, we will never get that back. Go into a really old catholic cathedral. Look at the ornate work in the sculptures and architecture. Do we even have anybody today who COULD replicate that? If someone was talented enough to do that, WOULD any business/organization pay to have it done?

People need to recognize art and quality in all things, rather than quantity and disposability.

P.S. I'm not a marxist. I think he had a few good ideas, but they were all executed badly.

P.P.S. I'm currently roasting green coffee beans that i've purchased through Sweet Maria.