Before THE DAY was to come, we had to prepare the space for their arrival. Like a mother bird building a nest, or a family preparing for the birth a baby, we knew that we had a date that we were working towards and there was no time to waste. But instead of a deadline, this would would be a lifeline.
We were quickly running out of space in our original location, and we also wanted to update the color palette of our facility to match our new logo and brand identity.
The building that we had purchased was nearly 4,000 square feet, and we designed it to house a coffee shop with a full espresso bar, seating for 50+ people, two offices, and a small warehouse for the Honey Moon Coffee Company. We had about 1,200 square feet to allot for the Evansville Coffee Company's roasting operations. It was time for Zac to get out the measuring tape and see what was possible.
One element that sold us on the building and we had an immediate vision for was "the stage". The building had previously been a hair academy for barbers and stylists to be educated and trained in. As such, it was helpful for certain techniques to be demonstrated on an elevated stage, with huge glass windows to look on through.
We could immediately imagine the stage being a showcase for one of our new roasters, as well as an exciting opportunity for our guests to see them in action as they waited for their drinks to be made at the new espresso bar. As soon as we could confirm that the roaster could physically fit, we made the decision of where to place it.
This "unlocked" us to create the supporting operational spaces near the roasters, but "locked" us in to being on the upper floor of our building. There are pros and cons to every choice, and you'll soon see what we mean.
Having the roasters off of the concrete slab, and on the wooden floor meant we needed to be sure of the over 40 year old building's structural soundness. Unfortunately, this meant that we needed to replace some of the floor and subfloor.
We also needed a larger door to allow for green beans and other large deliveries, and it ended up being easier just to replace the entire wall and build a new one.
Once we got the exterior walls up, we replaced the interior walls with fresh drywall. It got a bit messy with the mudding and sanding, but Paige and Jessica scraped and cleaned the walls and floors for the next steps.
Multiple coats of primer and the finish coat also ended up being a bit messy for Paige and Caroline!
Zac found some time to relax after cutting and rolling out the uncoupling membrane.
After several weeks of manual labor in various aspects of refinishing the space, we decided to hire a tiling professional to take over.
It was finally time to start transferring some of our production equipment over to the new space. It's about a 300 yard walk between the two locations, and the summer weather helped Ethan, Mindy, and Jessica to really break a sweat.
How you spend your day is how you spend your life, and we spent A LOT of days on this construction project. It felt like it would never come, but were finally ready to receive the San Franciscans UP and IN to their new home. Stay tuned for Part Three...