Cafe Luwak Blog

If you have placed an order from the Corner Brewery or one of the local neighborhoods, you have most likely had Forrest deliver your food on his bike. This has worked very well for the past three years, but there have been times that the drinks didn’t make it in tact. Well I think we may have found a solution for this. Today as Forrest and I were out running errands, we stopped by Ypsilanti Cycle to get the chain of Forrest’s bike fixed. As we were there waiting I mentioned that I had seen a trailer in a magazine article that I thought might work for deliveries. The owner of the shop then mentioned that he had a used trailer for sale just around the corner. We looked at it, and sure enough it was perfect for what we needed and fit nicely on Forrest’s bike. We paid for the repairs and the trailer, and Forrest rode back to the café with his new trailer hooked nicely to the back of his bike. Now he will be able to take large deliveries to the Corner Brewery and beyond with no carbon emissions or gasoline usage.

Our sales for May were up a couple of percent over last year which is really a good sign considering our ice cream sales were down almost 20%. There is a real simple rule to the ice cream business. If it’s cold we don’t sell much ice cream, and May was considerably colder than last year. The good news is that we had growth in Sandwich and Coffee sales. We also had an unusually high month of salad sales. I have had several customers comment on how much they like our salads, and they have suggested that we start offering more options. Right now we just have a garden, chef, Caesar, and a Greek salad. This is something I am going to have to start looking into if that area of the business is going to continue to grow.

Over the past three years we have made a number of changes in the quality of the products and the processes trying to make things more consistent and more efficient. We have added a few sandwiches to the menu, but we haven’t made any major changes to it. As we are getting to the point where our growth could very soon hit a plateau, I have been trying to figure out how we are going to grow into a profitable business. Our lunch time business is our main source of revenue, and the evening business does very well in the summer, but it dies off in the winter. So the question becomes what do we do to improve our morning business and winter evenings?

My goal for the morning is to start serving a real breakfast in addition to our breakfast sandwiches and pastries. We have the equipment in the kitchen to cook breakfast items like pancakes and eggs. I am just waiting on the contractor who is handling our remodeling to get started on our job. My goal is to be serving a full breakfast by the time school starts in the fall. The fall evening business is going to be a little trickier. Most people when they go out for dinner are going to go somewhere where there is alcohol. I have thought of getting a liquor license, but at this time I just don’t have the finances to consider it. I have been thinking that after the remodeling we might do some kind of dinner specials on Fridays and Saturdays during the winter. Something like a pasta dish and prime rib along with our full sandwich menu.

One of the things I am working on is improving our website to make it more interactive. I am adding an improved feedback area that allow customers to give us more detailed feedback on how we are doing, and I am also adding surveys that will help us in deciding our business direction. Questions like what kinds of salads would you like to see on our menu or what is your favorite flavor of ice cream? Can you think of more ways we can improve how environmentally friendly we are?

I really value the customer comments we get, and a number of changes that we have made especially with regards to our environmental footprint have been thanks to customers. Over a year ago I got a comment on one of the comment cards that said we should switch to low energy lighting. The following month we were closed for Easter, and Forrest and I came in and replaced every light bulb in the business with low energy bulbs. Another customer told me about the corn based plastics that were being used on coffee cups, and with a little searching on the internet I found them. I replaced all of our coffee cups, cold cups, salad containers, and take out bags with products made from corn based PLA plastic. Very early we had a lot of comments from our customers that our coffee should be organic and fair trade, and we switched all of our coffees as a result. Board games were another suggestion that came in on a comment card, and we now have a whole shelf full of them.

If you have a suggestion of what you would like to see improved in our business, please let me know. You can always send me an email, leave a comment on a comment card, or stop by our website and leave feedback or fill out one of the new surveys.

Memorial Day is always a complicated day for us. In the one hour before the parade starts we do more coffee business than any other full day of the year. This is my fourth Memorial Day, and for the past three years we have run out of regular coffee during the first hour, and we never get caught up. Once the parade gets to Depot Town, the line disappears, and that is the end of the coffee business for the day. Last night I told Forrest that we need to get in early and get all of our pots full before the rush hits. I said I want this to be the year that we don’t run out. Well we succeeded this year; we brewed 10 regular sized airpots and our super large 3 gallon container. I put Forrest in charge of brewing new pots as we went through each one, and he did a great job of keeping the brewing going. We ended up going through 15 gallons of brewed coffee in that one hour.

Next year we need to work on improving our latte efficiency. With espresso drinks there isn’t much you can do in advance since each drink is make individually. Every year we learn and improve. Eventually we will know how to do everything right.

I don’t really follow anything on the celebrity scene. I don’t usually have time for gossip, but it appears the city has been feverishly describing a visit from Drew Barrymore who is scouting Ypsilanti as a possible location for one of her films. I have had several customers ask if we saw her at all in Depot Town. I hadn't heard of her being in Depot Town, but I guess she was seen on Michigan, and one of the workers downtown has photographic evidence on their phone to prove it. I guess the state is offering some tax incentives to the movie industry to try to get them to produce more movies in Michigan. I think it would be really cool if we had some movies made here in Ypsi. We have some pretty large empty factories that could be converted to studios, and of course I would be happy to provide catering services to them. After hearing about the Drew visit I remembered talking to a customer a few weeks ago who said he was scouting areas for a film. I didn’t think anything of it at the time because I didn’t know there were any serious initiatives to bring the industry to Michigan. I did mention that there have been several shoots in my café by independent filmmakers. Well actually they were film students, but they will probably be film makers some day.

A lot of customers have been asking me how the economy and the gas prices have been affecting business. We have had some portions of the business decline, but then we have had other parts of the business pick up. So far I think the weather has been a bigger factor than the economy, but what is really hitting the hardest is the increase in prices from our vendors. Obviously the price of gas affects how much food is going to cost when it has to be driven on a truck. The problem I have is that I can’t raise my prices to match the increases from my vendors. If I did, I would end up driving my customers away.

I tend to try to find the silver lining in everything though. I think a lot of people are going to think that with the price of gas the way it is, it would make much more sense to walk or ride their bike down to Depot Town, enjoy a good lunch and some ice cream, and check out our nice walk able areas. In the long run, I think the local economies could really thrive as a result of the high gas prices. Customers will be much more likely to buy produce from the farmers market and other locally produced items because these people are their neighbors, and they aren’t paying to truck their goods across the country.

So next time you are feeling like you need a vacation and just cant afford to go anywhere, hop on a bike or take a little walk down to Depot Town, get an ice cream cone, take a walk through the park, check out downtown, and enjoy this nice town we have called Ypsilanti. It may not be the Bahamas, but it really is a great town.

Yesterday the Ann Arbor News ran a really nice article about us. If you missed it, you can find it online here: http://www.mlive.com/annarbor/stories/index.ssf?/base/features-2/121086243411170.xml&coll=2. Well as luck would have it, my Friday lunch business has been really slow for the past couple of months, so I decided to cut back on staffing for Fridays. This was actually the first Friday that we had cut back. It seems like everyone who read the article must have come in today for lunch. We had every table filled including the deck out back and the tables on the sidewalk in front of the place. It was nice to see the business, but we didn’t have the staff to handle that kind of lunch rush. One of the worst feelings I get is when we have a day where things don’t go well. I take it very personally when customers aren’t getting the service they deserve, and days like today really make me feel like a real failure. I hate the thought of a bunch of new customers coming in for the first time walking away thinking that this is the kind of service we have all the time. Every business has good days and bad days, and when are having a good day we really do things well. Days like today are where we learn from our mistakes. We take a look at the things that went wrong and try to think of ways to fix them, so they don’t happen again next time. The obvious solution for this is to make sure we have enough staff on Fridays again, and work on making sure every week is as busy as this one.

There are so many things I really enjoy about spring especially after a long winter like we have had this year. I really like the longer days, the sunshine, and seeing all of our ice cream regulars again. The real disadvantage as far as the business goes is that we always end up loosing some of our student employees. Sometimes it is just for the summer, but most of the time they graduate and move on. When you work with people for several years, you end up with very close friendships that inevitably disappear. I have had a number of employees who move on, that still keep in touch with me. It is nice to keep in contact, but it isn’t the same as working with someone several days a week. The other downside is that I have to hire replacements and get them trained. Working isn’t as much fun because we haven’t built up the friendship like I had with the previous employee. As several months go by, we end up with a nice cohesive staff again, and we are all friends until the next graduation.

If you haven’t heard about our Kopi Luwak cupping parties, then you haven’t been reading my newsletters, or my blog, the local papers, or even watching some of the television news. We have been mentioned just about everywhere for them, and they really are fun events. Ever since I started serving the coffee, I have thought I really should have a T-Shirt with a cool saying on it. My problem is that I don’t have an artistic bone in my body, nor do I have a very creative wit. I did come from the IT world after all.

So here’s the deal. I want to have a contest where people submit ideas and work with me to get something ready to print on a T-shirt. The winner of this contest will get a really nice gift basket with all sorts of Café Luwak stuff including a Travel Mug, Coffee Cup, Baseball Cap, a Pound of Coffee, and a gift certificate for a Latte a week for a year. Now here’s the catch. What I am looking for is something that is really funny, graphically appealing, and here’s the hard one, Family Friendly. Well as family friendly as possible considering you are talking about coffee that came out the rear end of a Palm Civet. So if you have a great wit, some artistic ability, and you love coffee, this is the contest for you. You can submit your entry by sending me email at jim@cafeluwak.com. I haven't decided how we are going to do the voting for the best idea yet. One thought was to have my staff vote for the best idea, or maybe a customer vote in the store, or possibly an online vote at our website. I think I will wait and see how many entries we get.

After three years of being in business, we have had a number of awards and positive reviews that I am very proud of. Winning the best sandwich shop in the Detroit Area last year was a real feather in our cap, and you would think it would be hard to beat that. Last weekend I saw post on one of the local neighborhood association blogs that gave us a 5 out of 5 water tower rating. The review was really positive with the only complaint being that the Connect Four game was broken (I have since replaced that with a new one). It really made me feel good to read the review. I thought about it, and it is nice to have a TV station in Detroit say you are doing a good job, but it is a lot more important to have the people in your neighborhood think you are doing well. I don’t think there are many people, who come from Detroit specifically to visit my café, but the neighbors down the street do, and it is really cool that they would take the time to let other people in the neighborhood know what they think of us.

I often get asked from customers if they can buy a loaf of bread, and I will usually sell a loaf when asked, but we have never really had a good process for it. I don’t really expect to sell too much of the Italian or the wheat because they are pretty basic breads, but I am sure there are a number of people who would like to buy the Challah or the Rye for home. I personally think the Challah makes really good French toast. If you would like some of our great bread to take home, just come in and ask for a loaf.

Challah (2lb) $5.50
Corn Rye (2lb) $5.25
Italian (2lb) $5.25
Wheat (1lb) $2.95

Every year I try to come up with some type of special for St. Patrick’s Day, and nothing ever seems to work. A couple of years ago, I sent Forrest up and down the street giving away free Reuben’s because we had so much corned beef left over, there was no way we were going to sell it all. This year we cooked some extra corned beef, but not as much as in the past, and we didn’t do anything special. I just figured it was a bar holiday, and it would be just a regular day for us. Well as usual I was wrong this year, before 11:00 am we had sold over a dozen Reuben sandwiches, and people were already calling in for deliveries for the afternoon. By early afternoon we were cooking more corned beef to get us through the evening. I have to wonder if I am ever going to figure this business out. It really seems like all my marketing and trying new things are just a roll of the dice. Would I have been busier this year if we tried some of the things from the past? Or is it because of all the things we have done over the past three years that people thought of us this year when they wanted to have a corned beef sandwich. I have said it before, but one of these days I will figure all these things out, then I will give up the restaurant and become consultant.

I know we still have a week until the first day of spring, and in Michigan that doesn’t mean much, but it sure was nice to have a sunny day in the fifties. It has been a long winter, and a day like today brings out our ice cream regulars who we haven’t sent since last fall. It is also the beginning of the upward swing of our business. February was a long brutal month for us this year. Not only was it an extra day longer, but for the first time in three years our business was slower than the previous year. The main reason for the downslide in business was the lack of catering orders. With the state of the economy right now it isn’t a big surprise that businesses aren’t spending as much on catering. On the bright side, our in house business did actually go up by a couple of percent, so I am pleased overall with the performance, and I am really looking forward to sunny days, ice cream cones, and long boarding in the back ally with Forrest.

Earlier in the week a saw an article in the Ann Arbor news about Downtown Ypsi having a late night Friday every second Friday of the month. The downtown merchants have banded together to try to increase retail business in the area, and they are giving out punch cards that you can get punched by the local merchants. When you get your card completely punched you can turn it in and get entered to win a $250 gift basket made up of items from all the local merchants.

After seeing the article I sent an email off to Paul at the Rocket and asked if there was anything I could do to help out. I got a stack of punch cards from him and we have them sitting on the counter at the cafe. If you get a chance, stop in and get a punch card and check out what the downtown shops have to offer. In these tough economic times, it takes creativity and working together to make business districts survive. It is really nice to see our downtown merchants pulling together to make the area a pleasant shopping destination.

We recently linked up with Wireless Ypsi (Steve Pierce and Brian Robb's project) to share our bandwidth throughout Depot Town. Being that we already had a dedicated internet connection, and we were providing free internet access to our customers, it only made sense to participate in the Wireless Ypsi project. Also since I work in the technology field and love anything that is techy and cool, I was a pretty easy sell for the idea. This is another one of those things where a couple of people get together with a great idea, the community gets behind it, and it gets done. This is what I really love about Ypsilanti. There has been talk about a wireless Washtenaw for several years now, but it is a long way from getting completed. Here in Ypsi, we work together and get things done. By summer you will be able to sit in Riverside Park with your laptop (hopefully with an Ice Cream from Café Luwak) and connect to the internet while enjoying the outdoors.