Think simple, Simple Coffee

Congratulations to Mike and Danielle on their wedding Sunday, and also to Mike’s new added family, who parties harder than anyone I’ve ever seen. Andrew W. K. look out.

I don’t know if there will be a post 2 or 3 etc, but I thought I’d leave room for the other guys.

Okay, now that it’s over, I can tell you how stressed I’ve been about Bike the Drive lately. We decided to be a vendor late in the game (how’s 1 month before sound?), and the Chicago Bicycle Federation graciously had us.

“Can you provide coffee to 22,000 participants?” they asked.

“I hope so,” I said. And with that we were off. We didn’t have brewers at the time, I had to order them. We didn’t have cups at the time, nor shirts, nor coffee for that many people, to say the least of having 16 volunteers willing to be up and leaving for the city at midnight for a 14 hour workday in which some would be attacked by zombies! So you can imagine that it’s been quite a ride. But like a 30 mile trek before sunrise, some difficult rides prove worth all the effort. This was one of those.

First of all, I can’t begin to say how great our volunteers were. They did everything. They took control, worked together, and created a world for the participants to experience a new way of thinking about their morning cup. Our volunteers took the time to learn about our company and enjoyed talking with the participants. They meticulously tested and slaved over the coffee as well as the setup to ensure that everything went smoothly, and you know what? We had not even one complaint! Wow! And I didn’t even mention that they did most of this in the rain.

Dispite the rain, we did have a lot of people come through our tent. Alot of them are new friends, some of them are new freinds waiting to be made next year, and one of them ended up being my 6th grade soccer coach (small world). We got some free publicity on NBC from our new friend Ed as he was being interviewed. I got to meet Quin(n), a great guy whose name you will hear in rap songs soon, and I learned the major difference between Logic and ProTools (shouldn’t I have done that in college?). We were happy to talk to some fantastic people from NBC, WDRV the Drive, the Ambassadors for Bicycling, and as always we were happy to be next to the nice people at CLIF bar (who provided our nourishment in exchange for fresh coffee).

And, as always, the Chicago Bicycle Federation was great. Rebekah and Tiffany worked like crazy to help us get coffee to the volunteers on the ends (a near impossible task), and of course to set up and find our way around. Aaron and Ethan helped us get our everlasting Ingersoll Rand generator, John biked coffee around to volunteer tents, and Patrick (a friend from last year’s event) evangelized the good news of free coffee to volunteers.

It began rainy ominous, it turned out sunny with a light breeze and blue skies - that about sums up the whole experience. I love Bike the Drive.

Not necessarily the opinions of the others involved in Simple Coffee:

Wow, it’s been a while. I’ll be honest, I have little to say about Simple in this post…we are doing some big things right now, which I’ll talk about later.

For now, let me say how taken I am by dan le sac vs scroobious pip, especially the songs, “DEMO A letter from…” and “Angles.” Very taken. I know I’m a bit late on this one, forgive me, but I really do like it. listen here.

Speaking of music from oversees, you should also check out Tsuji Giri. I haven’t talked to these guys in a while, so I’m not actually sure if they are still together, but one of them almost got hit by a semi in Chicago while recording their debut album (he looked the wrong way while crossing Belmont Ave.), and I think that comes across in the music. listen here.

Yeap, I am an engaged man now. Wish I had a bunch of words to describe the feeling, but for once in my 24 years, I got nothing in the vocab dept.

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So, I finally saw the movie Pan’s Labyrinth last night. Wow. I think that may have been the most brutal movie I’ve seen in a really long time, but at the same time there was such beauty and innocence in the main character. I was moved.

I first heard of this movie on National Public Radio (NPR) on the show Fresh Air. Terry Gross interviewed writer and director, Guillermo Del Toro. I’ll post the link at the bottom of this , but for now you should just know that you should probably go see this movie (but probably not take your kids, as it’s pretty gruesome).

Not that you’ve been waiting for my comments to get your movie choices, I just thouhgt I should say something about this one. We don’t always write about coffee (in the movie by the way, *Spoiler Alert* they burn the coffee (we’ll talk about this later)).

Click Here to listen to Guillermo Del Toro at Fresh Air - Recommended

Think Simple,
Steve

I just took a long time to write all y’all (i was just informed that this is the plural of “yall” in the south) a nice blog post, and then this thing junked out on me.

Seriously, it was loaded with the things I know you love, like metaphors and similes of using WD-40 to get this blog started again, and hilarious tales of our adventures and foibles. It even contained a joke about the Illinois state motto and Lucid records! Where else on the internet could you find that (probably the Lucid records web site (three of you will get that joke))?

I had vulnerably aired our frustrations and growing excitement regarding this new shift in Simple Coffee (which you would’ve known about if this blog didn’t eat up my post at the last minute!). I wanted to share with you how we had lost our focus due to rapid growth and are now in a period of rebirth, enjoying coffee and old friends/new associates to the fullest. Alas, now I can’t. I really would’ve liked you to know about those things though (and I’m sure that you would’ve enjoyed reading about them; it could’ve been a great thing).

Maybe we’ll get to talk about all of that in the future, but until then, if you feel slighted by this blog not delivering the juicy gossip on all of Simple’s inner workings that you’ve come to know and love, I suggest you find out who the moderator is and email them fury.

(…it’s mike. Have a nice day )

Think Simple,
Steve

It wasn’t suppose to be this way, waiting months to get up a newsletter. But, as the story of three full time working guys starting a coffee company goes, we had priorities for the first couple of months. But I am pleased to announce I took some time and used PhpList to put up a solid and stable newsletter for Simple Coffee.

So without anymore hesitation SIGN UP!

Think Simple,
Mike Minor

Today Steve and I drove to St. Charles and met John the store manager at the St. Charles Butera Market. John was a great guy, and it was great to see our product going into new locations. nOn the way to St. Charles we stopped at our Lindenhurst and Naperville stores. While at the Naperville store something interesting and kind of funny happened. We were filling our shelves and often while filling the shelves we get asked questions about other product. It’s an honest mistake to think we work for Butera, we try to help the person as though we do, and if we can’t answer there question we find someone who can.So today someone asked us if we knew where Bar-b-Q sauce is located. I looked at the isle signs I could see, and noticed nothing said condiments and responded with “no, I’m sorry we don’t work here, but I can help you find coffee”. She then responded with “I think I can find that on my own”, but with a serious ‘tude’.

Then at the Naperville store an elderly Chinese couple approached us with a cart and while pointing at a case of Bud Light, and Old Style, asked us “Which one”. Now maybe Steve wearing a mod leather jacket, and I being overweight and unshaven opens us up to these kinds of questions, but I just think we got stereotyped. I have been stereotyped and I love it. I think they were having whitey guests, and unfortunately if we had more time we would have explained that although we like Old Style better, it might not be the best beer to impress a guest….unless there from Chicago.

Think Simple,
Josh

mental_floss magazine - Where Knowledge Junkies Get Their Fix

The video is classic.

Good luck on the program. Hope to talk to you soon; especially if there is any thing you think we could help on. I’d also like to post a summary of the inmate program as it is a good cause.

Congrads on the “traction” as you called it,
Mike