Dear Diary in July
Hello.
It's July! Gosh. Already. It's hot, y'all. Thanks for braving the heat to stop in for iced drinks!
In this episode of Dear Diary's Sometimes-Monthly Newsletter, I would like to fill you in on the things we're working on. I very much feel that we are in a transition this July; the seeds were planted in June, but the harvest isn't until August. Enough with the cryptic garden metaphors! On with the TLDR...
Too long, didn't read:
Short story contest #2
That's right! It's open submission time now through August 31st. Winners will be announced by September 7th, right in time for Storytime Campers.
The prize this time around is two Austin Film Festival passes. Woo hoo! Each ticket is worth $75, so not bad, right?
The theme is bikes. Why? Because if I'm gonna read dozens of short stories, they better well be about bicycles! Don't worry; you don't need to be super knowledgeable about bikes are even a cyclist to write a fantastic bike themed short story. I love bikes so much, just the presence of bikes in a story will make it 1000% more enjoyable. Haha
This actually works out in your favor because you can later read your bike story at Valerie Ruiz's Bike Story Night or Dear Diary's Storytime Campers.
Want to enter the contest? Learn how here:
https://www.deardiary.coffee/blogcast/short-story-contest-2
You can read it here:
https://www.deardiary.coffee/blogcast/the-gravel-ride
New foods at Dear diary
Tacos
Ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-tacos. You may have noticed that we began introducing our own ta-ta-tacos in June. ¿Por que? Well, déjame contarte.
Numero uno! Cost. Us shops, we have to throw away vendor tacos after 4 hours of sitting in the warmer. Who knows how old they really are though. Did the vendor have a bunch of taco delivery stops, and we were last on the list? We've never had any issues — it helps that all our food is vegan — but realistically, fresh tacos in a warmer are not really fresh.
Alas, without kitchens, warmer tacos are the best us coffee shops can do. UNTIL NOW! (Queue hero music) We started leasing commercial kitchen space nearby so we can make our own dang tacos! But here's the (innovative?) part: we wrap them in deli sheets instead of foil. This allows us to make tacos fresh and freeze them right away. Then we can warm them to order, and not throw away a taco ever again!
Figuring out taco recipes has been very iterative. We eventually figured out a cooking sequence that prevents tortillas from becomming soggy in the microwave. Also! I'm personally not very picky, but I want to cook to your standard of deliciousness, so your feedback has been very helpful. You can send more our way at deardiary.coffee/taco-talk.
You can order breakfast tacos to-go at
https://deardiary.coffee/menu
Hunnybunny
You might have also noticed Hunnybunny. Gosh, I was so elated the morning I figured out Hunnybunny! It's a vegan honey alternative, and it is IMPRESSIVELY honey-like, if I do say so myself. Same viscosity, same color, same flavor, same same!
Honey tends to be one of those things vegans can be on the fence about. Some vegans are like, "the bees are okay, right? It's in the beekeeper's best interest to keep bees hapbee?" But other vegans are like, "geeze. I just don't want to risk it. I don't want a single little bee to be squished on account of me. Let them be fweeee!" Even if you're not vegan, I think we can all agree that these are sweet sentiments.
Well, now we got Hunnybunny. A couple delicious lattes we have as a result are
- The Bees Knees
- Hunnybunny and house-made peanut butter sauce. A cinnamon or cocoa garnish can be nice too. It's so good. ...Oh yeah, we're making peanut butter sauce too. It's just like what you'd find at an ice cream shop. Yum! But we don't have it for sale as its own item... yet. ;)
- The Hunny Bun, Hon'
- Hunnybunny, vanilla, and cinnamon. It's not too unlike our very, very popular cinnamon latte. This is also a good one if you like Golden Ratio white coffee.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cfy1a2fPBA4/
Yummmmmmmzzzz Okee. So what about the environmental part? Gurl. Here's the deal. We blow through SO MANY glass bottles of Monin syrups. Even if you recycle them, it's a real, real shame. And we're a small shop, so you know other, bigger shops are blowing through many more dozens of glass syrup bottles every week! If you need glass bottles for a project, and ANY coffee shop. We are swimming in them!
So that's a bummer. Fortunately, y'all love vanilla. Vanilla syrup is the most ordered syrup, which means that Dear Diary can reduce packaging waste by a WHOLE LOT by making our own vanilla syrup in house. I have dispenser pumps on the way so we can just refill the same glass growlers we use for cold brew. Nice, right?
This relates to Hunnybunny because now I have the power of syrup! If I can make honey, I can make vanilla. So that's what I'm gonna do!
Thank you for beeing cool I feel lucky that Dear Diary Coffee is in a neighborhood that is supportive of stuff like this. Y'all are okay with variety and iteration and trying new things. And y'all get sustainability. It's nice to have a coffee shop where we can test these ideas. If they work and scale well, I'd love to see other coffee shops in Austin adopt them! Austin has such a large coffee scene — so many roasters too — but I'd love to see us lead the way when it comes to these super logical approaches to coffee ops.
Why yes, you CAN buy Hunnybunny for home. Here's the link:
deardiary.coffee/bakery/p/hunnybunny
X Y Zine
X Y Zine is an event series and zine consignment program we started back in May. It concludes with Scott McCloud's 24 Hour Comics Challenge October 1st.
There are a couple major events that I wanted to make you aware of...
Storytime Campers
This is a three-part event. The main part is a storytelling at McKinney Falls State Park. You can sign up to be a storyteller, or just reserve a spot in the audience. The event isn't until the evening of Friday, September 8th, so the weather should be lovely by then. I know it's hard to believe, but there will be a day when sitting near a campfire sounds like a good thing!
The other part is an optional bike ride to the event. My dear partner, Kat is kindly leading a ride from Dear Diary to McKinney Falls. The park is maybe 10 miles from Dear Diary? Not bad. So you can add a nice little community bike ride to your evening OR use this as an excuse to have a mini bikepacking trip. Which takes me to the next part...
Camping! We've already reserved two sites, so there is room if you want to stay the night. Space is limited, though, so no matter what — no matter which part or parts you're attending — you must RSVP to this.
Here's the link:
https://www.deardiary.coffee/blogcast/storytime-campers
All ages are welcome.
Scott McCloud's 24 Hour Comics Challenge
Scott McCloud is a guy that challenged himself to write, draw, ink, and color a comic book in 24 hours. And he did! Good for him.
Ever since that day in August of 1990, art nerds have been challenging themselves to make a comic in 24 hours... the first Saturday of October. Okay, whatever nerds.
Can you do it? Can you bust out a comic in 24 hours? The answer is yes. It's not that hard if you lower your standards.
Really, the event is an excuse for grown-ass adults to have an art lock-in with their fwendz. Dear Diary will be staying open overnight so that all y'all artsy folk can draw into the wee hours. We'll have pizza. We'll have... slap bracelets? Ninja turtles? Who knows!?
So! RSVP now to snag a spot. I only have so many tables, you know. And then bring your sketchbook October 1st. You can come as soon as we open Saturday morning at 7am and draw clear 'til Sunday morning. Here's the link:
https://www.deardiary.coffee/blogcast/scott-mcclouds-24-hour-comics-challenge-in-austin-tx
https://themoth.org/storytellers/steve-zimmer
Drip N' Draw
Join us August 20th for our first Drip N' Draw! Wee hoooo! So, we don't really have a recurring drawing meetup (yet), but I figured we can at least give artist a special evening. Come with your sketchbooks. As long as you've swung by to draw, you get drip coffee for just $1.00 all nite! It's from 4pm – 7pm. Chances are, if you're looking to meet other artists, you'll find 'em!
Here's the link to the Eventbrite so you can get a reminder:
https://www.deardiary.coffee/blogcast/drip-n-draw
East Austin Studio Tour 2022
Last year was such a big hit, we're doing it again! If you weren't there, lemme describe it in a nutshell: if it wasn't so dark you'd know the walls were a light brown color. We never thought we'd see the light again, but the sound of every passing squirrel made us hopeful.
I'm sorry. The pun, as bad as it was, was irresistable, and no one can save me from myself when I'm here, alone, typing away...
Uhhh.... Austin Studio Tour! Okay, it was SO GREAT, y'all. We were able to lease the courtyard less than a block South of the shop at 1208 Chicon thanks to the nice folks at Mission Possible. We filled it up with artists — there was an artist market, musicians performing on the stage, street artists spraying away... SO DANG FUN.
A majority of the awesomeness was orchestrated by Samantha Soper, fearless leader of the Creative Cuties! She worked so hard to give everyone a great experience. She's very passionate about giving folks interested in creative activities an easy in-road to Austin's art community. So! When she said she wanted to do it again, I climbed on top of the nearest crate. The I hoisted a ladder onto that. Then I climbed up the ladder. Then I lifted my face to the heavens, sucked in a barrel of air, and belted YEEEESSSSSS! in the most fantastic operatic voice anyone has ever heard. Then I fell off the ladder.
So uh... yeah. If you are an artist and you want to be part of Austin Studio Tour, head on over to here:
https://samsoper.art/recap/2021-cutie-o-tour-recap/"
and learn how you might join the Creative Cuties.
And if you just want to remember to stop by the greatest AST stop in all the land, here's the link:
https://www.deardiary.coffee/coffeeshop-news/austin-studio-tour-2022-creative-cuties-x-dear-diary-coffee-stop
Meetup hosts wanted
Thanks to Caroline Stradley (Rusty Paige) and Kirsten Boyd (ATX Piano Parties), we have musical open mics every single Sunday from 4pm – 7pm. They are the most chill, welcoming events... super nice. We love them!
That's it though. Dear Diary doesn't really have any other consistent recurring meetups.
Our real goal is to be the second livingroom for folks that like drawing, writing, crafting, etc. with friends. A lot of people relate best to others through activities, and community is so important to us!
If you have an idea for a recurring meetup — be it weekly, monthly, or even semi-annually — let's get it going together!
Dear Diary has a Peerspace listing for pop-up markets, meetings, and other business endeavors. But when it comes to public community building efforts, we see that as a really nice thing you're doing, and we want to help!
Just Reply to this email if you have an idea. It's just me here on the other side.
P.S., if you want to come to our open mics, here's the Eventbrite so you can get a reminder:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/open-mic-for-musicians-registration-327718032457
https://www.instagram.com/_rustypaige/
The team!
I got some bragging to do. Hee hee
Y'all know our full timers Bradley, Colleen, Mercy, and Rachel. They are simply the best. Honestly, if Dear Diary Coffee didn't make it for some reason, the real tragedy would be losing this team. If I could keep them somehow, I would, because I honestly feel that any company I owned would be successful with these folks!
First, I want to acknowledge Colleen who accepted the position of Manager back in Q1. She hadn't really considered management when she took over for Kristina, but yeah. She is PERFECT in this role. I was absolutely blown away by how quickly she learned the ropes. She just has the right personality for it. Strong sense of responsibility, great work ethic. I'm so lucky. She and the baristas run the shop; not me. I just do admin and cooking. Fantastic.
Second, the team! We set a average net income goal for ourselves in Q3, and hit it! "Cool story, bro" you didn't just say because that's so 2016. But no, really! Let me tell you why this is very awesome.
Y'all know how deeply I care about being a good employer. I think, actually, that is very hard to do in Austin. Our economy does not jive with small hospitality, you know? Truthfully, everyone should be making $25/hr, and I'll be honest with you — I just can't swing that right now. I'm working towards it, but we're not there yet.
The truth is, Dear Diary Coffee isn't going to bring in enough on coffee sales alone. We need a second major revenue stream, and/or we need to bring our costs WAY down. To that second point, serving up a vegan menu at reasonable prices is challenging! Cow milk costs what? $4.00/gallon? Our plant milks cost $12.00/ gallon. So even though a $6.00 latte might sounds steep, even with plant milk and syrup included in that price, we're actually absorbing a lot of the cost ourselves. We'd have to charge $18.00 to see that kind of margins cow milk coffee shops enjoy. Yowza.
But I digress. We got challenges, but we also got ideas! And until those ideas come to fruition, we have coping mechanisms!
One such coping mechanism is that quarterly goal I mentioned. The truth is, 100% of our income comes from you, our customers. There is no magic alternative source. We sell latte, we have money.
So the goal we set for ourselves was to increase our average monthly net income by 1%. If we could do that, everyone in the company would get a corresponding 1% raise.
And we did it!!! Yay! Yay! Yay!
It felt really good at our team meeting. But more than that, I was really pleased and impressed by how much this team took that shared accomplishment to heart.
The other thing I liked was how it influenced me. I have a lot of incentive to shield our cash flow now because I don't want to sabotage the team's ability to save and sell their way to success. I could easily dump $8k into importing green coffee beans for our roasting program, but then no one would get a raise that quarter. So now I'm finding ways to spread out our expenses. I think it's a good thing.
Finally, setting a small, achievable financial goal made our interdependancy a little more tangible. And you, as a customer, are very much part of that equation. We are employed by this neighborhood. I sincerely hope that every time you choose to shop small, shop local, the experience is rewarding for you. I hope you feel like your dollar vote counted and was well spent. In the Chestut neighborhood, "Keep Austin Weird" is still alive and well.
So anyway, the game plan is to take care of each other and grow together slowly until Dear Diary Coffee is able to pump up the jams with a secondary revenue stream or major cost-saving innovation. Wee hoo!
$5 bonuses
Do you know that at the end of every quarter, we tally up our 5 star reviews? Baristas get $5.00 for each such review that mentions them by name. We've officially changed company policy in a very offical way:
As of now, both baristas and their pets qualify for the $5.00 bonuses.
Here's a link to our 5 ☆ reviews:
https://www.deardiary.coffee/reviews
Dear Diary Merch
I think Dear Diary Coffee might be the only coffee shop in the world with a branded basketball jersey, yoga pants, leotard, and... that's it. That's all the weird stuff. Haha.
Turns out y'all like stainless steel coffee tumblers and Size Medium t-shirts. Who could have guessed?! I obviously couldn't have.
OMG I just went on and on about my business strategy, and now I'm like, "Why no one buy my basketball jerseys?" Confidence inspiring!
Well. It's that time again. Gotta get more merch. But this time, unlike last time, the baristas have lots of good design ideas. So no, y'all won't be stuck with cat drawings forever. Haha
You'll see the new stuff when it arrives... maybe in August? Anyway, we DO have an online store, so you can buy leotards from the comfort of your chaise longue all day long (ugh).
https://www.deardiary.coffee/shop
Team Snacks Kit
You heard it here first! Dear Diary Coffee is designing the 2022 Team Snacks Cycling Kit. There will be flavors for club members and allies.
What is Team Snacks, you ask?
Team Snacks Cycling is a club for women, trans, and femme folk who want to ride bikes in a safe-space type social setting, meet other WTF people who love the sport, and give marginalized groups an in-road to Austin's cycling community.
One of the coolest things the club did recently was volunteer at Austin's Yellow Bike Project "Ride and Thrive" event. YBP gave free, refurbished mountain bikes to 15 applicants, with priorty given to women of color. It was such a warm, wonderful experience. You can watch the Ride Report about it here:
https://www.deardiary.coffee/cycling/austin-yellow-bike-project-ride-and-thrive-ride-report
Ride Report: Ride & Thrive
Anyhoo if you think Team Snacks Cycling is the club for you, you can learn more about joining at
https://www.teamsnackscycling.com.
And when the kits come out, you'll be able to buy them through Team Snacks AND through Dear Diary Coffee. There will be an alternative design for allies, folks that want to support what the club is doing. We hope to shift the burden off fundraising off of membership dues and collect funds through merch sales. In this way, we can remove finances as a barrier to entry for people.
We don't have a kit launch date yet, but we will definitely announce it on social media and in the next (extremely long... sorry!) newsletter.
( ˘ ³˘)♥
Bricco Blends
Holy lord my fingers are gonna fall off. All this typing. But! I cannot shoot of a newsletter without mentioning my dear, sweet baby invention Bricco Blends.
If you've spoken to me at all in the past two-ish years, you've heard about Bricco Blends. But for those of you who don't know, I'm working on a barista grade oat milk we can make at Dear Diary. In a nutshell... lol. Gosh, I crack myself up. Actually, I don't. My face is stoic and expressionless as I type. Kat, who is sitting 6 feet to my right has no idea I'm making jokes to myself right now. ...I'm definitely procrasta-producing right now. Avoiding other work with this work. Gah!
Where were we? Oh yes. So Bricco Blends will be the awesome because it will keep literally millions of conventional milk cartons out of the landfill every year one day. I cannot be hit by a bus; Bricco Blends gives me purpose.
The reason being is those ding-dang cartons are not recyclable in most cities. The City of Austin does not recycle those shelf-stable quart-sized cartons of milk. Sorry! Nuts. Yeah. I know. And us coffee shops, each of us burns through at least 100 of those every sing week. It's a mess.
For that reason, Dear Diary Coffee is going to start making its own oat milk in house.
Why aren't we doing it already? Because we gotta make 30 gallons a week! Sure, pureeing and straining oats at home is easy enough, but at scale, it's really hard to do.
So, I've spent over 18 months now developing a powdered oat milk that can just be blended in water. Sourcing ingredients, getting the macros just right, and finding a co-manufacturer were really hard! But we're in the final sprint now. I'm just waiting to get on my co-manufacturer's production schedule, and boom! We might be serving you Bricco Blends this August!!! Eeeee!
Remember how I was talking about alternative revenue streams and cost saving innovations? This one of the horses in that race. And if it works, I definitely want to make Bricco Blends available to every other coffee shop in town. Austin can be a trailblazer in sustainable coffee operations. We are so precious about the source and quality of beans, but then fall flat when it comes to the other 80% of a latte: the milk! SMH.
You can read all about Bricco Blends at
https://briccoblends.com
Thus concludes the longest newsletter in the world. Thanks for reading! Or falling asleep!
Cheers,
Litsa
