December newsletter

Written By A. Litsa

Deary Dear,

Would you like to read my rambling stream of consciousness? Well too bad! This is a highly organized, concisely written newsletter. Full of extremely interesting facts!

TLDR:

Winter & Holiday Hours

Starting Monday, December 19th we're changing our hours to:

7am – 4pm Monday thru Friday
7am – 7pm Saturday & Sunday

Closed December 24th
Closed December 25th

Business is slooooow, so we're going to use our evenings to do some light rennovation and work on our wholesale program.

Vegan & Gluten Free

Have you tried our V GF menu items? So far we're making pop pastries, cupcakes, cookies, muffins, overnight oats, and yogurts. I'm also working on a corn tortilla recipe that doesn't fall apart so we can serve V GF tacos too.

The baristas and I are 100% guided by your feedback. Please let us know what you think at
https://deardiary.coffee/feedback

What shops in town do you think we should try to sell to? Who could really use V + GF baked goods and tacos?

Free $5 Gift Card

You know what's awesome? Local gift cards. This is why. January is the worst for small businesses. Everyone has shopping fatigue, and they are attempting to give up coffee as part of some horribly misguided New Years resolution. Giving people gift cards in December helps the little guys (like us) survive January.

Obviously I'm biased, but since I promised "extremely interesting facts" at the top of this newsletter, let's pretend that this qualifies:

👉 FACT: Dear Diary gift cards are THE BEST gift cards in town. 👈🏽

Allow me to substantiate said fact with irrefutable evidence!

  1. Dear Diary's coffee has a 100% woman-owned suppy chain. We've partnered with Sightseer to bring you coffee that is grown, roasted, and solid by ladies. ...I think instead of "boss babes" we should start saying "big ladies," don't you? Dear Diary sells big lady beans.
  2. We're selling jewelry, ceramics, prints, stickers, and other artsy gifts on behalf of over 40 artists. We got a little Blue Genie / Parts & Labor thing going on.
  3. Dear Diary gift cards buy food, drink, and art. Your recipients will have so much selection.
  4. We're not evil except for in October.

Oh wow. I got distracted. The whole point of this section was to tell you that we will give you a free $5 gift card for every order of $50 or more. If you spend $100, we'll give you TWO $5 gift cards. ...And so on. Stocking stuffers!

This promotion is good through Friday, December 23rd. It only works in-store, at the register (not online).

Free Food Thursdays

There are a lot of foods that we want to clear out of the shop Thursday because most of our deliveries come Friday. So! We decided to have "Free Food Thursday" and just give away muffins and scones and whatnot all day long. We just ask that you buy something—anything—so you can leave our barista a tip. Also, this only works in-store, at the register (not online).

So now we have three weekly thingies:

  1. Free Food Thursdays
    Buy 1 sticker, get 1,000 muffins free
  2. Drip N Draw Saturdays
    Artists working on their projects get $1 mugs of drip coffee from 4pm – 7pm
  3. Open Mic Sundays
    From 4pm – 7pm

I'm curious about something: why don't our deli items sell? We've always had a hard time selling lunch type foods, even when we've purchased them from vendors. Reply to litsa@deardiary.coffee or share your thoughts anonymously at https://deardiary.coffee/feedback

Make $100 with Us

How often do you fantasize about being a vendor at a market? Nightly, right?

Well, lucky for you, your dreams can come true!

We want to be at EVERY MARKET: farmer's markets, vegan markets, queer markets... To do that, we need help staffing them.

For illustrative purposes, let's pretend your name is Pat Benatar, and you really want to release this inner fantasy. Well, Pat, all you have to do is pick a market you'd like to vend at. Email me to let me know, and I'll bake a whole lotta stuff for you. You can borrow our tent and table and pick up the goods at Dear Diary. After the market is done, you'll return all the unsold items to the shop, and send me an invoice. I'll pay you $100.00 for your time, reimburse the vendor fee, and pay you a 10% commission if our net sales are over $250.00. And! And, Pat, ...if you are an artsy crafty type, you can stick your items on our table too.

Personally, I think this is a great opportunity for folks that don't have a ton of their own stuff to sell, or folks that seldom break even at markets. We can help! By vending for us, you can be that invincible winner you know that you were born to be.

We Give Club Discounts

Okay, home stretch. I'm so tired. My brain is half on right now. Like duck brains. You know how they can shut down just one half of their brain at a time?

...Right. So, we give 10% off to running and cycling groups of 6 people or more. And we give meetup event hosts a free drink + our employee discount during their event.

Just thought you should know that in case your group is looking for a place to meet up or end up.

No More Bricco Blends for Now

Remember how we spent over a year developing an oat milk in an effort to SAVE THE PLANET?!?! Well, we learned a lot from our little beta launch, but Bricco Blends is not ready for mass production. This is a bummer, for sure, but the things we learned are hugely valuable. I'm more confident that when we relaunch, we'll blow the competition away.

Anyway, the Bricco Blends project is going on the shelf for now. We're prioritizing markets and wholesale in the short term because they are smaller investments with faster returns.

Thanks for reading to the end!

Love,
Amalia Litsa
Big Lady, Dear Diary Coffee

A. Litsa
Previous

First Fridays Vegan Potluck benefits food not bombs
Next

How to Keg Oat Milk (Bricco Blends!)