Reading that email I thought my entire guts were going to exit my body, one way or another. It was clear our coffee shop was not going to get open anytime soon.

It was late February of 2020 and this email was from Cathy, our landlord: “We’re out of tenant improvement budget. The rest of the buildout is on you.” For context, when we signed our lease on 1554 Market Street, it was a brand new building and thus, a brand new retail space. We were told that the landlord would allot 50K towards the buildout of the space. It was a shell with not much in there outside of a single outlet and we thought well shit 50K? We’re in there! Oh to be young and dumb…

My cousin worked at the infamous ground zero where Covid-19 was first found in the United States. Just about 45 minutes up the road from us so it wasn’t far. She called me the day it hit, I was tinkering around the shop loading things in when she called me. Whatever this was, it was far more serious than the media was telling people; the CDC was onsite within hours and the elderly facility was swarming with doctors, scientists and government officials. This was…a big deal.

But that email from Cathy? At the time? That was several times more serious than whatever this thing -that would eventually be dubbed Covid-19- was in my mind. That was only gonna last a couple weeks (remember when that was the prevailing thought?) but no tenant improvement money? That’s a mountain I didn’t want to climb and honestly we couldn’t.

We’d already sold our house in September and the kids, Whitni and myself were all living out of my parents living room. We made $0 off the sale of the house, the small book of business I got to keep with me as part of my layoff? Those contracts had lapsed and Whit was still seeing doctors after being attacked by a patient at her job.

It felt like life was kicking us squarely in the nuts and while we were down on the proverbial mat, stomping on every joint that had movement.

All we were trying to do was open a coffee shop and maybe on the weekends host group campouts. We’d roast coffee over the fire on those trips and go back to slangin lattes during the week. THAT was the goal and it SEEMED like a pretty low stakes, fun thing that Whitni and I could do to pay the bills and feed the kids and keeping doing our favorite activity: camping.

But we were staring at a treacherous climb: we had no money, the landlord had no money and this shop had already failed inspections and was at best - half way complete. And there was that email. This was on us.

The easy thing would be to say “hey! Call that contractor that failed and have them fix it.” Yea well. There was a bit of a problem with that. One contractor we’d hired who failed an inspection had taken off to Fiji. Another? Oh he was being investigated by L&I. Others started a job and bailed after getting their initial money. Others ran up a bill for every visit even when they opted to not perform any work. This buildout was on us and we were getting railroaded by a system we had zero clue on how to operate but we had to finish the job.

Somehow.

So of course faced with all of this we did what any rational, sane people would do: we pivoted to starting an online store.

Our upstart outdoor coffee brand was first launched into the digital realm before it ever touched a trailhead or a campground. Let alone opened a brick and mortar.

And the day that happened was today - the last Friday of March, 2020.

Whitni had mastered her cricut and stayed up for hours on end making mugs, shirts and hats and weeding out the vinyl for our coffee bag labels. Yes - in the early days, our bag labels were vinyl, hand weeded by Whitni, designed by yours truly. And I’m sure that to this very day she hates me for how intricate those designs were coming off a vinyl cutter. But that was how we started. And the magic she created laid the foundation of things. This was truly a handmade, homespun operation. This wasn’t about scale, it was about connection right in a time when we were being barred from it.

Our backs were completely against the wall but all we had was time.

And while many businesses fail to get to year 5, here we are in year 6. Defying the odds and It’s not easy. And if I’m being completely honest it’s not all that fun all the time. But the purpose it gives me supersedes any negatives. My new favorite phrase is there are a lot of easier ways to make not a lot of money, but here we are.

6 years of survival, perseverance and resilience. Here’s to 6 more of thriving and trying our best to being impactful.