James Freeman: Opening a Speakeasy Cafe

In 2005, January 23, 2005, we opened in Hayes Valley. And at the time, that alleyway was a dead end alleyway that smelled like pee. It was not the most hospitable place to be, but I knew the friend of mine owned that building, and he and I didn't have enough money to open a cafe. And he said, well, why don't we do something in my garage? And I said, sure. And that's what we did. And it was very odd. It's still a little bit odd now, but it was very odd place to open a cafe. But I think about the beginner's luck that that represented. Had I had more money, I would have felt the pressure to open a more traditional seeming cafe. But this way, because the architecture was so different, the way that it subverted the expectations of the guests in an interesting way, I think it made them more receptive to having a radically different approach to making coffee. We ground everything to order and prepared all the brewed coffee to order. We didn't have it in urns. We had a six drink menu. No sizes, no flavors. Every milk drink was steamed to order with latte art on the top. It was very, very different. Had I done market research, I would have asked people questions like, oh, do you want to buy coffee that's roasted lighter than the coffee you say you like? Do you want to pay a little bit more for coffee? Do you want to wait a little bit longer for coffee? Do you want to have fewer choices among drinks or sizes or flavors? And you know, I would have heard no, no, no, no, no and no. But fortunately, I didn't even know what market research was. So we just did what we thought was the most delicious thing we could possibly do. And it worked. It was not so busy at first, but it totally worked.