Cafe Locations and an Update

I bet many were wondering if Cafe Evoke: a coffee house was still alive. Well, to put all your minds at ease, it is. After reading this post, you can sleep better I assure you. We are in the middle of a re-definition of Cafe Evoke. Nothing will change about our mission, values, and goals for the coffee house but we are changing the model just a bit. We think it will be for the better and also let us accomplish our goals easier. The new idea is to focus more on the (modern) arts -- painting, sculpture, music, poetry, writing, etc -- and try to tie that in to the art of the barista. While Cafe Evoke always had the arts in mind, the newest idea is to expand on this a bit. Think of it as sitting with coffee, friends, and conversation in the midst of a modern art gallery. We are looking for a place that would allow wine and micro brew beer -- assuming we can afford the $750,000 price tag for the license someday -- and provide a place for Fair Trade seminars, "how-to" sessions, and other events. So, as you can see, this is not a huge change to the model. We will be doing some research on galleries in town to see what that has to offer and how pricing and the business aspect works in order to have a better idea of what we are getting into. Since we now have Cafe Evoke Catering as well, we will use Cafe Evoke (the coffee house) as a showroom and office space which would provide a spot to give demos to interested customers. We met with our realtor yesterday to discuss what building options are out on the market at this point. Right now, the Bozeman Mill District is still an option but is a very long way from being zoned correctly and parking is an issue as well. As that putters along we thought it would be good to look at any other possible locations. We did find some space over in the Baxter Meadows side of town. While this area is brand new to Bozeman, much of the modern building and urban living is going up there. We are still not sure that it is the perfect spot for us but we feel it is worth a shot. We are hopefully meeting with the people that own the commercial building that is there now and also the people with a new building that is going up very soon. Both have spaces that we think would look and feel great for Cafe Evoke. In the mean time, Cafe Evoke Catering is getting full attention. We are heading into week 4 (maybe 5) and have made some marketing progress this week. We should begin to see some of the fruit of this labor in the next week or so -- I think. I see now why once you have your business going, you begin the mountain stages in which you must pedal even faster than before. ..be bold Tags: cafe evoke, catering, bozeman, montana, bozeman mill district, baxter meadows, real estate, coffee, tea, espresso