The History of Cafe Evoke (Part 6)

This is a multi-part series discussing the history of Cafe Evoke -- from the time I started this blog to today. The posts are rather long which is why I am breaking them up into several parts. With part six comes the final part of the History of Cafe Evoke. It will be short but will catch you up with today. This is Part 6 of a multi part series we are calling The History of Cafe Evoke. You can find other editions here: 1, 2, 3, 4, an 5. Remember, these are quick highlights from the past 4 years. There are many more great posts in the archives if you ever get bored. Also, if you have questions about what we were thinking, doing or hoping for or over anything I have mentioned, please leave a comment and we will answer everything you ask! The end of January came quickly for us in 2007. We took a trip to Africa for New Years and Christmas which took up most of the time. When we got back, we decided it was time to set our goals and plans for Q1 - really trying to make an effort to organize and understand our marketing, our business and how we were going to measure success. Reaching our customers was a big highlight for us so we designed customer info kits, began working with a customer management system to help us track each customer and sales lead and began working on a newsletter to keep people connected with Cafe Evoke Catering. At this point, the focus of our company was catering. That was it. In March of 2007, we wanted to re-focus Cafe Evoke Catering after realizing that we were behind our projections for the year - already. While I was not to nervous, it was not uplifting either. In April, we had an unexpected surge of activity with the coffee house. We were again excited by the chance to have the opportunity to serve our community the best in specialty coffee and espresso drinks. In fact, we had this opportunity as well. So, with our two business leads, we began racing to see if they would turn out. May, June, July and August were slow around this place. Very slow. I lost touch with the blog and did not keep it going like I had in the past. But, when I came back to blogging, I was happy to inform everyone that we had broken even - two months straight! That was cause for excitement I assure you. Unfortunately, the excitement did not last long. By October, 2007, we began the process of realizing that we may have to execute an exit strategy - something we knew would have to happan at some point but not a mere 2 years into our adventure! We thought it would be years in business when peopel would be sad to see us go. Sometimes things do not go according to written plan. This is when we really began looking to other markets - Nashville, Denver, Oklahoma City, Seattle, Portland, Tulsa, Dallas the list went on. Oklahoma City began to take form as being a great place to call home for our company. There were many reasons why the fit would be good for us but we still had to look more. We planned a trip to Oklahoma City from Bozeman Montana to check it out in person. We decided that we would go ahead and take all of our gear with us so we loaded up the trailer and began the 1,300 mile winter trek. We kept very busy while we were in Oklahoma City catering 7 or so parties - 2 more than we had booked before we left. I officially announced our move to Oklahoma City on February 1st. Our final event was on February 9th, 2008 with our great friends at the Museum of the Rockies. It was sad to have to say goodbye to our friends of such a short time but we knew that we had to make the decisions that we did. I arrived in OKC on February 15th and tried to begin making it home. It was tough to see Bozeman in the rear view - even harder than I had expected more because I felt like my first try at this business failed but more importantly, I was leaving "home" for a place that the future was not planned. We have been very busy since getting to Oklahoma. We have had great press and got off to a great start. We are working hard to make Cafe Evoke Catering Oklahoma's premier specialty coffee catering company. This time, however, we have shoes we have to match up to in two other coffee catering companies close by. We have felt the warm welcome to our new home and plan to make the most of it. I thank you for following this blog and I hope that you will continue with us on this journey of growing Cafe Evoke Catering and maybe evening opening Cafe Evoke - the coffee house. In conclusion.. ...be bold Tagged: cafe evoke, coffee catering, coffee, espresso, tea, oklahoma, oklahoma city The Global Exchange Fair Trade Store is your Online Source for Socially Conscious Gifts ...be bold