Have A Great Holiday

Have a great holiday season. We have lots to talk about after the holiday so stayed tuned and until then relax with friends and family, enjoy a cup of coffee in the snow, and be sure to cheer on those Sooners. ...be bold Tagged: cafe evoke, coffee catering, coffee, espresso, tea, bozeman, montana The Global Exchange Fair Trade Store is your Online Source for Socially Conscious Gifts

Be a part of the network.

My buddy Matt just emailed me today to invite me to his newest industry project - Barista Exchange. This online community of coffee growers, supplies, shop owners, baristas, etc is a place to not only meet new people but to learn even more about the industry we are all a part of. I love the idea of it. Think of MySpace for coffee people. You can create your own page with music, photos, video, a wall, a blog, and anything you can think of to help you make new friends and keep up with old ones. This is also a great place to actually get set up with an exchange - a time when you go and work at a different cafe for a set period of time and a barista goes to work at yours. Cool idea and something that seems to be taking off with barista all over the world. Here is an article that was published in Barista Magazine about a barista swap in case this is a new idea to you. Interested in joining? Comment below and I will shoot you an invite. Happy Monday to you. ...be bold Tagged: cafe evoke, coffee catering, coffee, espresso, barista exchange, bozeman, montana The Global Exchange Fair Trade Store is your Online Source for Socially Conscious Gifts

A Picture Journal

Here are a few images from our recent Oklahoma City trip. Have a great weekend. ...be bold Tagged: cafe evoke, coffee catering, coffee, espresso, tea, bozeman, montana The Global Exchange Fair Trade Store is your Online Source for Socially Conscious Gifts

Smart Use Paper Cups

While at Coffee Fest this year, we ran into a company out of Colorado called Eco Products. They have been selling everything from green office products to green building supplies since 1990. We are currently using their hot cups at events we cater and they are going over so well that I think we will begin using their cold cups as well as their napkins. Why do we do this? Evoke feels it is important to do our part in helping our environment and landfills. We are pushing our clients to use our ceramic cup package at their events but for those that do not want to use them or the event does not fit using ceramic, we wanted to provided a more friendly alternative. A paper hot cup you use everyday at your favorite coffee hang-out has one of the fastest lines to the dump. From the time it is used, it will be in a trash bin within about 30 minutes on average. Think about how big the specialty coffee market is getting in the US alone. As one of the fastest growing segments in the country, it is amazing to think of the amount of paper going into the trash within 30 minutes. We push travel mugs, ceramics, and (when you have to use them) an eco friendly paper cup. So, if you are in the market for your cafe or office paper supplies, look for those that us the PLA liner. You can get these at EcoProducts.com in wholesale case lots or if you want to get in on the action for a house party or for the home, take a look at their special house party pack. ...be bold Tagged: cafe evoke, coffee catering, coffee, espresso, tea, bozeman, montana The Global Exchange Fair Trade Store is your Online Source for Socially Conscious Gifts

Crazy Weather, Long Car Rides, Home

Well, we are back in Montana. We had to kick and scream to get here but we did it - in about 26 hours. So, I'm sure you have heard about the weather Oklahoma City and most of the central states got. KOCO TV in Oklahoma City has a slideshow of some of the damage. It really looked like a war zone. I am not sure I have ever seen anything like it before. The ice did not stop Cafe Evoke Catering, however, from serving the best in specialty coffee at our last scheduled event. While the turnout may have not been what our host was expecting, we did have a great time and met many new friends. As you can see from the photos above, there was quite a bit of ice on the trailer and car. You can imagine what the rest of the place looked like. My parents (where we were staying) lost power and got lucky to get it back 2 days later. At one point, there were about 500,000 people without power. Many still are in the dark. I also hear that Tulsa Oklahoma got it even worse that Oklahoma City. They have begun the clean up process and it looks like this storm is heading towards Ohio. We had interesting weather on our way back. When we left Oklahoma City, there was ice on the ground and a thunder storm that brought heavy rains as we left. We drove through rain for several hours and then it turned to sleet and freezing rain and the roads turned bad. For most of the trip we were driving between 35 and 50 on ice/snow packed roads, frozen windshield wipers, and wind. We then got into the thickest fog I have ever driven through. There were semi trucks in the ditch everywhere and it was messy. We finally rolled into Denver Colorado 15 hours later and backed the trailer in so that we could unhook our car and put it in our friends garage. I put the key into the lock that keeps the trailer on the car and it broke off inside the lock so we could not put our car into the garage. The bad thing about this was that our espresso machine was in our car and we did not want it to freeze. So, we blasted the heater in the car, put blanks and pillows all around the machine, and then closed it up for the night. I put a bottle of water in the car as well as a "tester" and the next morning all was fine. We got a bit lucky. We set out yesterday morning for Bozeman and it took us awhile to get on to I-25. Once we did, we got through traffic in town and were on our way. We then hit a huge back up. There was an accident right outside Denver that put us back about 45 minutes. We got through it and headed on. The roads were great we were finally moving. Then, we hit Wyoming. The roads instantly got bad, there were 45 mph wind gusts and it slowed us down again. We finally rolled into Bozeman around 10:00 last night and were glad to be home. We are catering tonight so there is not much rest for us. We had a good trip and I will report on our findings in the coming days. ...be bold Tagged: cafe evoke, coffee catering, coffee, espresso, tea, Oklahoma city, Oklahoma

I want one..

I have talked about this before (very recently to some people at a party actually) and my friend Chris just brought it up again which is handy. Have you seen this yet? I am not sure how many of these are being used, if any, but it seems like a great idea. It would allow you to have the sidewalk cafe that everybody loves without having to put chairs, equipment, and other supplies away every night. Just fold it up. I love the idea of the sidewalk cafe that you see in big cities across the world. We actually met with a hospital research group in Oklahoma City while we were there to try and see if there was a possibility to set up an espresso bar on their campus. I will talk more about that later. What are your thoughts? ...be bold Tagged: cafe evoke, coffee catering, coffee, espresso, illy, bozeman, montana The Global Exchange Fair Trade Store is your Online Source for Socially Conscious Gifts

Get to Work

Our last event was last Saturday and since then we have been taking the time to meet with people about Cafe Evoke Catering, get paperwork together, and continue to learn about the Oklahoma City market and how Cafe Evoke Catering can serve it. Now it is time to cater again. We actually picked up our next event, as I said before, at the party we catered last Saturday so we are excited about it. That event starts at 8:30 this morning and will go until about 11:30. We then have an event Saturday evening, Sunday evening, and Monday morning so the next few days will be busy for us (which we love). We are scheduled to leave Oklahoma to head back to Bozeman on Tuesday the 11th. We have been watching the weather, however, and it does not look good. Snow and ice are supposed to move into the area on Saturday night (very late) and be pretty bad through Tuesday. One of the problems is that it is coming from the Denver Colorado area which puts us driving through it half the way home. (See all that nice color on the map??) All we can do at this point, however, is to wait and keep an eye on it. The other drawback of bad weather will be the fact that people do not get out in that stuff in OK like they do in MT. So, the party attendance could be down for Sunday and Monday. We will see. Ah, off to catering this morning. Have a nice one. Later, I have photos. ...be bold Tagged: cafe evoke, coffee catering, coffee, espresso, catering, oklahoma city, oklahoma

Norman, Oklahoma

Today, we are off to Norman, Oklahoma, home to the Oklahoma Sooners. A short 30 (ish) minute drive from Oklahoma City, Norman plays host to the University of Oklahoma, many art galleries, entertainment and a great college town atmosphere. My wife has never been to Norman before so we are going to spend some time in town, checking out campus, OU's Campus Corner, and other things going on in the city. We also plan to look around at what is for lease/rent in the area just to be sure that Norman would not be the place for Evoke in the future if it happens. Today is a work day for us but also one that we hope to relax to. We will visit friends and family while we are there and hope to eat some good food and have a good time seeing something different. If we move the business to Oklahoma, Norman will be a market that we will need to get to know pretty well for catering purposes if nothing else. There are many event planners in the area and we hope to build a relationship with the university and area business as well. Our goal is to come away with some magazines and other literature about area events so that we have more information about what goes on there and how Evoke can serve this community. By the way, for those that missed it, Oklahoma beat Mizzou by a lot last weekend. Boomer Sooner. ...be bold (image from www.ou.edu) Tagged: cafe evoke, coffee catering, coffee, espresso, ou, norman, oklahoma The Global Exchange Fair Trade Store is your Online Source for Socially Conscious Gifts

The Ultimate Coffee Cup

So, I was catching up on some blog reading today and came across this post over at Texas Coffee People. It was talking about The Ultimate Coffee Cup and it looks very cool. The artist behind this cup is David Pier who says: Throughout my process, I attempt to decipher what the forms will evoke in others and myself, steering away from unequivocal and unpleasant connections, towards open-ended and positive evocations. This cups are creative, bold, and challenging. All of the specs can be found on his site or at Texas Coffee People. I think they are great and something we may just have to get for our personal use - if not for Evoke Catering or Evoke the coffee house. ...be bold Tagged: cafe evoke, coffee catering, coffee, espresso, tea, ultimate coffee cup, cup and saucer The Global Exchange Fair Trade Store is your Online Source for Socially Conscious Gifts

Keeping Busy - An Oklahoma Update

Things have been going well in Oklahoma City for us and Cafe Evoke Catering. We have been keeping busy with meetings and catering and I am happy with what we have gotten done. We have met with Banta Companies and several wedding and event planners since we have arrived and have several more meetings to have and get set up for our last full week here. It has gone fast. As for events, they have gone better than expected. Our first event was a reception for US Congresswoman Mary Fallin - a small but important event for us as many of the guests are people we want to be in front of. At this event, we had the chance to use our new ceramic cups and sauces we purchased while at Coffee Fest which was nice. I have to say that I felt a bit off that night, unfortunately, due to several things: First, we had not been able to use our equipment since having to take it all apart for the drive here. Secondly, we were using cups I had never poured into before. For those of you who know, it is somewhat tough to pour nice art into a cup that you have not used before. Thirdly, the event was in an older house with some older wiring which kept flipping the breaker. Despite these things, we ended up having a blast and putting some nice drinks out. I think it was somewhat like having that first quarter jitters like many of our football teams demonstrate. Our second event of the trip was this past Saturday - an open house for my parents in fact. This event was a big one for us as 300 or so people were invited and I would say at least half showed up at one point or another. We served close to 200 drinks in a four hour time frame and things went great. We got to try out some new menu items that went over better than expected and we met many new people. This event even lead to two new catering events while we are here which is great as that will put us in front of several hundred more people before we had back to Bozeman on December 11th. So, as it stands now, we have the following catering schedule: Friday, December 7th (time TBD - morning) Friday, December 7th (time TBD - late night) Saturday, December 8th @ 6:00pm Sunday, December 9th @ 6:00pm Monday, December 10th @ 10:30am As you can see, we have a nice amount of work left to do which is great. I also had a photographer come on Saturday who took many photos which I hope to share with you when we get them. We will have another shoot on Sunday evening which should complete all of the images we need for marketing material for the next few campaigns. More to come. Sorry for the lack of posts. Have a nice Monday. ...be bold Tagged: cafe evoke, coffee catering, coffee, espresso, tea, oklahoma city, oklahoma The Global Exchange Fair Trade Store is your Online Source for Socially Conscious Gifts