Coffee Bar has been portion adult coffee, tea and treats given Oct 2013.
“Coffee is impossibly nostalgic. That’s a No. 1 thing to remember,” pronounced Jeff Adams, owner. “People have had a sold crater of coffee in a sold approach during some indicate in their life, and they’re going to try to pierce it back.”
Ha Coffee is some-more than usually a coffee shop. It also serves as a assembly place for residents.
And for Adams, that’s a point.
“At a core, we’re about village development. We are underneath a powerful of a church community, yet in a approach we operate, it’s not a church,” he said. “There’s lots of churches in a area, so we motionless to come in a village and offer a need.”
Adams partners with Kauai Roastery to pierce locally roasted coffee beans to patrons.
“We buy internal as many as we can, and that income goes behind into a community. So that income you’re spending, it feeds people who live here,” he said.
As a nonprofit, Ha Coffee Bar works with Kauai Community Foundation, a Boys and Girls Club and other groups to lease a space for free.
How did we come adult with a name, Ha Coffee Bar?
The thought of exhale of life, we don’t take that lightly. It’s not a cheesy coffee thing.
Our idea is to breathe life and share life as partial of a community.
Do we have a credentials in coffee?
Very small — we spent a year and half formulation and did some training. But we haven’t run a coffee shop.
We changed here from a Seattle area, and built a group of people for a project.
What have we schooled about a sum and outs of using a coffee shop?
The biggest thing we find here that’s been useful is that it’s all about a environment. And how we emanate an sourroundings for a employees. People wish a place where they can find life and connection, and if we can emanate that space, a other sum are usually details.
We run like a standard business in a background, in terms of how we wish it to beget a possess income, and we consider about quality.
But a No. 1 thing is this is formulating an sourroundings where people can thrive, where they can live and be partial of a community. People will support a place if they feel protected and feel like they can come in for meetings and not get uncanny looks if they pierce their possess lunch.
That’s one of a biggest things we’ve seen. We knew that in principle, yet saying it in movement is great.
How many employees do we have?
In a mornings, we have 3 people behind a counter. Total employees, we have 8 or nine.
We have a unequivocally low turnover rate — roughly 0 unless they move. We try to yield a place that is stretchable and a place where they have ownership.
The people who work here get defensive since they consider of it as theirs, and don’t consider of it as my coffee shop.
I tend to be here by myself during a afternoon. It started off since we were brief on staff, so we motionless to work myself. It’s spin a norm, yet we would never make my employees do it. Not since they aren’t capable, yet since it’s not nice. It’s one thing to dedicate to it since of your personal schedule, yet it’s another to say, “You’re by yourself, good luck.”
What are some of your some-more renouned drinks?
The Bee Sting is substantially one of a many popular. It’s finished with internal mixture and it’s roasted here.
We sell a lot of Kauai Sunshine and espressos and mochas. Mocha is a many renouned non-specialty drink.
How do we come adult with a specialty drinks?
We were usually personification around with ideas. We try to come adult with things that are singular to a island, or are island-oriented.
We always try to innovate since Kauai is a place where people get wearied with things quickly. They’ll be on a mocha or bagel binge, and afterwards sleepy of it.
We need to enhance menu offering, differently we’re going to dump off their radar and they find a subsequent thing.
How do we feel about Starbucks doing a unicorn Frappuccino?
We don’t exist though Starbucks. No specialty spit exists though Starbucks. We’re a garland of hippies from a 1970s though them.
You have your boutique coffee shops with people sitting around and usually unresolved out — that indication usually stretched since Starbucks motionless to innovate.
What it’s spin though, is as it grows, we have a choice to possibly innovate what’s function during a coffee side, or you’re going to innovate to attract growth. Starbucks’ primary idea is to enhance their offering. Which is great, and they did that. The unicorn Frappuccino, there’s no coffee in there, that is ironic.
They’re perplexing to emanate niche things, that we don’t know if it’s indispensably a bad thing. But we do feel bad for a employees, and it goes behind to a sourroundings thing — we would have never finished that to my employees. It was usually for a singular volume of time, and they ran out of stuff.
Starbucks is reduction of an dignitary now, and they’ve spin some-more of a chain.
Why did we select Lihue?
We didn’t wish to take divided from anyone else’s business. Our idea was always to travel alongside other places.
Not to contend we would vanquish them, yet even holding dollars out of their pocket, that’s not a goal.
What is a tip to creation a good crater of coffee?
It goes behind to a group thing.
We have a good spit who does his job. And a pursuit is to ready a coffee, and we work with him to make certain we’re doing what he was perplexing to do when he roasted it.
He comes in once a week, and if we have questions, he can try it and give us his insight.
Secondarily, it’s not usually interlude during a beans. A lot of people buy beans, and afterwards it’s a syrups and salsas that go into it and removing a high peculiarity product. You’re operative tough with a beans, yet afterwards you’re putting things that aren’t so good on tip of it.
You have to build a whole package opposite a board. You start with a good beans, and a mixture we supplement to it, make certain it’s a best mixture we can.
There are some things that aren’t as important. Here we do latte art. Latte art isn’t an end. It shows what we’re doing is consistent.
Consistency is hard. Coffee is not. The patron and what they’re removing is a categorical goal, so whatever they’re getting, we wish them to suffer it as we would.
We get business from around a world. And we can make a splash however they wish to make it, yet a emanate is reckoning out what they wish since someone from Australia is going to wish something opposite from someone form New Zealand. And somebody from California is going to wish something different.
There are 3 a 4 opposite kinds of cappuccinos. An Italian cappuccino has a lot of foam. An Australian cappuccino has chocolate in it. A California cappuccino, they use latte art, so that’s not a lot of foam.
These days, we have to ask those questions so a patron gets what they want.
What’s been a many rewarding partial of opening adult Ha Coffee Bar?
People unequivocally make it theirs. That’s been a best part, it’s a space where they feel during home and feel safe. They feel like they can be who they are and thrive.
It’s usually a coffee shop, yet when people take something that’s usually a coffee shop, and spin it around to make it something that’s bigger for them, that validates a work we put in.