Hidden Fortress Coffee Roasting https://www.hiddenfortresscoffee.com Fresh Organic Coffee From The Monterey Bay Wed, 03 Jun 2020 16:05:15 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.6.2 https://i0.wp.com/www.hiddenfortresscoffee.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/HF-Favicon.png?fit=32%2C32&ssl=1 Hidden Fortress Coffee Roasting https://www.hiddenfortresscoffee.com 32 32 103565474 Hello world! https://www.hiddenfortresscoffee.com/hello-world/ https://www.hiddenfortresscoffee.com/hello-world/#comments Wed, 03 Jun 2020 16:05:15 +0000 https://mockingbirdhosting.com/hiddenfort/?p=1 Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start writing!

]]> https://www.hiddenfortresscoffee.com/hello-world/feed/ 1 1 Hidden Fortress Coffee Roasting Is Open! https://www.hiddenfortresscoffee.com/hidden-fortress-coffee-roasting-is-open/ Fri, 02 Dec 2016 18:35:50 +0000 https://www.hiddenfortresscoffee.com/?p=508 Wow, what a journey the past year has been! Finally reaching the goal of opening a full service, quality organic coffee shop has been achieved. The shop has been open for 3 weeks now and we are starting to hit our stride. We have new customers finding the Hidden Fortress every day, and many are already coming in regularly.

A full cafe on grand opening day!

A full cafe on grand opening day!

It is so good to have money starting to trickle in on a daily basis. For a year we have paid rent on an empty space during the planning and building process. Opening the doors a few weeks was an amazing transformation: Hidden Fortress has come home, and the space has come alive!

The total cost of this project was just over $250,000. Most of that expenditure is now debt in the form of two 10 year SBA loans that we will be working very hard to repay! We also raised about $25,000 through several crowd funding campaigns. Though a small percentage of the total, that $25k really made the difference when we needed it most. Not only that, the pledges we received were a huge boost to our confidence, especially during the scary moments when we really did not know how we were going to pull this off.

It takes a village to build great things, and I am so honored that so many coffee lovers chose to be a part of this village that built this awesome little coffee shop!

We hope to see you soon! We are open:

Monday through Saturday 6:30am to 3:30pm

Free wifi, free filtered drinking water, free tastes of drip coffee

I won’t be annoying and write much in all caps but I do feel like shouting:

THANK YOU!!!!!

Thank you to all of you who have been a part of this, through supporting one of our crowdfunding campaigns, buying our coffee, being a subscriber,  participating in the buildout, contributing extra effort with things like web work, or just being there with moral support and good advice!  Extra Special Thanks go to:

General Contractor: F. John LaBarba Construction

Custom Cabinet Work: Thomas Merida

Contribution of antique wood apple crates that were used to face our cabinets: Casalagno Family Farm

Beautiful artwork hanging on our walls on opening day: Peter Loftus

My husband Patrick, who is my anchor through all the ups and downs, and who works extra hard caring for our little farm when I cannot be there!

Taylor and Darrell, Hidden Fortress Baristas extraordinaire. You both have been with Hidden Fortress through all the stressful moments, sleep deprived days, and cash strapped weeks that it took to reach opening day. I am proud to have you on my team!

Cheers & Blessings,

Amelia

]]> 508 New Year, New Project https://www.hiddenfortresscoffee.com/new-year-new-project/ Tue, 29 Dec 2015 19:16:59 +0000 https://www.hiddenfortresscoffee.com/?p=185 As the new year approaches my thoughts rest on the huge new project of building a roastery & cafe that lies ahead. We have a fantastic space and location to work in, and some great people on board. The potential for this to finally become a steady, sustainable income for me & my family is motivating. The possibilities to make this so much more than just a great coffee shop are exciting.
For example, the possibility of making the roastery open and available to other aspiring roasters. A coffee roasting incubator. Kind of like these:
http://www.berkeleyside.com/2015/09…
http://buckmancoffee.com/
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/31/d…
Watsonville already has a kitchen incubator which is sprouting all kinds of new wonderful food talent. Why not coffee too?
Another exciting possibility: Weekly food pop-ups. Partner with a revolving cadre of amazing chefs to bring an exciting new option to the lunch crowd of the business park we are located in.
The cafe will be a sanctuary in a sea of workplaces, and place where someone can get away for a few minutes and relax in the simple enjoyment of a well crafted beverage.
Each day I also worry, there are many potential things that could go wrong. Lacking enough funds to make this dream a reality is my biggest fear. I am driven enough, stubborn enough, hard working enough, and skilled enough to make this happen. But if we don’t get funded it will all come crashing down like a house of cards.
Reality Check #1: Our first rental payment of $3500 is due in 3 days. This first rent will have to come from personal savings, a huge hit that we won’t be able to repeat next month because the funds just won’t be there. January is historically the slowest month for this business, and a rainy month will absolutely decimate sales. Over half our revenue is from farmer’s market sales. If something else does not pan out by February 1st, Hidden Fortress Coffee Roasting will be DOA.
Several months ago I started a couple of crowdfunding campaigns and started working overtime to finish our business plan. I have submitted the plan to a local bank, and the first meeting was encouraging. I had coaching before this meeting with a retired businessperson (founder of Pizza My Heart!). He looked over the business plan and discussed the fine details. Everything looked really good, he said. Fingers crossed!
The crowdfunding route has been a little discouraging. The Kiva Zip loan is close to it’s deadline, and is 65% funded. But is has been going incredibly slow, and I am really worried that we will not make the $5,000 goal. Which means that the $2325 already raised will be returned to investors. We really need that money. On top of the $50k business loan, if we get it, we are counting on another $10k, from somewhere. If we could just get our 2 crowdfunding campaigns to actually work, we’d be there.
If you are reading this, maybe you can pitch in! It is not as if I am asking for something for nothing! You get a return on your investment.
The Kiva Zip program is a LOAN. You get paid back. In fact, right now your loan amount is doubled. If you loan $50, we get $100, and you get your $50 back. https://zip.kiva.org/loans/17125
Pledging on Barnraiser gets you the perk of your choice. And it is the only way to get tickets to the launch party…unless you have been a big contributor in other ways already.
https://www.barnraiser.us/projects/…
There are a few other ways you can help this succeed on the blog: https://www.hiddenfortresscoffee.com/…
This is a huge project, and I will be a driving force in making it happen, but I cannot do it alone. If you can help, you will be a part of a pretty cool thing. And
there will always be great coffee!
Cheers,
Amelia
]]> 185 Down to Earth with a Passion for Great Coffee https://www.hiddenfortresscoffee.com/down-to-earth-with-a-passion-for-great-coffee/ https://www.hiddenfortresscoffee.com/down-to-earth-with-a-passion-for-great-coffee/#respond Fri, 04 Dec 2015 06:02:13 +0000 https://www.hiddenfortresscoffee.com/?p=4 burlap-logoWhen you remove all the gloss and glam of fancy cafes, Corporate logos, and over priced coffee laced adult milkshakes, the core ingredient is coffee. And that coffee is farmed the world round with hard work, nurtured earth, and attention to detail. I recently learned this statistic: the average 150 pound sack of green coffee requires 400 hours of human labor to produce!

I started this coffee business for two very fundamental reasons: I needed a source of income, and I love coffee. The income was needed because I could not earn it raising chickens or produce on a micro scale. The cost of living is simply too high. My experiences as a small scale farmer and growing up on a Vermont farmstead instilled in me a great respect for the fruits of the earth.

August2012-garden

When I roast coffee I am making my best possible effort to do honor to the farmers who put in the lions share of work to produce that pound of coffee. On average, it takes me about 15 minutes to roast and bag that pound of coffee that took more than 2.5 hours of farm work to produce. I have the deepest respect for the work that brings this amazing beverage to my senses, and I can only do my best to highlight their work.

I am not a fan of flavored coffee or coffee drowned in too much milk and sugar. Those things are adequate fixes for flawed coffee, but only pollute the amazing nuances of a good coffee that is properly roasted and brewed.

amelia-roasting

With this first post I make 2 pledges as I embark on the expansion of the coffee roasted business that sprouted at our North Monterey county farm in early 2012:

  1. To always honor the farmer and the source land where the coffee is grown, and to do all I can to support the source financially.

  2. To bring these values to my own community and help increase awareness and understanding of coffee among our own customers.

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