
On December 24th, Christmas Eve at 6 pm, we closed the coffee shop so our employees can enjoy Christmas with their families. However, for the owners, this was the only time where we could steam clean all the couches, chairs and pillows and have them dry for business the following day. Since we only close two times a year, Thanksgiving and Christmas, we don’t get a lot of time to spend on maintenance… This year, we took full advantage of the day off.

I was able to rent this amazing carpet/steam cleaner and went through the entire coffee shop with a fine tooth comb. I cleaned the all the couches, all the pillows and all the chairs. It took me over two hours and my back was killing me when I was finished, but it was worth it. I wanted to start the new year off right. I want our place to be immaculate when the customers walk in. This building is old, it has a lot of character and it is clean! We are proud of this place and want to make it the best for our patrons!
After a couple of hours of hard work steam cleaning the fabric, it was time to work on the espresso machine. The espresso machine is the lifeblood of the coffee shop. We sell thousands of shots of espresso each week and taking down the espresso machine during business hours is simply out of the question. Since we were already there, I knew this was my chance to maintenance the espresso machine. After turning it off and letting it cool, I took it apart and discovered the reason we were losing pressure on the right hand side steam wand. Several turns of the wrenches, completely dismantling the wand from the water tank, I took everything apart, cleaned it and replaced a couple of parts and we now have this running at maximum capacity. While I was in there, I replaced the right wand as well. So the pressure on both sides is perfect, everything is functional and working perfectly. This should result in faster service when making several drinks at the same time!
Meanwhile, Giovanna was hard at work changing out the front register. If you have ever been there and we had to tell you we are rebooting the register, you probably had to wait 3 to 5 minutes for the thing to come back online. With our computer background, we are able to handle almost anything thrown our way with regards to computers, so switching out the register was a breeze for Giovanna. After several months of trouble shooting the register from the manufacturer, they finally decided to send us a new unit. Of course, all the data had to be backed up, computer switched out, data restored and system tested. We are crossing our fingers that the new register will be stable. Rebooting our register when there is a line can really cause a problem!
After all the hard work done on Christmas Eve, We are ready for business. we had better be ready because our next day of closing won’t be until Thanksgiving in November of 2013!
Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!