Ms. Barker – The initial idea was to have the spirit store done first. That store was supposed to open in August of 2023. It opened in September of 2024, and that was mainly because of construction delays. We had issues with the construction company, coming back and finishing jobs and having to negotiate that out. By the time that was completed, we had broken ground on this space for the coffee shop. And since they were so close together both stores then didn’t open until September of 2024.

Ms. Barker – The challenges for this are that they exist kind of in two different worlds. In the store, we’re working with apparel suppliers and buying machinery to be able to heat press and do these other things and hunt down hangers. And then I’m in the cafe buying an espresso machine or a coffee grinder. They just exist in two different spaces, and you have to become really adept at knowing your retailers and your vendors to help with that.

Ms. Barker – Students who want to be a part of the coffee shop can start volunteering in their freshman year and they usually work one class period a week. Then in their sophomore year, if they decide to be in the Institute for Business and Entrepreneurship, then they’ll work again for one or two periods a week. When they get to their junior or senior year, the store becomes a part of their day and students will sign up for what they call a business practicum class. That class will have them have work time in both spaces. The coffee shop and the spirit store are staffed by students who are part of the Institute and who have this as part of their curricular day. That factors into not only graduation requirements for overall graduation as an elective credit, but it also factors into graduation requirements for an institute certificate as well.

Maia – There’s typically not a line out the door, but there will be five or six people during my scheduled shift. It’s nice because I can do my school work and then if I need to restock or I need to clean, I have enough time to do that. Everybody has already been accustomed to the coffee shop here. They know what they’re going to get. I think it’s really fun. I enjoy cleaning and organizing all the stuff and it’s nice because it leaves enough time at the end of the day to make sure everything’s picked up and locked up.

Ms. Barker – I don’t have a background in running a coffee shop or a spirit store. I was an education major. There’s always that challenge of just running the day-to-day business but it’s been really rewarding and if nothing else, I’ve gained a lot of skills out of it, and I know our students have as well.

Maia – It’s cool because you get to be immersed in the business world and see how payroll works and how to order things. And we’ve had some issues with ordering where we order too much or too little or it comes too late, having to figure out how to deal with those problems is helpful.

Ms. Barker – I mean, you have to figure out what happens if somebody doesn’t show up to their shift and how do we cover that. We talk about the cleaning and maintenance of the machines, not to mention the fact that all our students come out of this fully barista trained, so they could go work in a coffee shop somewhere. The joke is that our machines are more complex and more challenging than Starbucks. They’ve got it a little easier than even we do. They learn a whole lot of skills. I was just having a conversation with our board chair about our students learning how to do price pointing and understanding where we have markups at, how much is our per dollar ounce of drip coffee, for instance, or our shirts and apparel. The idea here is to give them those practical experiences so that they can take that with them. If nothing else does apply to them in the future, they can ask themselves questions like, should they open their own business? It’s not a total shock or surprise to the system. They can pull from that experience and say, ‘Oh, I’ve done this before. I’ve seen this before. I have a similar experience with this. I know how to at least approach it, even if I don’t have the solution just yet.’

Maia – I think it’s good, especially if you have a school based business because you’re used to seeing your classmates and being able to have a conversation but also get the job done. It definitely prepares you because it helps you balance work and school. You have to be able to get your schoolwork done and then also maintain the job duties and make sure you’re cleaning and you’re keeping up with everything. It prepares you for work and I’m excited because now I know that I can go to college and work at a coffee shop, and I know what I’m doing for the most part.

Ms. Barker – We wanted the kids to learn how to start small and to expand and build from there. We intentionally set the space up to not offer everything that we wanted to. There’s even pipes coming out of the wall that have been capped. The idea is we would like to eventually have a smoothie machine or have another kind of frozen and cold drinks, but we started small to give the students the ability to do it. We didn’t want to give them a fully finished coffee shop and say, okay now just work it. We wanted them to have skin in the game too. To be able to say, ‘I think what would actually be really great is this.’ Or, ‘Could we add this?’ 
When we first started, we just did coffee. Now we already have hot and cold teas. We do lemonade, we do fruit punch. We added all these other drinks and we’re already looking at small food items that we could do as well. Again, it’s that experience of thinking, what sells, what doesn’t sell.

Ms. Barker – We’ve tried a bunch of different drinks. Our blue raspberry, as much as I wanted it to succeed, it didn’t. Am I going to order any more of it? No, it’s fine. Once we’re done, we’re done with it, but it’s a great opportunity. But our pink lemonade, I hope we never have a day where we don’t have it because it’s probably one of our top sellers other than coffee. It just depends on that, and the kids have a great experience with that. Oftentimes, the student workers are the ones who notice the trends and come to me and tell me. ‘Hey, when we order this next time, let’s think about this or let’s change this out.’ They have made that their responsibility and commitment to make this even easier for me. They have made it much more of a success than I could have even imagined it would be at this point last year.

Maia – I would say it’s definitely a good idea. It helps students get ready for college or even to just apply for their first job and it also helps time management. I think it’s overall beneficial for the people working and the people who are getting coffee. It’s also nice that there’s some people that I usually don’t talk to and they’ll come up and order coffee and then I’ll have a five minute conversation with them. It doesn’t have to be a coffee shop. It could be any business but I think schools should have these school based businesses in them. I’ve seen other schools with coffee shops, but it’s more of like a vending machine kind of deal. But I think this is good because it’s hands on and you get to really be immersed into the whole, business kind of world. It’s really cool.

Ms. Barker – It can be scary at first. Like I said, I don’t have a business background. I had never run a coffee shop. I had never run a spirit store. You know you need to look for people who can really help to build your content knowledge and help build your business and give you something to lean on. I was very lucky that I had Tom Dake of Superior Industrial Insulation and Jessica New of Slow Train Café and The Local. They really dug in and helped. They walked me through the process and helped me to learn how to do it and do it right. Then, that way I could be a good steward of this and continue it. I think that’s a huge one because it can feel really daunting, especially if you don’t have a deep background in this area, but especially in a city like Cleveland, we’re lucky to have lots of those people. Since this has been opened, we’ve been fielding inquiries and offers for help, information and guest speaking from lots of other folks who know about the place who want to come see it, especially parents, who have a vested interest in the school already and just want to continue to help this place grow. That’s been good, I think just to know about the place in general, this is a really unique experience of our institutes. This is probably the most hands-on.

Maia – It’s a lot of work, especially as a freshman or a new student but it’s not as hard as it looks. Especially if you’re in this Institute. You get a lot of help throughout it and it’s not like you’re just shoved into it and you have to fend for yourself. We’re a team. You’re walked through step-by-step, especially because there’s so many other students doing it. We started with five employees and now we have 10 or 12 because so many students have volunteered. I think if you’re trying to get involved with something it’s kind of easier to join, but it’s still hard work. You get a good experience working in customer service and helping other people and you get to be a trained barista afterwards. I think it’s worth it.

Maia – It’s nice because I was kind of leading the training. I knew what I was doing, but it also was nice because I got to show other people how to do it. It kind of felt like I was a manager or something. It’s nice to see when they train and progressively get better. And then you hear from other people like, ‘They made me this really good drink and the latte was beautiful,’ because then I know I trained them right. It’s cool because our system of payment is the same that I use at my other job. I’m already familiar with it and I was able to help set it up. I already kind of knew some stuff from my mom Jessica New who founded Slow Train Cafe, but I learned a lot like when this started. They added me to emails from the roasters when they were delivering our coffee and then when the espresso machine was getting delivered and I was included in everything that was going on. I was put into meetings when we were ordering everything. I kind of got an inside scoop of how to order things for the business and how to put everything together.

Ms. Barker – One of the things that we really did try to do was to use local where possible. We used a local print company in Parma. We also used local coffee, Six Shooter Coffee out of Collinwood is our coffee producer. We use Smith Foods for our dairy, so the idea was to try to keep it as local as possible so that we know where our food comes from. One of the things that’s really great about even something like our coffee is that we have such a great relationship now with the supplier that actually I order it by sending a text message to their CFO who then connects me with their supply person and we go back and forth with that and then they bring it out here personally and things. It’s a nice touch and I think it’s great for the kids to experience that connection with vendors as well. Some of them have even been on conversations and phone calls and emails with me over the last year to learn how to be a part of that.

Ms. Barker – My hope is that when you come back in a year, two years, five years, you’re seeing a really thriving business that you could easily take and make it a standalone store in downtown North Ridgeville and you wouldn’t know the difference. I think we’re getting there. I think we’re developing that, and I think we’ve got a really great leadership team, but also a really great group of kids to help us move that forward and help give these kids the most practical real-world experience that we can.