Hey Night Owls! As always I'm up late at night and thinking about ways to connect better with all us here at the night owls club and what better way then to start passion dumping my thoughts in a blog on the site! Anyways, I wanted to talk today about the upcoming soft opening of the cafe. This project really has been over a year in the making in terms of planning, and thinking about every little aspect of how we're going to build a special place for us coffee enthusiasts to be able to hang out. It originally started just as a passion project to open a little speakeasy style coffee shop at the back of a retail store, Where we could have a super small, but intimate, environment to nerd out about coffee. But as I quickly learned trying to build anything here in the lower mainland is incredibly difficult, expensive, and tied up by all the red tape. The project unfortunately was starting to look nearly impossible for what we wanted to achieve, and I had to start looking for new options. I probably spent about a month nearly every night scouring commercial real estate websites looking for any and all new listings just telling myself "I'm just looking for fun." (it's never just for fun as I've learned.) Thats how I came across the listing for the Riley Park Matchstick location up for sale. Things started off quite casual and slow but once the chance to acquire the space became real, things got hot and heavy fast. It would be long periods of absolute silence from the seller side then heavy back and forth negotiations with some minor panic attacks slipped in there. I really wanted to go for the Fraser location as well but as things would work out that wasn't in our cards but we did manage to win the bid for the Riley park location. In hindsight this location is the right call for us, I love this location so much and it's where I got my start (first experience with drinking specialty coffee) with the coffee scene. Fast forward 3 months from when I got notice the deal was closed and we've got it, I've got the keys in my hands, I'm working 10-12h days on average, and I cant feel the tips of my fingers. But I've been going to sleep every night with a smile on my face and excitement welling inside my chest for what is to come. I really want to dedicate Noct, and this space to becoming somewhere that helps grow and promote this community. I think we need more spaces to help educate, and teach, and introduce people to the wonderful world of specialty coffee. Also I want to just simply give a sh*t about what we're doing and the people we welcome into our space. As we enter our final week of prep before we open our doors officially and start seeing all of your lovely faces as you visit for the first time, I'm just a bundle of excitement and nerves because I care so much about creating an experience that people will feel is worth their time and hard earned money. I know that we might not be perfect, we might not serve the best cup you've ever had in your life, or we might not be able to provide a perfectly organized and calm experience, but I do know that we will work everyday to keep improving and work towards our goals. We will make noct into a place where people can come together, learn, grow, and share our experiences over delicious drink and we will continually work towards that. Thank y'all for taking the time and listen to one nocturnal person's rambling. I hope to be able to write pieces like this and updates here and there or just share some of my findings with experiments we run at Noct! Have a lovely night, Night Owls.Kevin.
