Lunch Special - Drink and Sandwich €4.95

Here is another special we have started. You can get a coffee, tea or soft drink and a sandwich for €4.95

This is for take out (but you can eat it in the shop if you like :-)

Click on the image for full details.

Morning Special - Coffee and Bagel €3.50

Here is another special we have started. You can get your bagel with butter and jam or cream cheese if you like.

Click on the image for full details.

Ampio Crew

These guys come into the shop on a regular basis and will drink hot or cold drinks. The one stipulation is that they have got to be our largest size - Ampio - and that is large.

Afternoon Special - Coffee and Muffin €3.50

We have started cooking our own Muffins in the shop and to promote these delicious buns put an afternoon special in place. Come on in and try them.

Click on the image for the full details.

more about coffee

A good place to start to find out more about coffee is to understand what an Espresso is as most coffee drinks use this

All our coffee drinks use an espresso except for the 'regular coffee' which is filter coffee.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Espresso

Life

A philosophy professor stood in front of his class with a large empty jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls.
He asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed it was.
He then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. The pebbles rolled into the areas between the golf balls.
He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed it was.
The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. The sand filled every possible space.
He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with an unanimous "yes"

The professor then produced two cups of coffee and poured them into the jar......

The students laughed.

"Now" the professor said. "The golf balls are the important things in life like God, family, children, health, friends and personal passions. The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, house, car ...
The sand is everything else; the small stuff. If you put the sand in the jar first you have no room for the pebbles or golf balls, the important things".
Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness; play with your children; take your partner out to dinner. There will always be time to clean the house and tidy the garden.

One of the students raised her hand and enquired what the coffee represented.

The professor smiled. "I'm glad you asked. It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem there is always room for a cup of coffee with a friend".

coffee in lyrics - 3

Tom Waits - Martha

..And meet me out for coffee

Where we´ll talk about it all

And those were days of roses

Poetry and prose

and Martha

All I had was you !

And all you had was me !

The Penguins

Just so you know.....

Penguins are a very social animal and they are part of the Esquires logo to show that we want to be part of the local community.

Luis, Gloria and me

We got Luis to open the coffee shop and it was inspiring to listen to him talk about the difference fairtrade makes to the co-operative and his family.

You can find out more at http://www.toledochocolate.com/

Gloria (the real brains behind the business) is also in this picture.

Wage Slip Used

I use the following straight forward wage slip with Quickpay. It saves having to buy expensive stationery.

http://www.esquiresennis.com/documents/Wageslip.xls

Timesheet used

I use the following straight forward timesheet to track what hours the staff have worked in a week.

http://www.esquiresennis.com/documents/WeeklyTimeSheet.xls

Feel free to copy if you are looking for one.

Well done Kieran

Kieran Murphy won best business blog for his ice cream Ireland.

He writes so passionately about ice cream it is always worth reading.

He also mentions coffee every now and again and these are available at http://icecreamireland.com/category/coffee/

Penguins

Esquires has a penguin as part of its logo and for the life of me I cannot get the connection with coffee. We have a penguin stamp for our loyalty cards and this can come in handy on any quiet times. Here is Kate's environmental message for the world.

Elma's Cakes

I have this marvellous supplier of cakes called Elma. She is so enthusiastic about her cakes.

Above is a selection of Chocolate cake, Pear and Almond tart, Coconut and rasberry cheesecake, Carrot cake, Apple Pie and Chocolate Biscuit cake.

You have to taste these to truly appreciate how divine they are.

The real Mr Americano with an extra shot.

Of course Kevin is never going to be the real Mr Americano as he does not come from the United States; unlike Elliot who does.

Mr Americano with the extra shot.

I kind of snuck up on Kevin and asked was it ok to take a quick picture with my mobile and before he could say no I took the picture.

This is so Elliot (with one t) will recognise him as a fellow Tall Americano with an extra shot drinker.

Now I'd better get a picture of Eliot so that Kevin will recognise him....

Not technically our first customer but.....

The first lady who came in did not want her picture in the paper so this is really our second customer (the first got a free coffee instead of the flowers and champagne).

Luis Armando Choco opened our shop today. He is a fairtrade farmer from Belize and it was a pleasure to meet him and see his passion for fairtrade and hear how it helps his family and the other people working in the Co-op.

Tomorrow we are donating all the takings from any hot drinks sold to the Co-op.

This time its for real

If its in the paper it must be true right?

We are having a fairtrade farmer who produces chocolate opening the shop tomorrow morning at 10:00. His name is Mr Choco (I kid you not). I must try to get in some terrible pun connecting his name with latte in some way.

As part of the opening we are going to donate all sales for hot beverages on Mothers day (Sunday) to the Co-op that Mr Choco works for. Drop in and have a nice coffee for a good cause.

Official, official opening on Sat 1st of March

We are going to have an official official opening next Saturday. The plan is to get a fair trade chocolate farmer to open the store and give all the proceeds from any hot drinks next Sunday to the co-operative he works for (more anon).

Here is the view you get in the store when working on the coffee machine.

Tall Americano with an extra shot

When we make our Americano we like to give them plenty of taste.

There are three espresso shots go into our Tall Americano. You would think thats enough; but we have a regular customer (after only four days) who likes to drink a Tall Americano with an extra shot.......

I thought for sure that Elliot and Nancy would be the first to hand back a full loyalty card but Mr "Tall Americano with an extra shot" beat you to it.

Busy, busy, busy

We are up and running and been very busy the past three days.

Tomorrow is Saturday and you would expect this to be our busiest day.

We are still finding our feet at this stage and will take us at least a week to get everything in order.

Now to get some sleep before tomorrow.

Open for Business

Opened for a full day today.



This was first thing in the morning.

Did a promotion to give flowers and champagne to the first customer. Should get us some pictures in the local press hopefully.

Gave some coffee to Clare FM as well. Did they mention Esquires on any of the shows?

Unofficially open ;-)

Unofficially opened the doors at around 3:00

Anita was our unofficial first customer as we let her in to the shop a little early.

We had coffee and cakes available but no sandwiches. We got great support from all the traders in Ennis and I would like to say a big thank you to all who called in.

It is taking a while for the new staff to get everything running smoothly so bear with us if your coffee takes a little longer than usual. Give us a few days and we will be flying.

Officially we open our doors tomorrow morning at 8:30 with everything available.

Just that last push.....

Just giving the inside the final touches. Here is an earlier picture of the interior.

Must remember to get the builder to move his boots.

Training finished

Coffee training completed today. Might take a while to open next Tuesday as we have electricians coming in on monday to switch out a fuse board. Still determined to open on the 19th at some stage .......

Sign is in place

The sign guys came and put the sign up yesterday. I like it. It is reflective and picks up what is on the street.

If you look really carefully at the 'R' you can see me taking the photo.

coffee shop lyrics - 2

Carly Simon

I had some dreams they were clouds in my coffee

Clouds in my coffee, and .....

Heard it this morning on the radio.

Tips of the Trade - 2

Went up to meet John Dunne who runs a coffee shop in Maynooth. I just want to say thanks John for taking time out to discuss getting the shop up and running with me.

He has a very nice setup in the shopping centre in Maynooth. I certainly learnt a lot from talking to him. He cooks his own scones using his Mother's secret recipe (at least he didn't give me the recipe).

One tip John gave me was to make your own coleslaw as the coleslaw you buy has too much mayonnaise on it. I tend to agree with him as I prefer coleslaw with less mayonnaise than you usually get.

Opening Flyer

Printed off an opening flyer to send to friends. Hopefully they will remember to call in when they are in Ennis.

Tips of the Trade - 1

I went up to http://www.matthewalgie.com our coffee supplier for some training on coffee. Lachlan MacGillivray went through all the basics of coffee with me and showed me how to ensure you make the perfect coffee/latte/cappucino every time. Thanks for going through this with me Lachlan as I now know a lot more about coffee than I did before.

We are going to make sure that everyone working in the coffee shop gets full training for a week before we open to ensure that the coffee we sell is an excellent cup every time.

One tip Lochlan gave me was if you end up with a lot of empty plastic milk cartons then give them a shot of steam before crushing as this will help them stay crushed and they will take up less room for storing.

Coffee Shop Lyrics

From a song by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers

"I am just a lousy bum
Searching for the unknown crumb
The crumb the crumb
Something or someone to come"

My guess is they read Beckett in College........

Oh to be able to doodle like this

Sat down with Pete Joslin and was telling him about my new coffee shop. While we are there he picks up a pen and a piece of paper and comes up with the following doodle.



Nice one Pete.

Magnificent Picture from Flickr

Came across this while surfing http://www.flickr.com/ taken by d1andonlykar1

Love the way the handle makes a heart shape.

Good response to Ad

I got a good response to the job advertisement. Now I have to interview the people and decide who to hire. Any advice on what to watch out for while interviewing?

Advertisement for Staff is in local paper

Had the following Ad in the Clare People today. Hopefully will get some good staff replying. Plan to do interviews next week.

Going to have another Ad appearing in the Clare Champion on Thursday. This should cover people in the immediate vicinity interested in work.

Another tenuous link to coffee

This was a film that Jim Jarmusch made with lots of scenes in a coffee shop. Here is Tom Waits and Iggy Pop sharing a coffee.

Ze Frank and coffee (kind of ish)

I am a big fan of Ze Franks and watched the show daily when it was running. Here is one of his shows with a tenuous link to coffee. I know this doesn't have a lot to do with coffee but I get a laugh every time I watch it.

http://www.zefrank.com/theshow/archives/2007/01/010406.html

Opening day now 19th February

So far everything is going well with the fit out (well done ramsays). We now plan to open our doors on the 19th which is a week earlier than originally envisaged.

Opening Day - 25th Feb 2008

If everything goes to plan I will be opening my coffee shop at the end of February in the heart of Ennis.

Wish me luck.............

Not too many posts until we open but I just want to set up the blog and connect it to the website at:

http://www.esquiresennis.com