Time flies.

July 11, 2011 Leave a comment

Yes, we know, we’ve kept quiet, and it’s been a while since our last post. So, what has kept us busy with what seems absolutely no time for posting?

making coffee (people say, we’re serving the best coffee in town) food shopping (meeting minimum orders has been our biggest challenge) deciding on our daily lunch specials (to offer quick journeys to different countries during lunch time breaks) making tea cleaning (lots of cleaning!) preparing ingredients for lunch and snacks (chopping onions, cutting carrots…)  baking strudels and muffins (overcoming a little baking crisis every now and again) inviting kids of a local school to paint chairs for our outdoor seating area (a real eye-catcher!) choosing and ordering fairtrade items (from over 30 wholesellers!) designing ads for local newspapers expanding our drinks and food menu (it now has a total of 24 pages!) paying the bills keeping track of what we make of the ingredients that we buy (to keep the food hygiene and tax offices happy) chatting with customers organizing events (so far we’ve had interesting travel picture evenings, delicious wine tastings, fun board game nights and great coffee brewing and cooking classes) accounting and bookkeeping checking expiry dates on chocolates and cookies writing newspaper articles (to share our knowledge about the exciting world of coffee) face-lifting the ARTiSAN website trying to figure out how to acquire new customers meeting lovely and interesting people calculating cost and benefit (you got to know and watch your numbers) posting on our Facebook page regularly tasting our own coffee and adjusting settings on the grinders and coffee machine (this is our main asset – it’d better be good!) checking fridge and freezer temperatures (daily!) researching the fairtrade and coffee business re-arranging our little café (serveral times already!) to make the most of little space sipping a lovely cup of coffee outside of our shop creating new drinks (refreshing smoothies and our very own buttermilk-logan berry cocktail!) trying to get enough sleep every now and again tasting our way through new chocolates

Needless to say, our little café and shop is keeping us busy and engaged for countless hours a day but also offers us the most enjoyable and comfortable working environment we can imagine.

Filed under Austria, Customers, Decisions, Food & Drinks, PR

Being More.

February 6, 2011 Leave a comment

Back in December 2010 – which feels like at least a year ago – we thought we had opened a shop and café, simply offering a wide range of fairtrade and organic products. Today we know that we have taken on much more than that. Apart from serving people coffee and tea, as well as soup from around the world and homemade sweets, we have come to realize that our place has also turned into:

- A tourist information buero, always ready to give directions, although we must admit that we greatly rely on the local paper map and Google Maps: Having spent the last 6 years in Dublin rather than the Ennstal, we wouldn’t call ourselves locals just yet, and find ourselves more than once replying “Good question. Where the heck could that be?”.

- A waiting room, successfully making the task of killing time until the departure of the train back home a truly enjoyable one. We have excellent coffee, some books, an iPad, lots of cute products to browse through, what else could a traveller on the go wish for?

- Something like a sanatorium: Our comfy couch does seem to come in handy when customers do not wish for anything else but a nap to regain strength after being struck down by a cold. When we offer our freshly prepared hot ginger tea  on top of that, it does not take long for these customers to feel much better again!

- A tourist attraction, offering locals a delightful place to show their visitors. Schladming offers something else besides slopes and aprés ski!

Other customer requests which we haven’t been able to cater for just yet include: a booze store, a spice shop, a buggy rental place. Enough ideas to branch out and keep us going for the next few months, we’d say!

Filed under Austria, Customers, Ireland, Moving

Feeling at home.

January 17, 2011 1 Comment

How do you know that your customers forget that they are actually in a public place, but completely and utterly feel at home?

They leave their hat behind on the couch. They leave their handbag on the table. They take their cup and plate to the sink. They arrive all stressed and all over the place, and leave relaxed and happy.

So far, no one has taken off their shoes yet and put their feet on the coffee table. We’ll work on that, we promise!

Filed under Customers

Recognition.

January 8, 2011 Leave a comment

Moving to a new area and opening up a shop inevidently means that you’ll see a lot of new faces in a short period of time. We neither know all the locals yet nor can we claim that we manage to remember every single one who has visited our shop so far. Sometimes we think, we should have stuck with Christian’s initial idea of profiling all our customers when they enter our shop, including pictures and finger prints and an automated, yet personalized voice welcoming returning customers… Oh, well. Alternatively, some situations are just bound to turn out funny, or embarassing, depending on how you decide to view them:

An episode on failed voice recognition:

Two days before our grand opening on December 8, Christian receives a phone call of someone whose voice he does not immediately recognise. The person asks when he could stop by at our shop to discuss things. Christian panicks and replies ‘not before Friday.’  Now, the person on the other end panicks: ‘ But your opening night is on Tuesday, and I am supposed to cook for your guests. Friday is two days after that!’ Well, in this case, maybe we should meet before Friday…

An episode on failed face recognition:

Andrea trying to strike up a conversation with a customer who is waiting at the cash desk and who somehow looks familiar: Do you live in Schladming? Answer: Yes, you asked me that last time when I was sitting over there, having a cup of coffee. Oops. So sorry…

An episode on ignorance:

As 4 local kids disguised as the three holy kings and the star showing them their way come to our café accompanied by an adult, Andrea – knowing that this tradition is organised by the Catholic church – asks your man: Are you part of the local church community? Your man smiles: Yes, you can say so. I am the local priest. Ah!

Filed under Austria, Customers, Moving

Overcoming the first crisis.

January 4, 2011 Leave a comment

4 weeks in business and our first, major crisis needs to be overcome. For those of you, who have had a chance to taste Christian’s homemade apple strudel either at a summer party, or when he was cheering up his co-workers at eBay, or simply entertaining guests, know that his apple strudel is truly special.

Now imagine, you are used to preparing something similarly popular which suddenly doesn’t turn out as it should. You do everything the same way as you have always done but for some reason it does not result in what you would expect – for no obvious reason. This would most likely be only half as bad if first of all, customers would not be paying for it and second, if it would not have a serious effect on the chef’s reputation.

Hence, the pressure is on!

Knowing that Christian’s analytical skills can work wonders there seems to be some light at the end of the tunnel. So, what needs to be done to put an end to this crisis? First, the ingredients used are different, they are all organic. But that shouldn’t make a difference! Second, is the newly bought food processor not working as intended? Does a little technical help really screw up the result? Third, is the “commercial” environment unsuitable for “home” made apple strudel? This sounds too ridiculous to be true.

Well, soon Christian suspects that the work top of our new kitchen might be too cold for the sensible homemade dough. Great, first we spend tons of money on a rather expensive worktop, then it turns out unsuitable for making apple strudel. Help is at hand though – Andrea’s brother in-law quickly builds a kitchen surtop which is made of wood rather than stone and can be put on top of our current kitchen top.

The apple strudel turns out as it should again, and Christian and our customers are happy!

Filed under Customers, Decisions

Living in the Shopping Window.

December 21, 2010 Leave a comment

Yesterday was our day off. Nonetheless we spent the day in our new café and shop, sitting on the ARTiSAN couch, paying bills, ordering new stock, testing recipes for omelettes and pancakes in preparation for our first brunch weekend this week, cleaning, re-arranging…

We basically live at ARTiSAN’s at the moment, behind a big shopping window, completely open to the public. But we really do not mind. We like our new place, it’s so comfy and just like one of those loft spaces which we had always wanted to rent and furbish. So, why not spend some more time there?

Today though we managed to get home from work just after 8 o’clock which is a first in terms of earliness ever since we embarked on our new adventure. And, we must admit, this feels good, too! Thus we are looking forward to a few more hours of sleep than usual, feeling fresher tomorrow, and ready to help our customers with their last-minute Christmas shopping, providing them with a few minutes or more of peaceful and relaxed Christmas time with a nice, warm cup in their hands.

Filed under Austria, Customers, Food & Drinks

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