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The Company Overview.

Vision.  The Awaken Café will be a coffee-house, community center, and gallery during the day and Oakland’s premiere night spot showcasing music and live performance after dark.  We will be the city’s hub—tying art, community, and social and environmental consciousness together, while revitalizing and strengthening Oakland’s downtown.  Oakland will come to be known as the heart of progressive business in the United States.

Mission. Awaken Café serves world-class coffee and tea. We offer simple yet creative food from local and organic sources in addition to organic beer and wine. Our business practices and facilities are ecologically sustainable and certified green. We feature and support a thriving arts scene, as a venue for revolutionary performance and gallery art. We emphasize a sense of community is all areas of our operations. Our welcoming staff and highly skilled baristas embody who we are and what we do. We welcome community members to play an active role in co-creating the Awaken Café experience.

Phase One/Phase Two. Awaken Café is launching operations in two phases. Phase One is a world-class coffee and tea cart utilizing only a small space just inside of the front doors of the cafe space. Phase One will serve a streamlined menu to Downtown Oakland’s residents and vast working population. Phase One is scheduled to open for business in August of 2007. Phase Two is the entire cafe including the beer and wine bar, organic eatery, art gallery, and performance space, , and is scheduled to open in the Fall of 2007. 

History. Kari Christensen and David Mills relocated to the Bay Area from Seattle where they had been connoisseurs and experienced baristas (coffee bartenders) at world-renowned coffee houses.  They immediately noticed the need and demand for quality coffee in the East Bay.  Their search for the perfect cup of coffee revealed a niche for an independent coffeehouse serving high-end coffee in Oakland.  Cortt Dunlap had lived in and around the Oakland, CA area since 1996 and was an active participant in the local arts community.  He recognized a need for a local, community oriented space that would serve to revitalize downtown Oakland, complement the local government’s push to bring thousands of new residents downtown, and engender an Oakland nightlife scene.  He also recognized the important role that a thriving local arts scene played in the creation of community.  Introduced through a mutual friend, Kari, David, and Cortt partnered up to create the Awaken Café in Oakland.

Marketing.  We will offer high-quality, organic coffee, tea, food, wine, and beer produced by a selection of local suppliers recognized for exceptional quality in their industry. We will be located in the downtown Oakland area, near 17th Street and Telegraph Avenue. This neighborhood is an emerging arts and entertainment district with bars, clubs, and restaurants – but no high end café. Our clientele will consist of local business people and area residents. With a working population of 75,000 in downtown Oakland and 45,000 students at area college campuses, we expect the Awaken Café to be the destination for businesspersons and students. We will also attract creative professionals, artists, and the growing portion of the population committed to community and environmentally sustainable businesses.

We will reach our customers by generating word of mouth “buzz” for our unique business model and progressive values, in addition to print advertising, articles and reviews, a strong internet presence, and by building relationships with government and media.

Operational Strategy and Implementation.  The Awaken Café, LLC will launch our operations in two phases. Phase One is a coffee cart serving a limited selection of our menu items and providing a teaser of what’s to come. Phase Two is the full realization of our vision: the entire café including the beer and wine bar, art gallery, and performance space. After acquiring our location, we will quickly implement Phase One which will utilize only a small percentage of the footprint of our space adjacent to the front doors. Phase One will allow for the Awaken Café to begin build-out of Phase Two while generating revenue, continuing to raise capital, and building brand recognition. Phase One will fit seamlessly into the design, operations, and implementation of Phase Two.

Kari Christensen and Cortt Dunlap are the two founding members of the Awaken Café, LLC and are primarily responsible for the day to day management of the café. Additional members of the LLC will participate in regular management decisions and operations. David Mills, an expert barista, will be contracted to head up training baristas and managing the café equipment. We will hold quarterly “town hall” meetings to involve the community and solicit feedback as to how we can better serve the community in which we operate. We will consult regularly with all the members of the LLC, as outlined in the Operating Agreement. We will also work closely with other outside advisors with expertise in: cafe management, marketing and publicity, successful green business owners, and visionaries.

Our hours of operation in Phase Two will be Monday through Thursday: 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m.; Friday: 7:00 a.m. to 1:00 a.m.; Saturday: 8:00 a.m. to 1:00 a.m.; and Sunday: 8:00 a.m. to 10 p.m. We will be open later for special events and as demand dictates. During Phase One, we will closer earlier in the day.

Overview of total Marketplace/Industry.  The Awaken Café’s core capability, largest income earner, and main focus are our coffee and espresso products. Even though our diverse and unique business model includes similarities to performance venues, bars, nightclubs, and art galleries, for comparison purposes our enterprises closest relative is the specialty coffee café. The specialty coffee industry is projected to grow by 5-10% per year according to both the Specialty Coffee Association of America and the International Coffee Organization. More than 70% of U.S. adults drink specialty coffee at least occasionally. Additionally, organic food sales are growing at 20% per year, a rate 15 to 17% higher than general food sales. We will capitalize on the absence of high-end specialty coffee in Oakland, serve the growing market of persons choosing to spend their money to support green businesses and organic products, and offer a unique customer experience and outstanding service to the growing downtown Oakland population.

[the difference]  [the mission]  [the team]  [the perfect cup]