 [send page to a friend] [print this page] [pdf] Awaken Café Story Ideas. The Awaken Café is a new café, organic eatery, beer and wine bar, performance venue and art gallery opening in Downtown Oakland this summer. Beyond giving Oakland a new café and performance venue, the Awaken Café's story is rich in themes important to the Bay Area in 2007:
The media is a key to our future. We want to get the word out and we want to build a relationship with you. We've written this overview of Awaken Café's hooks and story ideas as a starting point. Web: www.awakencafe.com Contact: Cortt Dunlap, Founder Will Grant, PR Beyond Giving Oakland a New Café and Performance Venue, the Awaken Café's Story Is Rich in Themes Important to the Bay Area in 2007. Revitalizing Oakland. The Awaken Café is growing from the same roots as Ron Dellum's vision for Oakland: community, voice, participation, ecology, and local initiative. The 10K housing initiative and the growing arts and entertainment district in downtown has infused Oakland with new energy. What has been missing is a meeting place to act as a hub tying it all together. The Awaken Café is filling that niche. Community Voice. The dream to create the Awaken Café came out of a series of town hall meetings in Oakland. We asked, “What would create and connect community here?” From hundreds of voices, we heard that we need a place to meet and connect. We kept hearing, “Someone should open a great café here.” Pop goes the idea. The Awaken Café will give Oakland a “there” for our daily lives -- a place for coming together, getting our morning cup of coffee, sharing meals, drinking with friends, seeing a band, and whatever Oakland can dream up. Going Green in Downtown Oakland. The Awaken Café is a sustainable, green business in the heart of downtown Oakland. You can't get more urban. Our architecture, food, waste disposal, and energy use are all designed for efficiency at the highest possible standards. We are buying local, organic, fair trade and healthy. Slow Foods Culture. The slow foods movement is re-teaching all of us how important it is to take our time with food. It is a simple, real idea. Other businesses see their profit coming from giving you food and getting you out the door. That is not our motivation, style or model. We are banking on long-term relationship. Our customers will come back because the space feels great, the coffee rocks, and the band tonight looks good. We want people to linger over a cup of coffee. Conscious Capitalism. Community generated the Awaken Café, and community accountability is in the DNA of everything we do. We pay a living wage. We will buy local. We are building, buying, and serving sustainably. We will continue to hold town hall meetings to hear from our customers and neighbors. Most importantly, we built community ownership into our business model with the CAFÉ CREATOR Card Program. Through the cards, people can create the business they want in their city. Two of our newest business partners are internationally known consultants who teach Fortune 100 executives how to build healthy, creative businesses. They have taken us beyond an idea of how we should do business, to building a company that thrives because of how we do business. A Business That Grew Out of Burning Man. The Awaken Café team are all long time Burners. Our confidence to start the Awaken Café grew from our experience with Burning Man: the Do It Yourself attitude, organizing community creativity to create a venue for people to express, connect, and drink good coffee. Key members of Awaken Cafe's team met through Burning Man connections: the founders, our architect, bookkeeper, real estate agent, and our green builder. More than a style, Burning Man gives the Awaken Café team a different business culture that understands collaboration, how to connect and create community, and improvisation. “Burning Man grows up,” and “Great party, but does it mean anything?” – are questions that the Awaken Café wants to answer. We are a business growing from the real world values of Burning Man. ### |
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