Inés
The first job was the one I had promised Henk. The "Rijwielhandel" sign over the side-street window had been painted by hand in 1992 and had faded to pink. A sign painter from Haarlem spent three weekends on it, letter by letter, matching the old green from a patch hidden behind the gutter. Our own sign, on the front, took him one afternoon.
Then the floor. I wanted terracotta tiles and Maksim's spreadsheet wanted concrete. The tiles cost 4,100 euros more than we had planned. I would choose them again tomorrow, and Maksim has stopped mentioning it, mostly.
Meanwhile I trained in our kitchen at home. Every evening for six weeks I pulled shots on a borrowed machine and Maksim drank them, until the night he lay awake until 3:00 and asked me to pour the rest down the sink.
Maksim
The Giesen arrived from Utrecht on a lorry in January, several hundred kilos of steel that would never fit through the door. We took the front window out. Six men, a pallet lift and most of the street watched it go in. Henk brought a folding chair.
The flue went up through the back of the building the following week. The roaster's environmental permit had one condition: fit an afterburner if a neighbour complained about the smoke. I hoped nobody would, and I did not budget for it.
The money
Our own bank turned down the loan in December. Its reason was that we had no trading history, which was true, and which no new shop ever has.
So we asked the street. We sold prepaid coffee cards and raised 11,400 euros from 214 people in three weeks. A smaller bank looked at those 214 names in January and said yes to 65,000 euros. The names are on the board by the door.
Opening day, and upstairs
The change-of-use permit came through on 6 March, ten days before we opened. On the 16th the queue reached the corner by 9:00. At closing we counted the till together, 612 euros, and wrote the number on the wall behind the bar in pencil.
In May, Mrs Yilmaz from upstairs reported the roaster smoke. She was right. We fitted the afterburner in June, and at Eid she brought down a plate of baklava and said the air smelled of bread now.
Next time you order, look behind the bar for the number in pencil. Ask us about any part of this, and we will tell you the rest.
Inés and Maksim
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