Kickstarter

Greetings supporters-

The big day is finally here! Alchemy Collective Cafe opened its doors at 7am this morning, fully permitted, legit, and ready to sate the caffeine needs of South Berkeley and the greater Bay Area. 

We are immensely excited to have come this far, but the long and short of it is, we couldn't have done it without YOU. So pat yourselves on the back, or come to the cafe and we'll pat you on the back. And you can claim your Kickstarter rewards, if you told us you'd be picking them up in person (it might take us a couple of days to get that all organized).

You can find us at:

3140 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Berkeley, CA 94702 (http://g.co/maps/72vd5)

Hours: Mon-Fri 7a-1pm, Sat (likely 9:30am-1:30pm, but TBD)

Facebook is the best place to look for all news and updates Alchemy. Again, thanks so much, and we hope to see you soon, and often.

Yours in righteous coffee and crowd-funded entrepreneurship,

Team Alchemy

So first, we have to apologize again for the gift delay.  We are still working on it steadily, and we have almost everything ready to ship.  We've also been busy setting up OUR CAFE.  That's right, it's not a semi mobile espresso cart anymore, we just signed a lease on our own space and have been in there like frenzied beavers going to work on it.  Here's some pictures:

http://s1187.photobucket.com/albums/z397/AlchemyCollective/storefront/

It's across the street from the south west corner of the Ashby Bart Station in Berkeley near the Oakland Border (3140 Martin Luther King); plenty of foot traffic, no nearby competition, so we're about to cause a scene over there.  It will be mostly to-go orders because it is pretty small, but there is enough room for people to hang out inside and enjoy some conversation and coffee.  What more do you need?

We've been working hard to move it forward, and we should be open in just a couple of weeks.  So if you have free coffees coming your way or are a local supporter, get ready to come see us soon.

We were short by just a few shirts, so we'll be printing those within the next few days, the alchemy handbooks still need to be bound, and for the Alchemist coffee stands, we just need some dry weather and a solid day to cut, drill and assemble.  The rest is ready to go.

Thanks again to all of you.  You donated to get our mobile cart started, and we went right to making a an actual cafe!  Not bad.  We're still working toward that bigger arts/music cafe in downtown oakland, with this as our Berkeley satellite.

All for now, see you soon!  And again, we can't say it enough, THANK YOU.

-The Alchemistas

Apologies for the delay folks, we were forced to re-envision our cart idea and have been kept busy planning, researching and making many trips to the city's bureaucratic labyrinths.  The good news is that what started as a minor setback led us to upgrade from a mobile cart powered by a generator, to possibly our very own little (and we do mean little) storefront.  We haven't signed the lease yet, but it's looking like, thanks to supporters like you, we may have found ourselves a new home.

Here's a few pics of the possible location:  http://s1187.photobucket.com/albums/z397/AlchemyCollective/storefront/

Now that we've gotten the ball rolling on this, we will start putting together your Alchemy care packages and sending them off.  We've got a lot on our plates so try to be patient, but just know that we haven't forgotten about you.  Be sure to fill out the survey to let us know what to send and where.  And if you think you'll be able to come by the cafe when it opens, we'd love to give you your thank you gift in person, so be sure to indicate that in your message.

Thank you thank you thank you, hope we can serve you some coffee very soon!

-The Alchemists

Hi Folks-

Well, I spoke too soon. In spite of overcoming some logistical and mechanical hurdles in our "silent opening" weeks, Alchemy Collective will have to succumb to the petty tyranny of City of Berkeley Municipal Zoning, for the time being.

You see, Biofuel Oasis is zoned for something called "Incidental Coffee Sales - Indoor." It turns out that changing that "Indoor" to an "Outdoor" so we can get the cart permitted for that space (and get a business license, pay taxes, etc) is going to be an expensive and lengthy process, which doesn't make a ton of sense for a spot that we intended to be temporary.

Rather than risk a fine, or getting the Biofuel folks in trouble, we've shut down for now. The beauty of having built a mobile cafe is that we can look for other spots that would work well and have less restrictive use permits (or have space for the cart indoors, which would probably simplify matters). If anyone has ideas for spaces in Oakland or Berkeley, don't hesitate to get in touch!

While it is disappointing to shutter after only a couple weeks' business (not to mention embarrassing for yours truly, who wrote a triumphant Kickstarter update on Monday), we are optimistic that we will find a new home soon.

An upside for you guys is that we now have more time to work on distributing your prizes. You should be seeing supporter surveys by the end of this week, and if you fill those out, some prizes will start to go out soon afterwards.

Thanks for your continuing support and patience. This is a bit of a setback, but nothing insurmountable. We'll be slinging coffee again soon!

-The Alchemists

Greetings Alchemy supporters-

You probably know by now that we reached our goal, and then some. Needless to say we are ecstatic that the campaign was a success and excited about what the future holds for Alchemy Collective.

First off, MASSIVE thanks to everyone who supported the campaign. Your support means that we can move the business to the next level, but it's also a meaningful validation of what we think is a great idea (we're glad you think so, too).

It's taken a over a week for me to post this update because we've been busy launching (and running) the cart (think of it as a "silent opening") for the last couple of weeks. The reason for the lack of fanfare is that we wanted to test the equipment and get logistics running smoothly before publicizing that the coffee revolution had indeed occurred. It's no exaggeration to say that we built the cart and trailer from the ground up, so our setup is unique and there was really no way to test it without just showing up and making coffee. Anyway, after working through a couple of minor hiccups, everyone is happy with how things are running and excited about building the business.

We are also in the process of setting up a survey here on Kickstarter so you can give us your addresses and we can send your gifts. Some things (t-shirts and mugs) are ready to go, while some gifts will take a little longer for us to put together. But fear not, you will get your Alchemy swag.

If you're local and would prefer to claim your gifts in person, that's great! If you visit the cart, we have Alchemy t-shirts and travel mugs ready, stickers on the way, and complimentary coffee drinks that are yours for the redeeming. 

The cart is open from 7-10:15ish, Monday thru Friday, at Biofuel Oasis on Ashby and Sacramento in Berkeley, so come see us and check out the business that YOU helped launch.

Thanks again, everyone!

-Alchemy Collective

PS We promise to do a better job of posting photos&updates on the blog/facebook/twitter/etc. so you out-of-towners can see our progress as well.