On the Grind: My Coffee Shop

Last April, I had a dream that my March Madness Project was opening up a coffee shop in school. At first I thought this idea was ridiculous, especially because I don’t like to drink coffee. But over the next few months I thought about the idea and realized that this might be my only opportunity to open a small business, and learn to make all the drinks you can find in a coffee shop. I decided to go for it because I wanted to know: how hard is it to open and run a coffee shop? Over the next few months I planned my budget, tracked down all the tools I would need, and learned how to make espresso and steam milk. I wanted to open a coffee shop where students and teachers could get all the drinks they might buy at a regular coffee shop within the school building, and make it a place would enjoy going to and hopefully return to. On the Grind had a successfully eight day run, and taught me that running a coffee shop is much more stressful than I could have imagined.