One of my 2021 highlights was our merchandise collaboration with local artist Orlie Kapitulnik.

It’s time of another “year in review” blog post. After the devastation of 2020, 2021 was a year of healing and growth here at Andytown.

When 2021 started, I met with my managers to talk about mindset as we entered a new year. 2020 was a year of reacting—we were reacting to the pandemic, we were reacting to the call for racial justice in America, we were reacting instead of proactively building the company we wanted to work at. While this was necessary to get through the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was not how we wanted to operate in the long term. As we entered 2021, we decided to shift our mindset from being reactionary to being proactive so we could lay a strong foundation for the future of Andytown.

1. Keeping Our Team Safe As The Pandemic Continues

The #1 focus of operating a business during a pandemic (and well, all the time) should be employee safety. Being in the service industry, we started Andytown to be a comfortable place for neighbors to come together. But during a pandemic, it’s not safe for strangers to sit at a communal table, or to linger for too long indoors and unmasked. This adjustment has been devastating to the hospitality industry. We’ve watched as our friends have loosened restrictions on their businesses only to have to shut down as one of their employees catches COVID at work. It’s an awful situation to be in—sacrificing customer experience for the sake of safety—but it’s a responsibility we have for our team and our community.

If you’ve visited our cafes recently, you’ve probably noticed that we haven’t changed much since altering our service model in 2020. We are still serving customers from the window, we haven’t added back any cafe seating—indoor or outdoor. All of our employees are still wearing masks at work, and our plexiglass protections remain to keep a physical barrier between ourselves and the public. If and when we are ready to change any of our procedures, we will be doing so with the input of our team. Every quarter, we send out surveys on reopening to get our team’s anonymous feedback on whether they feel comfortable lifting certain restrictions. Based on this feedback from frontline employees as well as the health and safety guidance from the SFDPH, we will reassess our customer-facing protocols. This collaborative approach to COVID-19 safety has allowed us to support our frontline workers better than following government guidance alone.

What customers cannot see is our robust internal systems we have in place for contact tracing COVID exposures to prevent employees from potentially spreading or catching COVID at work. Our HR Coordinator, Carver Frazier, has spent a ton of time educating himself on the safest workplace practices according to the CDC and OSHA guidance. Every quarter, Carver performs COVID Safety Inspections at each location—making sure that every department is still following the protocols of mask wearing and daily temperature checking. He also checks for ways that we can further protect ourselves from COVID exposure from the public—adding plexiglass , making sure that signage is up to date, and hand sanitizer is plentiful.

I got my first COVID vaccine in February of this year.

Carver’s best work has been done in the area of employee support. When the COVID-19 vaccine became available for food workers earlier this year, he worked tirelessly to make sure that everyone got an appointment and was able to take paid time off work to get their shot and recover. If an employee has a close contact with someone who has tested positive, Carver leaps to action to make sure they follow the quarantine guidance from the CDC and have resources for support, testing, and understand how to use their Andytown PTO.

All of this work has been extremely time consuming, and I’ve definitely gotten some complaints from customers that we are “overreacting” and that we should be “returning to normal.” But I am proud to say that our strict policies and protocols have protected us from having to shut down any of our cafes this year.

Cheers to enjoying a Snowy Plover on the rooftop park at the Transbay Terminal!

2. Reopening 181 Fremont

When the pandemic hit, we had to close our cafe at 181 Fremont. Located on the park-level of the Transbay Terminal Park, our 181 Fremont cafe is our downtown flagship and was constantly bustling with people pre-pandemic. As offices transitioned to work-from-home in 2020, we closed our 181 Fremont cafe. But in August of 2021, we finally reopened!

The best part about the reopening of 181 Fremont was that we were able to bring back many of our team members who were working when we shut down in 2020. Clare, Jack, and Rebekah returned and are now acting as the General Manager, Cafe Trainer, and Bakery Assistant Manager. We are so proud of our team at 181 Fremont and we encourage you to visit them and enjoy some of Rebekah’s amazing pastries and some coffee of course.

It was a slow start when we reopened in August, but now we are happy to see our regular customers back and visiting on a daily basis. As more offices reopen downtown in 2022, we are excited to see our once-busy downtown cafe return to its former glory.

3. Fundraisers & Community Support

One of my favorite parts about Andytown has been the opportunities we have had to support our community through fundraisers or events over the years. In 2021, we raised thousands of dollars for non-profits that are helping our community, and we’ve lent our support to local efforts to clean our coastline.

In March, we raised $1183 for Stop AAPI Hate—a coalition that tracks and responds to incidents of hate, violence, harassment, discrimination, shunning, and child bullying against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the United States. Over the summer, we raised over $750 for the Transgender District in San Francisco and over $500 for the Last Prisoner Project. In December, our Bakers Against Racism bake sale raised $240 for the Sogorea Te' Land Trust and $210 for Sunset Youth Services. Throughout the year, we raised an additional $1822 for Masks For All CA to provide handmade facial masks for those who need it most, at zero cost to them.

2021 saw the return of regular beach clean ups at Ocean Beach. Working with Sea Hugger, we donated coffee to volunteers picking up garbage on the beach. Over on Taraval, our cafe General Manager, Shawn Baird, worked with Sea Hugger, White Cap, and Tunnel Records to do a beach cleanup with an afterparty at White Cap (complete with a coffee cocktail. Yum!). We've also been able to donate coffee to local schools again, participating in their annual auctions, raffles, and events as they come up. If you’d like us to donate to your local school or community organization, email info@andytownsf.com.

4. Fun Collaborations With Partners Big & Small

Ok, if you told me a year ago that Andytown would have a jingle I would have thought you were crazy. But here we are closing out 2021 with an official 15-second jingle made for us by American Express. This was definitely our biggest partnership of 2021—and absolutely the funniest—but it’s not our only collaboration. Let’s recap some of our favorites.

Tunnel Records x Andytown @ 181 Fremont

For the lead up to the holidays, we partnered with Ben at Tunnel Records to offer a curated selection of records and a limited run of collaboration t-shirts at our 181 Fremont cafe. He even let us pick a few of our favorite records to put on the shelf (The Stone Roses and Prince, of course).

Farms to Grow CSA Box Pick Up Location

in 2020, we got to know the folks at Farms to Grow when we partnered with them for our first Bakers Against Racism. Farms To Grow’s mission is to assist African American farmers and other under-served farmers/gardeners maintain and create sustainable farms and spaces to grow food and motivate the next generation of farmers to grow sustainably and with the community in mind. This year, we had the pleasure of working with them again as a CSA box pick up site. Twice a month, they deliver bags of fresh produce to our Lawton Cafe. Sign up for their CSA to get a bag for yourself!

Whiskey and coffee and soda bread. Is there anything better?

Soda Bread and Irish Coffees With Casements Bar

Over in the Mission District, our friend Gillian has the best selection of artisanal spirits from small distilleries in Ireland. When St. Patrick’s Day rolled around this year, we worked with her to offer a DIY soda farl and Irish coffee kit. Visit Gillian at Casements Bar to try her “Belfast Coffee” made with Andytown cold brew, poitín (Irish moonshine), and fresh cream.

Catracha Crafts from Santa Elena, Honduras

For the holidays, we partnered with Catracha to sell their handmade keychains and tote bags on our website. Each tote bag is embroidered with imagery of coffee plants, a snowy plover, or a combination of two. The keychains are made with traditional Honduran fabric and packed with the dried shells of coffee beans—called parchment—which is a byproduct of coffee farming. We still have some of their keychains and tote bags in stock, so grab them before they are gone!

Orlie created Roger the raccoon—our newest addition to our collection of neighborhood animals.

Merchandise Collaboration With Local Artist Orlie Kapitulnik

We are absolutely obsessed with our new merchandise, designed by Orlie Kapitlunik. Together with Andytown Director of Coffee Production and Logistics, Corey Turner, Orlie designed a whole new line of merch for us. We interviewed Orlie for our blog in November, read more about the collaboration there.

5. Events Were Back (A Little Bit!)

In March 2020, all events were immediately canceled. Our Events Manager, Heysel Diaz, transitioned to fulfilling Coffee For Heroes orders from the Roastery before eventually stepping in to manage our Lawton cafe. In 2021, we got to dust off our events gear and make coffee for the masses again at Flower Piano in Golden Gate Park. This time, we were able to break in our brand new coffee trailer—and we are so excited to use it more in 2022.

Valeria working the backstage coffee bar at 2021 Outside Lands.

In addition to Flower Piano, we had the pleasure of making coffee backstage at the Outside Lands music festival in Golden Gate Park. Our little events cart got rolled into the very muddy polo fields to make coffee for music industry professionals. It was so fun to hear live music while making coffee. We’ll never forget Lizzo’s epic set!

6. Improving Systems For Employee Training and Support

A funny thing happens when a young, growing company (or society in general) comes to a grinding halt because of a global pandemic. Suddenly all of your faults come into focus and you have no choice but to address them. After the nationwide call for racial justice in 2020, we committed to doing better for our employees of color and made a number of changes to our company to address the issues the our BIPOC employees brought up. In 2021, we continued this effort by proactively creating a system for onboarding, training, and continually educating our team on how to make Andytown a welcoming place for all peoples to succeed.

In 2022, all new Andytown employees will be onboarded with this new system of training created by Vaneese Johnson and our HR Coordinator, Carver Frazier. The goal of this program is to give every employee and managers the tools they need to make Andytown an amazing place to work. We all must put in the work to actively create a safe space for all employees and customers, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or ability. In order to achieve this goal, we must constantly be educating ourselves and creating room to listen and improve.

2021 marked the first full year of Andytown implementing an quarterly anonymous review process for managers. These “360 Reviews” give a manager’s team a chance to safely and anonymously give feedback to us about their manager’s job performance. This process has been incredibly helpful for managers to receive feedback on how they can better lead their team, and it has been vital for me as a business owner to learn how to better support all Andytown employees. I am looking forward to continuing this program into 2022 and better refining it to continue supporting our employees and managers alike.

We gave a nod to supply chain issues in our 2021 merchandise with a container ship.

7. Overcoming Supply Chain Issues & Planning For the Future

Every week, Andytown managers have a short meeting to touch base on issues facing the company as well as new projects we may be working on. In fall of this year, I asked Corey Turner to sum up the supply chain issues facing them as the Director of Coffee Production and Logistics. Corey paused briefly and said “Well. Shit’s fucked.”

Corey’s candid comment is 100% totally spot on to describe all of the supply chain issues we’ve faced in 2021. Really, I could not have said it better myself so I asked Corey and Corazon Padilla, Andytown’s Director of Coffee Quality and Sourcing, to elaborate a bit and give some examples of some of the backflips they’ve had to do to keep coffee on our shelves.

“In August we totally ran out of our Colombia blend component. We had booked that one during the start of the pandemic when everything was uncertain, still thinking we had enough cushion to last until the mitaca or fly crop arrived. The port of Oakland was so backed up that the coffee ended up being routed to Houston and trucked to Oakland, where it sat for two days waiting to be unloaded. The eta went from one week to four and we were out for two days in the end. We almost couldn't produce Wind & Sea! But our vendors and team stepped up and we were able to pick it up and roast in the same day to fulfill orders on time!” - Corey Turner

“Booking extra coffee and planning our menu with delays in mind has helped us and our partners keep afloat. Some of our partners for our single origin coffees, including Goodel & Poda (Indonesia), Kalsada (Philippines), Beanspire (Thailand), and a new partner from a new origin for us (more information to come!) have all expressed their deepest apologies for delays that were beyond their control and their concerns for what’s to come as the bottleneck continues. All we can really do is plan ahead as best as we can, and problem solve if and when roadblocks present themselves. We’ve assured our partners that delays are no problem as we’ve planned for it all along and we are looking forward to continue working together in the upcoming harvests. So far, we’ve been able to have a successful launch of our first wet-hulled coffee from Indonesia, have released the Philippine coffees in time for the holidays, and we’ll soon releasing a new coffee from Thailand and a new partnership and origin for Andytown come spring time! Even with all the set backs, it’s a relief to count on having solid relationships and have things to look forward to in the new year.” -Corazon Padilla

2022 is going to bring some exciting changes to Lawton Street…

8. New Projects for 2022

We’ve been keeping a secret for a while. In April of 2020, we signed a lease for the retail space next door to our Lawton cafe. Our next-door neighbor, Alex Martins, had just moved to Hawaii and despite the uncertainty of COVID, we knew we needed to move on that space while it was available. We’ve been sitting on the vacant space for over a year while we focused on keeping our business open during the pandemic. Now, we are finally ready to move forward on the project. Sometime in 2022, we will be closing our Lawton cafe for an epic remodel. During the remodel, we will make sure that our service is disrupted as little as possible and that our team’s jobs will remain secure. The remodel will allow us to bake more breads and pastries, serve a higher volume of customers (shorter lines!), and expand our offerings. It’s going to take a while and we don’t have a timeline yet, but we are super stoked to show how much more we have to offer with a little more space.

In addition to our Lawton Street remodel, we are working on a number of new projects that I’m not quite ready to talk about yet. But I promise you, they will be epic, delicious, and very fun.

Thank you for reading this super long blog post. I can’t thank our customers enough for supporting us through the pandemic and beyond. I am so grateful that this is my job. I love Andytown—our team, our product, our community—and I am honored to be leading such a talented group of baristas, roasters, bakers, production assistants, cafe assistants, delivery drivers, and managers. I’m so excited to see what the future brings for Andytown in 2022 and beyond.

Happy new year!

- Lauren