Seven Years of Andytown
Our Kickstarter video from 2013
Seven years. It seems like an eternity and yet it has gone by in a flash. Andytown’s journey started when I met Michael while we were working as baristas in 2008. Over the years, we would always talk about what our cafe would look like, all the while working as baristas around San Francisco. We always knew we wanted to have our own cafe, but it felt more like a pipe dream than an actual goal. Then in 2012, we signed the lease at what would become our Lawton location. The rent was cheap, the landlord didn’t ask too many questions, and it was only a couple of blocks from our apartment. We took the leap and never looked back.
We never thought Andytown would be successful. When we signed our lease in 2012, we had the landlord add a clause that we could terminate the lease at 3 years, because we thought 5 years was an outrageously long amount of time. Sure enough, by the end of our second year, we were renegotiating for a 10-year lease with 5 year options. Our vision had become a reality, and we knew we wanted to stay for a long time.
Four locations, two kids, and one pandemic later, Michael and I are still here. It’s an incredible feat in such a challenging business landscape, and we are grateful for every second of time we’ve spent working with our incredible team, and serving our neighborhood.
I’ve combed through the archives of Andytown’s photos to find some of my favorite moments from the past seven years. No one knows what the next seven years will bring.
Andytown when we signed the lease in 2012. We saw the potential, OK!?
Michael worked on site every day, with help from friends. I worked three jobs during this time to support us. We funded the build out with personal loans, credit card debt, a loan from Working Solutions, and a Kickstarter campaign.
We had to wait 6 months to close our walls after a PG&E hold up. This setback almost broke us.
The week before we opened, we held a friends and family day at the cafe for the people who supported us throughout the build out. This same group of friends would end up helping us on opening day—doing dishes and running drinks. We could not have survived without them.
Opening day with my friend Sandra. She ended up becoming our first barista, and eventually a roaster and green bean buyer. She now works at Royal Coffee in Oakland.
Halloween 2015. Every year, we give out candy at the Francis Scott Key Halloween parade.
When our son, Oisin, was a small baby, we would take him to the cafe at nap time. The white noise from the roaster and cafe made him fall asleep faster than any sleep routine.
Adam, Trevor, and Brenda serenade Andytown customers on our second birthday.
In 2016, we signed the lease for our cafe on Taraval and 46th Ave. Our friends came over and we ate Brother’s Pizza and covered the windows.
We also signed the lease for the Roastery on Taraval and 40th Ave.
Michael during the build out of the Taraval cafe.
Our Taraval cafes have our son’s hand or footprints on the floor.
This photo was taken on the day we installed the roaster. We still had enough room in the roasters for Oisin to ride his scooter around.
My sister, Sarah, with Oisin on opening day of our Taraval cafe.
Our neighbor John Lindsey from the Great Highway Gallery, Carolyn, Albert, and Cheyenne of Queer Wave Coffee at our fourth birthday party.
My cousin, Sam Durham, helps Michael install a horseshoe at our 181 Fremont cafe. Sam is a farrier in Sonoma and has made horse shoes for all of our cafes.
The day the Transbay Terminal Park opened at 181 Fremont, we were woefully understaffed and I worked bar with Jackie when I was 9 months pregnant.
We celebrated our fifth birthday with a surfboard raffle and DJ set from Alex and Michael. (And our latest addition, Sadie.)
Thanks to our generous customers, we spent our sixth birthday delivering coffee and pastries to local hospitals with our Coffee for Heroes program. Over the course of 4 months, we served over 14,000 frontline workers during the early stages of the pandemic.
Now, a year into a pandemic, we are so happy to continue serving our community. Thanks for getting to the end of this long blog post. Love y’all!
