I just got back from the Dream Inn with Baca, where we secured room blocks and pricing for the 2012 South Western Regional Barista Competition. We took a few iPhone shots, so you can see just how sweet this place is. Every room in the hotel has an ocean view, private balcony, and fridge (if you’ve ever competed, you know the fridge actually fits nicely in that sentence). The hotel is right on West Cliff Drive between two well loved Santa Cruz hotspots — the Boardwalk and Steamer Lane. Another big bonus: it’s just 1 mile from Downtown Santa Cruz, where we are planning to hold the event.
We will be opening up the group booking link sometime tomorrow, so keep an eye on our SWRBC 2012 webpage. We’ll also make it known in the comment section below, as well as through twitter and Facebook.
We can’t wait for everyone to get here, and we’ve already made great progress in lining up some amazing sponsors, events, parties and adventures. Stay tuned, and make your plans early. SWRBC is coming up quick!
2011 was a big year for us at VCR. We moved our roasting operations to a new, (much) larger facility that we completely revamped from a 100-year-old cannery building into a pretty sweet Headquarters. We built-out and opened 2 new retail stores – our kiosk at the Seabright Roastery and our “well-lit” Pacific Avenue store. We added some truly amazing people to our team and have even more en route (there will have been 4 babies born within 6 months!). We also were able to offer healthcare to our staff and their families. We spent countless hours/days/months in professional development, training both our own staff and our wonderful partners in wholesale.
It has really been a great year for learning in so many ways, with the acceleration of our Origin Development program and even the obsessively curated library that fuels much of our knowledge base. We sourced and roasted some spectacular coffees and cupped thousands and thousands of samples from all reaches of the world. We have developed incredible relationships at farm-level and amongst our coffee colleagues as well. We paid more for coffee this year then we ever have and are proud to have done so.
All in all, it has been an incredibly successful and inspiring (if not perspiring) year, and we’d like to say “Thank You” to all of those people who help define us. From our farmers and millers, to our importers and exporters, our wholesale partners, our retail and online customers, our friends in the biz from the UK to Norway, Canada, Australia, all across the US, and everywhere in between, and of course our families – including the greatest staff in the game. Thank you!
As far as 2012 goes… well, we’re looking to make it even better. We have some great projects and products in the works and look forward to sharing them with you.
So, see you next year – er, uh, tomorrow.
-VCR
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Happy Holidays, everyone! Here’s a reminder that our cafes will all be open on Christmas Eve, and only Seabright will be closed on Christmas day. Stop in for one of the last Holiday Blend cappuccinos of the year with your family and friends. It’s going to be a great time!
Here are the hours:
// December 24 //
Pacific Ave: 6AM-8PM
41st Ave: 7AM-5PM
Seabright: 7AM-2PM
// December 25 //
Pacific Ave: 7AM-2PM
41st Ave: 7AM-1PM
Seabright: CLOSED
We are really excited to announce a very limited run on two of the most incredible coffees in the world. We are offering Finca Los Lajones Geisha and Panama Elida Estate Green Tip Geisha for one day only. You can pre-order online now. All Geisha orders will roast and ship on Monday, December 19th, just in time to age out for your holiday festivities. These are half pound bags, and they will arrive in a custom tin specifically made for these 2 amazing coffees. Happy Holidays!
It’s not often that one of our coffees gets its own blog post, but the Ruthagati is absolutely insane right now. Pick up a bag at any of the cafes or on the website if you want to try one of the best coffees on the planet. Or stop into the new Pac Ave store and ask them to make you a pour-over with it. I’m sure you’ll love it. Here are our notes from the cupping lab: Apricot Nectar, Fudge, Syrupy
Enjoy!
We have a really exciting event tomorrow.
Graciano Cruz is one of our producers and he also coordinates a lot of really incredible coffees we buy out of Panama and El Salvador. He will be in town tomorrow and is going to do a presentation at our new Pacific Avenue cafe.
This is a rare opportunity to learn about coffee from a producer and coordinator who has extensive experience working with some of the best coffees in the world. Graciano will be speaking specifically about a small producer group project in northern El Salvador that he and Colby are working on together through our Direct Trade buying program.
This is a completely free event.
Where: 1540 Pacific Avenue
When: 4:00 pm, December 1st (tomorrow!)
We put some great gift packs up at Pacific Avenue yesterday. There are some seriously good deals in these things (at least 20% or more off), and there’s something for everyone on your list. So happy holidays and happy shopping!
Super fun day tomorrow! We’re opening our doors at 1540 Pacific Avenue at 7am. Our regular hours will be 6am-11pm daily, but this week is a little different than usual, so check out the hours below:
Tuesday : 7am-7pm (First day open)
Wednesday : 6am-11pm
Thursday : 7am-2pm (Thanksgiving)
Friday after : 6am-11pm
If you haven’t had a chance to see the place yet, here are some photos from our friends and family event on Saturday. We hope to see you downtown soon!
There’s a ton of great stuff going on around VCR these days. We have new locations in Seabright and Downtown, and the news just broke this week about Verve hosting the Southwestern Regional Barista Competition this coming March in Santa Cruz. And we have another bit of exciting news: Tomorrow is our 4 year anniversary!
We’re giving away free shots of espresso to everyone who comes in tomorrow and asks for one. You should probably swing by. It’s the perfect Saturday activity, other than maybe bike riding. But coffee and bike riding are at their best when together, so just combine your bike ride with a free shot of espresso from VCR… and BAM! Perfect Saturday. See you tomorrow for free espresso, and then we hope to see you next week at the new downtown store!
