Blog – Bikeeny caffe at Malden Center – Pastries, Breakfast Sandwiches

Hey you.

This is Serg. I live in Malden, MA and I work in a local cafe.

It wasn’t until recently that I started thinking about why I do certain things. Why do anything?! Or even get out of bed. What’s the end goal?! Not looking for the answer to the meaning of life here, nobody can give me that. I don’t think. There was a guy on TV once that sounded promising. Too bad I never called that 1-800 number.

In Moldova there’s a saying about people with anti-social behavior: “that person doesn’t have seven years from home“. The literal translation doesn’t tell you much. What it really means is that person is lacking manners. He or she is a piece of work.

I’m a firm believer that the first seven years of one’s life are the most important. It will shape them forever. The moral compass has a direction by then and it will take a life-altering event to change its’ course. There’s several cultures that subscribe to that way of thinking.

I get most of how I am from my mom, and most of how I look from my dad. Why is that relevant to what I do every day ?
For the first period, most business owners ARE their business. And the other way around. There’s so many little decisions that had to be made, starting with the equipment inside and finishing with the kind of forks and spoons. Everything about our cafe is a representation of who we are.
It’s rare that someone has the luxury to just pay someone else to open them a business. I guess if you buy a franchise, it’s not that rare. However, there’s nothing on your part there that’s unique or innovative . You get the point. It would also defeat the purpose, in my opinion, you miss out on the journey that will reveal more about who you are than anything else. Still, it’s not for everyone. But I digress.

I have a friend that’s very successful. And I measure success differently than most people. The money component is important, just not THE most important aspect. It doesn’t matter if you’re not happy. There’s studies that support that fact. After a certain level of income, the person making more money doesn’t necessarily become happier. My grandfather lived in a rural area his whole life and he had enough. And never complained. He didn’t have a lot of money, but he had the love and respect of those around him. That’s more important for a happy life than anything, in my opinion.
So this successful friend of mine will say his core values at any given time, throughout a conversation, and the values are numbered. Depends on what the situation calls for. I asked him about it and he told me how he operates. Every time he makes a decision, he runs that decision by his 8 core values. If it contradicts with any of them, he doesn’t do it. That’s the compass I was talking about and what integrity is all about.

Let me try that.

I realized I was already doing things in my life according to a set of values I have. I just never wrote them down until a few days ago. Here’s my 10 core values.

Health & Family come first.
How you do anything is how you do everything.
Value relationships over possessions.
Do more with less. Work harder. (“If a problem can be solved with money, then that’s not a problem, it’s an expense”).
If it’s not a HELL YES then it’s a NO. (when judging opportunities, new relationships & partnerships)
Make commitments and follow through at all times.
Always keep moving.
Seek discomfort.
Always look on the bright side of life (just like the song)
There’s always something I don’t know; yet.

This is it. This is who I am. Now you know everything. This is how I make friends, how I judge a situation and what to do at any given time.

I know the title of this post is designed to make you want click on it. I’m sorry.
“Why you have to define your core values now.” That would be too easy, no?! Our whole life, we’re waiting for someone to give us the answers, it’s easier this way. After all, our brains try to be as energy efficient as possible. I was talking to a lady on the phone the other day about something. Don’t clearly remember what it was. I’ve never met this person and she was telling me about my “obligations this and that”. That’s when I stopped listening. “I don’t have an obligation to do anything“, I tell her. She didn’t like that. Oh well. That’s not entirely true: I have an obligation to die and pay taxes. That’s it. Hopefully, the former happens later rather than sooner. I like to ask forgiveness rather than permission on most other actions I take.
The point of this whole paragraph is this: Don’t let anyone tell you what you HAVE to do. It’s a good idea to write down your core values, though. It will help you understand better why you do what you do. Deep down, you know already. A bit of self-awareness never hurt anyone. And it’s more useful on paper.

I plan on putting my 10 values on my wall and look at them every day. It’s important I never forget them, especially the first one.

Do you know what your core values are? Share them below. I read all comments, I promise.

Evelina, myself and my mom, Maria, sometime last year.

Thank you kindly for reading all the way to the end. I hope I’ve earned your subscription.

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November 15, 2019November 21, 2019

7 Lessons Learned in 18 Months of Owning a Cafe

“If we waited for perfect weather, we’d never leave the house” unknown

Hey there,
This is coffee with Serg. The blog. I’m working on a new cafe concept in Malden, Massachusetts.

This blog post is about what I’ve learned in a year and a half of owning a food establishment.
Spoiler alert: Opening a cafe was 100 times harder than I thought.
If someone were to tell me: here, follow these 1397 steps and at the end you’ll have a coffee shop, don’t know if I would have started a food establishment. If you’re thinking about it: Don’t do it. There are 100 better ways to make money.

Good and bad. Right or wrong. Up or down. There are a lot of things I’ve learned in the last 18 months.
Here’s a few:

1. The right people are worth everything.

If you haven’t read the book “The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It” by Michael Gerber, I’m jealous. You get to experience it for the first time. It has over 1500 FIVE star reviews. It says things like this: “If you’re a small business owner or thinking of becoming one, this book is for you.” It is A MUST for anyone thinking about opening a small business.

Personal Core Value nr. 3: Value relationships over possessions.
Paraphrasing a much smarter man: A company is nothing more than a group of people coming together to create a product or service.

2. You’re going to fail — and that’s OK.

As a business owner, you fix things. By definition, you focus on systems that don’t work. Because no one else is going to do it. If something works, then someone else can do it. Probably better. There are only two trajectories that a business has: it either goes up or it goes down. If you stay the same, you’re declining.

Wat u gon’ do? Break now, fix later.

Let your team fail and learn from the mistakes.

3. Time is your most valuable resource.

“I’m busy” is an excuse I stopped making recently. I have time for my family and friends. I make time for things that are important to me. I find time to eat, sleep, rave, repeat.

Core value nr 5: Say YES only to things that get me out of bed in the morning.

I keep a tight calendar, I like people that are on time. Extra brownie points if you’re a morning riser. (my wife is not)

4. Communication can prevent or fix almost any problem.

I don’t remember where I read this. I don’t have kids yet, and when I do, I have to remember this guys’ advise. I apply it to my close relationships.

If a family member starts complaining, I ask them:
Do you want me to just listen, give you advise, or do something about it?
80% of the time, they want me to listen.
If I hear the same problem three times, I get involved.

5. Perfection is the enemy of progress.

oh boi.
I’m a serious, professional procrastinator.
It’s 1:46 AM as I’m writing this. I promised my peeps a blog post by 5AM and I will deliver. Won’t be perfect, for sure. I have to constantly remind myself:
Don’t let perfect get in the way of good enough.

6. All ideas must be rooted in practicality.

What’s the end result ?!

To be happy. I made a decision to do things that make me happy. There will be aspects of my job that are unpleasant (particularly firing), but are few and far apart.

Because of my “CEO” personality, I tend to a start a new project as soon as I’m done with the first one. I’m lucky to have a wife that helps implement those things.
Most of the time though, she is behind me to pick up the pieces.
Thank you, Evelina.

7. There is always more you can be doing to keep learning.

Do more. Work harder. Casey Neistat

You can’t teach someone who knows it all. My peeps are constantly improving. They be reading books, listening to Audible and whatnot. Always improving.
Be the change you wish to see in the world Famous cliche phrase (but true)
If you don’t move forward, you’re moving backward.

Thank you for reading this far.

There are obviously more than 7 things that I’ve learned over the past year and a half. Waaaaaaaaay more. The reason I chose these seven is simple. Simple, simple, reason.
This article is good. I don’t know much about the author, though.

DISCLAIMER:
Some of the hyperlinks in this blog are Amazon affiliated.
Supposedly, Bikeeny LLC is going to get paid if you use those links to buy product.
We’ll see about that. I’m still figuring out what website “cookies” are.
The kicker: It cost YOU the same as if you were to NOT use these custom links.
Sure.
As my father, one the most skeptical people out there would say:
I will be the judge of that ! or some Romanian translated version of it.
If you’ve seen an Amazon associates account, under one’s profile’s settings, you can choose to get paid by check. I set the Minimum payment threshold to $122,708.13. That means that we don’t get paid until the balance hits that. I believe we can do it by 2021.
Let’s hope that Elon keeps the Tesla Model X price the same.
(plus taxes & fees).

Maybe share this with your World Class journalist friends. Specifically with those at the New York Times. More specifically with Dean Baquet.
Or maybe you know someone who works with Marty Baron. Send them my way.
If not, no big deal.
U do u …

Thank you Amber for this lovely gesture.

Next time (November 22) we’re going to talk about core values. And the values in my close circle.
Next post will go something like this:
Why you have to define your core values now.

Find out when the next blog drops:

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November 8, 2019November 15, 2019

Ask me why our coffee price is going up by 10 cents

“Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t”. idiom

Dear Square,

It’s not you. It’s me.

Hi, this is Serg with Bikeeny caffe in Malden, MA.
I’m one of the owners here and CPS for the company. (Chief Problem Solver)

You’re reading this wondering why this little known cafe is increasing the coffee price by 10 cents.
A week ago, on November 1st, Square, our credit card company, changed our fee structure. From 2.75% to 2.6% + 10c per transaction.
For us, this change means up to $800 more per month in future transaction costs. Considerable and also Wild !

When you glance at the percentages, looks like a minor, reasonable change. And it is; unless you’re a cafe, ice-cream shop, a micro-brewery or any other business that has a lot of little transactions. What does this mean for the mom and pop shops of America? It’s devastating, if they have Square.

Truth is, I didn’t know until very recently that we’re going to have to raise our coffee price by 10 cents. Square totally blind sided us. Most of the credit card processors out there (PayPal is an exception) already charge a fixed fee per transaction PLUS a percentage. That is one of the reasons we chose Square in the first place.
Side note: PayPal is not made for restaurants.
Also, Ryan, the previous owner, sold us the register equipment, as well. One less thing to worry about. “We’ll deal with that later”.
Until today.

Great vendors are hard to come by. So when I find one, I give them all my business. Even if they’re more expensive, I find ways to give them more money. Time saved dealing with someone else’s broken system makes up for the cost. Trust is built over years.
“All a company is is a bunch of people together to create a product or service.”
If we do business with someone, usually, that means we have a good account representative with that company.
As with most things we all buy, it’s not just about how much it costs. The devil is in the details (or terms offered).

Fast forward 18+ months, we’re up and running. Growing and using ever more services from Square. They have a good product, at a reasonable price. Used to be more reasonable until recently, but hey, “What are you gonna do“?!

Here are the services that Square currently covers for us:

Point of Sale
Credit Card processing
Loyalty
Gift cards
Payroll with pay stubs & direct deposit
Tax reporting
Employee time cards
Customer profiles (CRM-ish)
Cash drawer management
Kitchen ticketing
Invoices
Card on file option
eCommerce
Reporting (really granular & clean)

I’m sure there’s some services that I missed. Our relationship with Square is deep. At some point or another we were considering financing and online marketing through them. We might still do it. After all, we have our customers’ profile built there.

I can’t image replacing Square right now. They got me. I called Square when I got the infamous email about the raise. We must have spent over an hour on the phone. I tried it all with them. I was patient and soft spoken at first. When that got me nowhere, I became firm, still pleading, though. I even asked to talk to a supervisor. I never do that. Nothing got me the result I wanted, not even flattery. Basically, we’re too small for them to care. The nice lady on the phone clearly explained: “
If you were to process more $$$ per year, Square would consider lowering the rate”.
“Very nice”. Do you think I chose to process less cc transactions over the past year?! We’ve a small business. We’re lucky our customers open our doors every day. The number of sales is irrelevant. We’re grateful for the “little” we got.
My nr. 1 goal is to continue to keep the doors open. I’m aware that two other coffee shop owners didn’t make it at this location before us.
What we offer is very different. I feel like we’re on the right track. We’re here to stay, dammit !

Here’s where Bikeeny caffe stands today:

We have nine people on our team. Six more than we started with
Sales are growing month over month
The generous loyalty program brings people back,
Customer retention is on point AND
Evelina, Octavian and I, get to take a modest salary.
Sweet.

We’ve come a long way and there’s no stopping here. Feels like we know our customers, somewhat. Maybe we don’t, so let me ask you:
If you were to change one thing about Bikeeny caffe, what would it be?
Please don’t ask me to leave the coffee price the same. It breaks my heart and unfortunately, I can’t do that. Anything else. Kindly write us a constructive comment below. I listen and take notes. If it’s interesting, we’ll implement and test your idea for a week.
“If it sells, it stays. If it don’t, it don’t”

I would like to continue to be able and pay our team members a wage. As a small neighborhood business, we count every penny that goes in and out. I’m involved in a number of ways with the community. I care.
My goal for 2020 is to pay the highest average wages in the industry. My vision has all of our team members make at least $20 per hour. I’m looking at ways to get there and taking the hard, necessary steps now. That’s why, when Governor Baker executed legislation to gradually raise the minimum wage to $15/hr by 2023, we weren’t concerned at all. All for it. If we can’t pay our people a livable rate, we shouldn’t be in business. Period.

Over 80% of our transactions have coffee on the ticket. As of December 1st, three or so weeks from now, our coffee, hot or iced will be 10 cents more. I’m sorry.
It’s been a conflict between our commitment to provide the best value and keeping the cafe open.

I understand this might upset some of our customers. Rightfully so. We have become an integral part of their daily routine. Now, the consistency of that routine is being messed with. I wish there was another way. I hope you understand.

I’m happy to talk in person with anyone that is still confused or would like to know more about the whole situation. It came unexpectedly too fast.

Sincerely, Serg.

My future blogs should be less gloomy, I promise. This was something that I had to get off my chest. Thank you for listening.
Next post that’s coming:

7 lessons I’ve learned in 18 months of owning a coffee shop

It will come out by Friday, November 15.

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November 1, 2019November 8, 2019

How to drink the best coffee in the world

“ Every yawn is a silent scream for coffee ”

What’s the best coffee in the world?
The best coffee in the world is the one YOU like.

End of blog.
J.K. What does it mean ?!

Hi. I’m Serg, one of the owners of Bikeeny caffe. Thank you for reading my blog.

I worked behind a bar for a number of years. It was before they had high end whiskey spots and tons of micro-breweries. The average consumer did not care what they had in their glass.

Every once in a while we’d get someone order “the most expensive whiskey you got”…”on the rocks, with coke”.
Really?! I thought to myself. You’re going to add sugar water to this beautiful $28 a glass of aged whiskey. All right, man, you do you. I would serve it without a word, but I was frowning. He was trying to impress someone, most likely a Tinder date.

One day, my co-worker, Ricardo and I, got talking about that. He was more experienced behind the bar.
I would say:
– Isn’t it a waste for someone to order expensive booze and mix it with coke? It ruins the flavor, you can’t tell the difference. I might as well pour them our cheapest option instead.
– It’s not. Ricardo would say. Who are you to tell that guy what to like? He works hard to earn his money. And he decided to spend it here and help pay your rent. To him, that drink is his reward for a long week at work. It’s the best, FOR HIM. Is it a waste?! Maybe, but that’s YOUR unsolicited opinion. Now, get back to work. Oh, Ricky…
He had a valid point.

It stuck with me and I finally got it.

“Do not judge and you will not be judged.” Luke 6:37

Here’s another case study on the matter:
What’s your favorite food? i ask u
–Pizza.
–You’re wrong.
THE END.

Who’s the pretentious one in this exercise??? ME.
We all have different tastes and that’s what makes us unique. It’d be pretty boring if we all liked the same things. Looked the same and talked the same. Big companies would have a much easier time marketing to us, for sure.

In the years behind the bar, I’ve learned to avoid conversations about: politics, religion and money. Everyone has an opinion about it. And their opinion is very strong. And that opinion is the most correct one (“the correctest”)

Why am I telling you all this?! You clicked on this because u want to know how do drink the best coffee in the world.

It’s simple. You find a coffee that you REALLY like and you drink that every day. The machinery it’s made with, delivery method, temperature or sweetness level is irrelevant. It’s the best, to YOU.

For me, these days, it’s pour over (or french press) House Blend medium roast, black. In the summer I go for the same over ice, or Cold Brew.

I’m drinking one right now. It’s rich without being bitter. Good coffee should leave a pleasant aftertaste. I’m tasting chocolate notes with a hint of caramel. I’m taking my taking with every sip. I love the smell and taste during and after it’s gone.

Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
The best coffee in the world is the one YOU like.

“Stay thirsty, my friends.”
The most interesting man in the world

Hey there. If you got this far, you’re awesome. Thank you for reading all the way to the end.
This is my first blog post EVER. I realized I was more nervous to release it than I’d like to admit. Must have edited 100 times. It’s out now, so no going back. I will inevitably get better. Please stick around. If there’s any topics you are curious about, feel free to comment below.

I’m giving myself until November 8 for the next one, so please keep me accountable.

It will be called:
Ask me why our coffee price is going up by 10c

If you haven’t already, you might want to sign up to get notified about it. On top of the blog, I’m working with MATV on a talk-show and podcast called Coffee with Serg. Stay tuned for that.

Get notified about the next blog:

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October 16, 2019November 15, 2019

A blog is born. Almost

“All big companies started as a small, neighborhood business” – unknown

Hey there, beautiful. Inquisitive soul.

This is Serg.

This blog is where I’m going to go in depth on what it means to be an owner-operator of a small business. It’s going to be about topics I’m interested in, I know you out there are too. There are A LOT of projects, big and small, that I’m involved with, every single day: marketing, research & development, business optimization, TV production, accounting and hiring; just to name a few.

The first blog entry will be:
“How to drink the best coffee in the world every day”
I’m giving myself ’til November 1st, 2019. No way I’ll miss that deadline. It’s coming together nicely, so it might drop sooner.

If you’d like to be notified when it’s out, please enter your email below. I’m giving away free stuff to the first 100 subscribers.

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If you’d rather not, that’s cool too. Don’t let others tell you how to live your life.
I can only suggest you check this page every once in a while. You’re in for a surprise.