04/04/2024
To Gracie’s Coffee Customers, Friends, Family, and Beyond,
My business, Gracie’s Coffee, achieved our first full year and 1/2 of operations at the end of March 2024. Completing this first year in business in 2023 that I had started efforts with when I was nineteen felt like a huge accomplishment. Finishing this year as a twenty-one-year-old felt incredible.
Gracie’s Coffee started as a way to provide coffee for Gypsum’s community that was otherwise, at the time, quite lacking. I have always believed that coffee is a powerful mode of connection from person to person. Sometimes, customers come to the coffee shop from a remote or solitary desk position where their coffee transaction with our barista is one of their only interactions in their day. I also had a firm belief that the only coffee-specific drive-thru in the Vail Valley would enable comfortability and efficiency for persons who would otherwise not have the time to stop by. I always say that my favorite customers are moms dropping their kids off at school, cars packed full, wearing their pajamas, and feeling so thankful for not having to get out of their car.
In our first year we returned a profit and broke even within three months. We are very proud of the way that the quality of our product and service has grown since we first opened and for the loyalty of our community and customers. We served 21,636 cups of coffee or other drinks and were open for 359 days in 2023.
I have employed a total of eight different young people, many Eagle Valley High School students and 2023 high school graduates. Over half of these young people are bi-lingual, which allows connection with our Spanish-speaking customers. I have always believed in a circular business ethics structure in which I treat my employees extremely well, so that they are happy and can treat customers well, and then in turn customers treat the business well. I have worked in many different places where this has not been the case, and feel proud to say that this is probably why Gracie’s Coffee has never experienced hardship with finding employees. We are fortunate to have people applying constantly, and have had to turn down so many applications because we are so consistently staffed with quality individuals.
I went to speak at local schools about how to start a business, including multiple Eagle Valley High School and Red Hill Elementary School classrooms, and had over 10 different classes come and visit my coffee hut for presentations. We served free coffee at events like Battle Mountain High School’s TedX Youth Event and worked with the Eagle County Sheriff's Department “Coffee with a Cop” program to serve coffee to the community while providing opportunities for conversation with local law enforcement. I served as a member on the board for the Gypsum Chamber of Commerce, and through this position hosted a job fair at my coffee hut’s location that made the front page of the Vail Daily in August 2023. I applied for and recently received a grant from the Colorado Enterprise Fund for my efforts in my first year of my small business. I have developed cold brew, whole bean bags, and canned lattes that are starting to be offered in multiple retailers throughout the Vail Valley. Distribution is expanding every month, and according to the Colorado Department of Public Health’s dairy department my canned latte will be one of the first local canned lattes in the state.
Through events I have served coffee free of charge at, events I have organized and hosted, and educational initiatives I have delivered, I have had a strong commitment to the Vail Valley. Through time that I spent growing up here and into my young adult life, it is evident how special of a place this is to live and how much communities here need support and connection.
Due to my energy and perseverance in the business world, I plan to still be growing professionally for years to come. My coffee hut will continue to grow and change, and I plan to carry the energy of the space that I have created forward into other business endeavors like my manufactured and distributed products.
My favorite accomplishment of Gracie’s Coffee that shares a testimonial to the information offered above is of one of our customers, Jenna. Jenna had been a regular customer of the coffee hut daily the entire time she was pregnant in 2023. What I hadn’t known is that Jenna was experiencing a really difficult pregnancy and that coming and getting coffee was one of the only things that helped her feel better. So, when her baby was born a few months ago, she decided to name her Gracie. I barely knew Jenna, other than her affinity for iced caramel lattes with extra caramel, but since then have become very close to her and baby Gracie. I consider this one of the greatest honors of my life.
I am so thankful for the way that my business has played an integral role in this community, and for the friends and family members and beyond who have supported me through it all. Owning this business as a young person has given me so much confidence, knowledge, and experience unlike anything i’ve ever done in my life. And i’m so appreciative for this community for letting me do so!
Love,
Gracie
