What nots of a former coffee house guy

Welcome to random bon mots from a guy that used to own the best darn coffee house in Union City, CA

Monday, March 28, 2011

Our Coffee Blends

We get our coffees roasted from McLaughlin Coffee. They are a great company to work with and oh have we bothered them a bit.

We carry quite a few of their coffees, and also our own proprietary blends. A short history on some of the blends.

Java Dawgz blend is named after the Java Dawgz group, that meet at Paddy's on Fridays. They are a great bunch of people, almost all in the vet industry, working with animals, either on their own or with zoos etc.

Twiga Blend was derived talking to some members of the Java Dawgz Group. Twiga is a giraffe in the Oakland Zoo, and aptly, this blend is a blend of coffees from the Giraffe migration path in Africa.

Tres Felinos is a blend of Latin American Coffees, and this was inspired actually by a radio commercial. Yes, we do listen to the radio.

Reti blend is in a round about way, one of the by products during the testing stages of Twiga. It tastes great as an Espresso drink or an afternoon coffee drink. So what is Reti ? Depending on whom you talk to, Reti means Sand in Sanskrit, Reti means Grassy Plain, meadow land in Hungarian, and either way, it conveys the smoothness of the blend.

Namaste blend was designed by one of our colleagues. And it conveys the simplicity and complexity of the coffee bean. Namaste is Hindi for "Greetings", and given the context and personalities involved, it can be a simple form of greeting or a highly respected and revered form of greeting.

Zombie blend is another blend designed by one our colleagues, and boy can it make the Zombies walk straight ??? :)

What is our purpose and mission ?

And it all started rather innocuously. Constructions costs and over runs left us with no alternative but to bite the bullet and thrown open the doors without a soft opening or a grand opening. Marketing budget was nothing but a wonderful joke.

And despite all that, here we are, still living up to our purpose and mission. It is always about providing the best service, in a most pleasing and humble manner. It is about providing you with a good beverage of your choice. Encourage and nurture the talent that exists in the neighbourhood. Promote civic and social responsibility. Be a friend, philosopher and guide to the youth and to everyone else. Listen and grow with the feedback. And most important of all, banning the word NO from the lexicon.

We have been fortunate to have really good colleagues to work with who have expounded and adhered to our purpose and mission. And we trust, that you have had no recourse for complaints.

Yes, we have erred and strayed in our purpose. Circumstances dictated that we do so. It is a reflection on the frailty of the human in us all.

8 years and counting

Paddy's Coffee House has been around for 8 years and more. Having just starting writing about our experiences, it's difficult to encapsulate 8 years of stories in such a short span, so bear with us while we unravel the threads of our memory.

During this 8 years, we have become a part and parcel of the community, and we fervently hope that it is for the better. We have involved ourselves in promoting and encouraging local arts and talent. We were quite taken aback at the abundance of talent in the neighbourhood. And it warms the cockles of our heart that the community counts on us to keep this talent flowing, and we promise you, we will not render it asunder.

In these past 8 years, we have seen relationships made, relationships broken, marriages, divorces, childbirth, grand parent hood, graduations, promotions et all, in short the complete complement of the community. And through it all, we have made innumerable friends, and we continue to remain friends.

Thursday, March 24, 2011

So why Paddy's

We are always asked about the history and reason behind Paddy's. Why quit the software industry and venture into this ? And why in the world, do we have to be so ruddy cheerful at 5 in the morning ?

Having bumbled around in the software industry for nigh on 20 years, figured the time was ripe for change. Always liked coffee and hanging out at coffee houses, so that was a logical decision. Once that was made, apprenticed nay volunteered at local coffee houses and restaurants, got some ins and outs, and then decided to start our own.

Every thing about coffee houses is location, location, location. Drove around looking for an ideal location, and finally found our ideal location

Started the build out in 2002, and with time and money running out with construction costs and and other delays, we decided to plunge in and open our doors and thus on February 1st 2003, Paddy's arrived in Old Alvarado, Union City.

Our first customer was Ruben Uriarte. And yes, he has been a loyal supporter and friend ever since.

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Facebook, Twitter and such

You can get daily updates about your favourite coffee house, Paddy's, on Facebook, Twitter. We are also listed on Foursquare, Yelp, Google Places and other social media sites.

Follow us there. And don't forget, we have specials listed if you check in via Facebook, Yelp or Foursquare.

Corporate Book Stores closing in Union City and Fremont

First there were independent book stores, then came the corporate book stores which caused the demise of the independent book stores. Now in a moment of bitter irony, the corporate book stores have shuttered their doors as well. That leaves Union City, Fremont, Milpitas, essentially the 880 corridor with fewer book stores.

We know students have been using those cafes as a study venue. We welcome those students at Paddy's. If you were having book reading nights or poetry nights, come by Paddy's.

One of the favourite activities was going to those book stores and browsing through books. That is now a thing of the past. The thing of the future is book exchanges at Paddy's. We got a lot of feedback and that led us to having a book exchange. April 9th and 10th will be Paddy's Book Exchange

Book drop offs start April 8th. All remaining books will be donated to the Union City Library. We hope to see you there and hope to continue this every month.

No more music at Paddy's

Ever since we opened 8 years ago, we prided ourselves in keeping our doors open for the community to perform music in our venue. We have seen our fair share of musical talent pass through our doors. Unfortunately, now this is all going to be a distant memory. We have been asked in not so many words by ASCAP (one of the licensing authorities) to stop performances or pay them licensing fees. Their main fear is that copyrighted songs may be performed and they are not being suitably reimbursed.

We cannot police and dictate what songs should be performed, else we would be at severe legal risk. Given the fact that we are already paying BMI, we cannot afford to pay ASCAP as well and any other entity that might arise. Hence we have taken the painful decision to stop all musical performances at Paddy's. It is a big loss to the community, but we hope everyone understands our plight.

To know further about it, there was a very article about the predicament in The Argus Sunday 20th March,

Hello world

In a classic geek world, the first program you learn to write in any programming language is the "Hello World" program. It is a simple program, consisting pretty much being able to print out Hello World. Thank you Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie for introducing this program to legions of C programmers.

Not that we are currently programming in C, but keeping to our geekiness :) :) Enjoy the blog for what it is worth.