homebody diaries: work/life balance as a cafe owner, slowing down and getting back to routine

Here we are folks, first video of the new year. You know I was thinking, how do I want to start off this video? It's the first one, what if we did like a cinematic sequence, me making a pour over coffee, going to the cafe, make it super cool. And then I took one second, took a step back, I'm not that guy. I was never that guy, nor do I really want to be that guy. So here we are, starting the vlog in the car. I'm gonna go grab some coffee with a friend and just doing what we do. Hope y'all had a great holidays and new year. If you did absolutely nothing, I love that. I love it. Alright folks, let's get going. This is my famous recommendation. Not the sandwich girl. I'm the OG sandwich girl. For some reason when I post a sandwich, people go psycho. The egg looks crazy. It's like a dill dinghy. It has a pink sauce on it. It has a pop of pepper on it. Good check. My, she got on my, oh my gosh. My turtleneck is from Reformation and this jacket is Oakenport. Pants are from Cotton, which I love. Shoes are Cezanne, these nice little loafers. And then the bag is also my baby from Reformation. Hat and shirt is from Cowdog. Jacket's from California Arts. Wait, pants are also from Cotton. And then boots are from London Air. Where's the Jolie? Jolie belt. Oh. Cowdog hat and shirt. Look, this. Wait, is that new? Yeah. I haven't seen that before. Oh yeah, we saw that on Instagram. What would you say? I do like black style. I do like comforting things. Comforting black excellence. Yeah, let's go. Okay, bye. Yesterday was the first day in a long time that I wasn't at the cafe. Um, actually that's not true. I was at the cafe in the morning, but you know, I wasn't there for service. I don't know if you saw the shorts that I uploaded, but essentially after Christmas, actually Christmas day, Ryan and I both worked just ourselves. Um, and it was hectic, but the week after that, like the last week of December, first week in January, um, our staff had a week of holiday pay time off, which meant that it was just Ryan and myself working for that entire week. And it was a lot. Hold on. Let me have some coffee first. Yeah, it was a lot. Cause when there's only two people working at a time and there's a constant line out the door from open to close, you don't really get a chance to stop or even pause because the second you think about pausing, the dishes are piling up. Um, and we could have just said like, Hey, we're just doing to-go drinks only. I think that's what it, what initially we were planning, but just the, you know, the cozy vibes of being able to like have a nice warm glass and like stay in, chat with your friends. Um, we wanted that as well. We just said like the regular full service, glassware, tableside waters, whenever we could. And yeah, we just made it work. Definitely couldn't have done it with anybody else, um, other than Ryan. And honestly, it was actually not that bad. Um, I think because everyone still was like, had the residual kindness from the holidays. So everyone was actually quite excited for us that we were busy. Um, yeah, it just felt like the community really supported us and they were just very, very patient, which we appreciated because, you know, sometimes people were waiting like 30 minutes in line to order. Um, but thankfully, once people ordered, we were pretty quick with getting the drinks out, like within less than three, four minutes. Um, although I think this was, was it Christmas day or possibly New Year's day that we were working because we were one of the few places that were open, people were ordering drinks. Like people were ordering like six to eight drinks per order sometimes. Yeah. You just want to scream internally, but like, what can you do? We're not going to put like a drink limit on your order. Right? Anyways, we made it through our staff are back in town. Ryan is now able to just pop in and pop out. I'm going to head over in the afternoon as well. That was kind of our holidays. Um, which honestly we didn't mind because, you know, like I mentioned in the Christmas vlog, like right now we're at a stage in our life where we are able to do this, where we are able to give our staff a week time off and for us to just work the cafe. Um, you know, so why not? So that's what we did not trying to endorse any type of like toxic hustle culture. Um, I'm just saying that's what we did because that's what we had to do. Well, yeah, it just felt really good to get back into routine and I just, I just love my routine. Like I just love chilling at home, getting my little laptop work done. I do have to do a ton of admin today, payroll taxes, all the boring stuff, but you know, I get to do it at home with this little guy. Hold on. Hi Jasper. Jasper you're turning what? Eight or nine this year? Oh my old man. My old man. So sad. Anyways, what am I thinking about this? Jasper, you know, you got an entire cafe named after you. Not just a cafe, a brand. Cowdog, you are a brand. People love you. We have this like Polaroid of Jasper, um, at the front tail so people know what cowdog means. Jasper, people love you. Everyone loves you. Yes. I'm just going to get some work done at home and then I'm heading minutes of conditioning, bunch of different equipment and it was good. It was very much needed, but Holy shit. Oh my goodness. Let's go to the cafe. Grab a little, maybe a little matcha, a little coffee, maybe a hojicha. Getting a little late for any more caffeine, but man, I feel good though. I feel great. Okay. I miss this. Hi to the vlog. Hey guys, we just got closed right now. So I'm just gonna kick y'all out. Thanks so much. Have a good night. Thank you. See ya. Have a good day. Hi. For Charlie? Awesome. Thank you so much. Service started. We got in and they tried following us in and we're like, we need to stay there. Good morning folks. Say good morning. Good morning. How does it feel to not go to the cafe first thing in the morning for the first time in a while? It's been a good long while. It was nice to sleep in. Yes. Very nice. Very nice. Uh, this morning we are checking out a new-ish cafe. Actually, I think they opened around the same time we opened. Slow? Yeah. Sometime like late summer maybe. Yeah. But yeah, this is probably, can't remember the last time both of us weren't at the cafe to open. It's been a while. It's been a while. What a beautiful morning. Wow. Here we are folks. Slow coffee. Thank you. See ya. All right, next up, we're both heading to Kowtow. Ryan's working. I have a meeting there. Coffee number two. Probably also going to get a drip coffee. Maybe ice coffee. Our ice coffee I think is quite underrated. Our batch brew as well. I guess the strawberry matcha, the pistachio matcha, the cookie butter latte. But y'all, do not sleep on the regular regular coffee. Like the espresso with a little milk. Solid. The best batch brew in the city. Or it's up there. It's definitely top three for sure. Like not even biased. It's got to be top three. All right. Revolutionary product called Mountain. And if you want to snatch jawline and the best night's sleep of your life, the longest you'll ever spend in REM. Wait. Wait, now you're actually putting it on. Put it on. Stunning. Wait, so cute.