Homecoming
This post is something I’ve been thinking about writing for awhile now, and a cool Friday morning seems like the perfect time to do it. For those of you who have not heard the news, Argonaut had an incredible opportunity come our way to acquire Redeye Coffee. We’ve been the proud new owners of both their Midtown and Capital Circle locations since July 1st. This is an especially exciting acquisition because Redeye is actually where I started as a barista, and learned how to run a coffee shop when I managed the Midtown location for a couple of years. It’s also the place that taught me the power a coffee shop has to strengthen a community, and many of the relationships I made while working at Redeye have stayed with me to this day.
This exciting announcement coincided with a sadder one: making the decision to close our TOC location. It was not made lightly, but once the Redeye acquisition went from dream to reality, it became clear that we were not equipped to handle everything that meant without downsizing the current Argo operations. Our time at TOC was instrumental to us getting to where we are now, and we will be forever grateful for the opportunity they gave us 6 years ago when I was just a former coffee shop manager with a dream and a poorly written business plan. 6 years later, we are now almost 4 months into the post-acquisition era, and I have to say that we are pretty happy with how things are going.
Since acquiring Redeye, we have been working on several changes at both shops as we take the best each had to offer and combine it to create something even better. The changes have been a lot more noticeable at Redeye, as we have now:
Switched to making even more of our syrups in-house
Changed the food menu to mostly match Argo’s to provide a faster experience for our customers
Made some in-store design changes to the furniture and layout of the shops to provide more seating and easier access to our merchandise and bagged coffee / tea
As well as several less exciting behind-the-scenes changes that have worked to improve our systems and processes of how we run the shops
Argonaut’s Cascades location has also had some big changes since the acquisition, but not ones you might notice as easily:
We’ve now fully switched to using our in-house roasted espresso and coffee for all of our drinks
Changed up the way we make iced drinks slightly to make it a more pleasant drinking experience for our customers
Had an awesome mural painted in our breezeway
We still have so many fun changes planned over the next year, and I hope that you are as excited as I am to see them come to fruition. The support from our community is everything to us, and without you none of this would be possible. This may be a full-circle moment for me as an individual, but my hope is Argonaut and Redeye will use that circle as a launching pad into a brighter and even better future.