Sustainability Dedication Award 2012

Of all the awards the Alley Cat Cafe has won, being acknowledged for our dedication to sustainability is the one I am most proud of.

When the idea of opening the cafe first popped into my brain, I am embarrassed to say I didn’t have a clue what “Fair Trade” was.  Of course as soon as I was educated on the subject, there was never any doubt that we would only serve coffee that was “traded fairly”.

Since opening, I have learned about chocolate, tea and sugar.  Some of those facts were uncomfortable to learn about.  I’m not sure what the statistics are now, but I was appalled to learn a few years ago that a huge percentage of the chocolate that is consumed in the United States is grown by slaves………SLAVES!  The next day I found a source of Fair Trade chocolate and have served it ever since.

We also serve only Fair Trade sugar and tea.

My next blog will go further into the different labels such as “Fair Trade” and “Direct Trade”  and “Fairly Traded”…. it’s all very confusing, I know.  But, when you take that sip of coffee from the Alley Cat Cafe, you can be sure of one thing:  the farmer that grew the coffee in your cup got a fair price for his labor.  And the chocolate that is in your mocha was not grown or harvested by SLAVES.  I feel good about that.

The Hatzell Team

As I’ve watched countless games of various forms of “ball”, I’ve seen what happens when the teamwork falls apart; when nobody is there to backup the 2nd baseman who misses a throw, or when no one is there to tip a missed shot into the basket.  When someone makes an error and teammates yell at them things start to unravel quickly.  I’ve also seen what happens when they support each other no matter what; they win championships.  That’s the kind of team we have at the Alley Cat Cafe.

I am so very blessed with our “team”.  Not only our employees who are amazing, but my family.  My husband, Bob,  listens to me when I’ve had a harder than normal day, he has never said, “well, maybe we should close the cafe”.  He is my go to guy when things break, sometimes in the middle of his day at his own job, he’s the guy that says, “you’ll feel better after you get some sleep”. He is my rock.

My kids…. My kids have supported me through bad days and good.  They were there to paint and mop and wipe my tears sometimes.  I’ve missed games, and not been able to make birthday cakes or cut the tree for Christmas until the night before when we cut down one in our front yard.  They’ve both worked long hours at the register and cleaning up at the end of the day.   My mother-in-law, God bless her, makes runs to Chico whenever I need supplies, cooks dinner for us sometimes when I’m so tired we would have just eaten cereal, and she’s done her share of dishes too.

Team Alley Cat at Sparkle

One of the things I am very proud of is being able to provide jobs in our small town.  We’ve had a lot of employees over the years, all have had their good points and shortcomings.  I have learned from them all.  The group we have working at the Alley Cat now is the most cohesive group we’ve ever had, it’s a solid team.  We have each other’s backs, they never complain about extra work, even when I ask them to dress like “Who’s from Whoville for Sparkle”, they listen to instructions and know what their job is.  They each believe in the value of what we are doing at the Alley Cat. I never have to wonder if someone will show up for their shift and I look forward to seeing each one of them everyday and think of them as family.  I’ve asked a lot of them this last month with the theatre opening and all the extra hours.  I want them to know how much they mean to me.  The cafe would not be here if not for them all.

Thank you Team Alley Cat!

Coffee Cherries

Did you know it can take five years from the time a coffee seed is planted to actually being able to harvest a coffee cherry?  Think about that for a minute.  A farmer has planted and weeded and watered and nurtured that tree for five years before he can pick a single coffee cherry to sell.

After those five years the harvesting can’t be done all at once because the cherries don’t ripen at the same time.  They have to be picked individually as they become ripe.  Some of the larger farms have huge machines that pick everything at once including green, half ripe or over ripe cherries, it’s costly and you end up with lower quality beans.

Then comes the cleaning, the drying, the sorting and the hauling to the warehouse (sometimes miles on a bike or walking with the bag on their head).  After the green beans have been sold, they travel on ship to America, where the roaster takes over.

Drying the beans

The roasted beans are then packaged and sent to the retailer or the coffee shop, like the Alley Cat Cafe, where the barista painstakingly, yet lovingly prepares your latte.  It took a lot of hands to make that morning cup of coffee……

Enjoy!

Love in a cup

Coffee Growing on YouTube

We hope that the Alley Cat is the kind of place that people come to for comfort in hard times, to celebrate in good times and to gather for important and not so important conversations.

From the beginning of my dream for the cafe, I wanted to create a place that people could gather, to rest, to un-plug and to re-connect with our fellow humans.  I am very proud to say that the Alley Cat Cafe has become a meeting place for important conversations. Throughout the week I look out over the tables and can see conversations happening.  Conversations about Occupy Quincy, about creating a sustainable community, topics like; “What can we do about the possible closure of some of our precious schools?”, “What can we do to keep important offices open during difficult economic times?”  Sometimes these conversations die out before any sollutions are found, but often times wonderful outcomes happen as a result of a few people talking over a cup of coffee.

In her book Turning To One Another, Simple Conversations to Restore Hope to the Future, Margaret Wheatley says, “I believe we can change the world if we start listening to one another again.”  I absolutely believe this.  However, it takes courage to start these kinds of conversations.  We think, “What if people don’t like what I have to say?”, “What if they don’t want to hear what I have to say?”.  I have often times thought these thoughts, but being the person I am I take the risk to speak out.  It has gotten me into trouble at times.  Usually when the people I’m telling the truth to don’t want to hear the truth.  More often than not, though, I find out that other people wanted to say these things but were afraid and held back.  My message to you is, do not hold back, please share, please engage in important conversations…… you just might help save us all.

In the aftermath of 9/11 the concept of the Conversation Cafe was born.  People who didn’t have a church or other type of fellowship needed a place to process their thoughts and feelings about what had happened.  Conversation Cafes popped up all over in places where people gathered; cafes, barber shops, libraries.  Now they are World wide.  A Conversation Cafe is a gathering of people who want to converse.  There is a topic, and everyone gets a chance to share their thoughts.  It lasts about one hour, so it’s not too big of a time committment.  They’re are only three rules: 

1.  Don’t come to promote anyone or anything. 

2. Don’t try to convince anyone of your rightness and their wrongness

3.  Be a good listener. 

The Alley Cat Cafe hosts a Conversation Cafe every Thursday at 3:00.  Come speak your truth with us.

The funding for a pastry class comes with an agreement that the class will “pay for itself” by selling everything it produces. Nichole asked me if I’d be interested in buying the dough made by the students and baking it off here so it’s fresh every morning. I jumped on the idea! Thanks to the love Nichole has for the cafe and her students and Dr. Segura’s open mind, the pastry class is thriving. Students are learning all aspects of running a bakery including taking orders and delivering goods.  A win for the students.

The Alley Cat didn’t loose it’s Pastry Chef, we gained a whole classroom of chefs in the making that are using the same organic, high quality ingredients in the same recipes that Nichole used when she worked here.  A win for the Alley Cat.

The last part of that win, win, win situation is our devoted customers who love the fresh scones and cookies that are provided by the students.

The Alley Cat Cafe is proud to be part of this forward thinking, open minded solution and we will continue to be on the look out for win, win possibilities!

Well, here we are… the last day of 2011.  What a year it was for the Alley Cat Cafe.  After being closed for almost nine months we re-opened in our new location on Main Street in Quincy, CA.  Now that our doors have been open for four short months and we are nicely settled in, I can look back on those frustrating, almost impossible months and see that I needed that much time to look within and make the changes necessary, not only in the cafe but in my life.  Funny how it works that way.

A friend recently posted something on her Facebook page that intrigued me.  As I sit here on New Year’s Eve, like so many others, reflecting on the past year and looking at what I’d like to change or do the same in this coming year, this link really hit home for me.  It talks about how they straightened out the Mississippi River and now it “floods” in the areas that they straightened.  Really the “flooding” is just the river “remembering” where it was originally supposed to go.  I love that. 

During the time the Alley Cat was closed, various people, including myself, tried to straighten me out.  It was mostly fear.  People who were afraid I was making a mistake, taking too much of a risk.  I started second guessing myself by the fourth or fifth set-back…. “maybe we should just quit, give up, go the safer, straighter way, find a safe job”. 

Thankfully, I’m made of very stubborn blood and am loyal to a fault, after all I had made a commitment and I would follow through with it.  Now, after we’ve been open for awhile, I am so grateful for those months of trials and tribulation and so grateful for our new location.  I honestly cannot think of another job I’d rather have.  The Alley Cat provides a warm and positive atmosphere, we serve food for the soul in more ways than one and we make a difference by serving only fairly traded coffee, tea and chocolate….. I am proud to be the owner of such a place and am glad my river wouldn’t straighten.  Only time will tell if I made a mistake by re-opening…. but I will know I tried and I will know that I followed my “river’s memory”. 

Happy New Year everyone…. may you have the courage to keep your bends and winds and not straighten yourself into something you aren’t.  Here’s the link to the article on straightening the river:

http://www.taramohr.com/2011/12/they-straightened-out-the-river/

We used to think all fat was “bad.” Not surprising, really. Fat carries a hefty calorie load and Americans are notorious waist watchers. Food manufacturers sold us low-fat, fat-free and “lite” versions of salad dressings, cookies, potato chips, and everything in between.

Weight-conscious consumers chose margarine over butter, vegetable shortening over lard, and even artificial whipped topping over real whipping cream.

We thought we were doing right by our families. But today we know better.

Despite its calories, fat helps us absorb fat-soluble vitamins, and delivers satisfying taste – an essential ingredient in pleasurable eating. We’ve also since learned that “hydrogenated” vegetable oils in stick margarine and shortening contain “trans” fat, which raises our blood levels of “bad” cholesterol and increases our risk for heart disease.

The Pasture Advantage
Historically, when humans were hunter-gatherers and our diets consisted mostly of wild plants, fish, and meat from grazing animals, we likely consumed an omega-6 to omega-3 ratio close to 1:1. (4) With industrialization, our diets shifted to include more vegetable oils, meat from animals raised on grains, and highly processed foods. As a result, the average American now consumes at least 10 times more omega-6 fatty acids than omega-3s (3), which may partly explain our current chronic diseases.

Good Reason to Get Omegas Back in Balance
The American Dietetic Association recommends increasing our intake of omega-3 fatty acids to reduce inflammation and lower our risk for cardiovascular disease and heart attack. (5,6) There’s also exciting research underway investigating the role of omega-3 fatty acids in protecting against colon cancer (7,8), depression, Alzheimer’s disease, and age-related macular degeneration – a leading cause of blindness in the U.S. 

However, omega-3 fatty acids may be most important in brain, eye and nerve development, and especially critical for pregnant and lactating women and their infants .

Organic Foods: Your Win/Win
Organic foods not only minimize our exposure to environmental toxins, but because organic ruminant animals are required to spend significant time on pasture, organic meat and dairy products naturally contain a healthier mix of fatty acids.

One of the key issues organic advocates can bring to the diet debate is the importance of knowing the source of our food. Reducing our exposure to environmental toxins is key to our children’s health, and protecting our natural resources is key to the future of our planet.

Customers ask all the time, “what makes your drinks so good?”  I tell them we use the best of the best products in our drinks.  Organic milk from happy, healthy cows, sustainably grown coffee and Fair Trade chocolate grown by happy, well paid farmers.  The health benefits aside, Organic products just taste better.

I’ve been taking a curious look at Starbuck’s website that courageously asks customers to leave comments and ideas for Starbuck’s.  Among the all time top ideas were eco-friendly suggestions like “use spoons instead of plastic stirrers”, “compost your spent coffee grounds”.  89,470 people voted on the suggestion to recycle.  There were 10,180 votes on using ceramic mugs for people who stay there to drink their coffee, and 28,740 votes for locally sourced baked goods.  It’s pretty apparent by these numbers that environmentally responsible company practices are important to coffee drinkers.  I am really happy to say that the Alley Cat Cafe is way ahead of the giant coffee company in going Green.

Here are a few ways we, at the Alley Cat, are Eco Responsible:

- We use as much Organic, locally produced ingredients as possible.

- We compost all our produce scraps and spent coffee grounds.

- We only offer Fairly Traded coffee, tea and chocolate

- We use geo thermal technology to heat and cool the building

- We have always used good old spoons to stir with

- We recycle

- Our pastries are either freshly made in house or sourced from local bakeries, so we aren’t shipping from across the nation to get them here.

- We have always used ceramic coffee mugs for people who can sit down and stay awhile.

We are always looking for ways to be even “Greener”, if you have any suggestions let us know about them…. Facebook us.