Community Relations

Forrest and I have been planning on doing the Make A Wish WAM 300 and WAM 50 bike ride this summer, and part of doing the ride is that we are supposed to be raising funds for Make A Wish Foundation. With everything going on with our new menu and our other projects time kind of got away from us, and now we only have a few days left to meet the July 1st deadline. Forrest needs to raise $750 minimum and I need $300, so I thought we would offer a special to anyone who donates through our pages at Make a Wish. Just donate $20 or more by July 1st at either of the links below, and you will receive a free breakfast buffet. Just print out a copy of your confirmation and bring it in and recieve your buffet breakfast. Even if you forget your confirmation we will have a list of people from the website.

www.wishmich.org/forrest

or

www.wishmich.org/jim

Forrest rode in this event last year and it was an amazing event. The Make A Wish Foundation really does a lot of great things for kids with critical illnesses. By donating to this event you can help make a sick childs life a little brighter and receive a great breakfast thanks to our procrastination.

If you havent had a chance to pick up a copy of Tales from the Ypsilanti Archives, we have them, and we are offering a free latte with the purchase. I have known the author, Laura Bien, since I opened the cafe over five years ago, so I was really excited when the publisher asked me if I would be willing to sell her book in my shop. I have read a number of her blogs over the years, and I really think she is an incredible writer. So if you havent had a chance to read any of her work, pick up a book and check out her articles on YpsiCiti.com and the Ypsilanti Historical Museum Blog.

This weekend will be the fourth anual Depot Town Chili Challenge, and this year we are combining the event with the Wheels in Motion "Another Chili Day Ride". If you are into cycling and enjoy a good bowl of chili, you are going to love this event. At the start of the day, you will come to Cafe Luwak and you can sign up for one of three different rides. Of course we would suggest that you fuel up for the ride at our breakfast buffet. Then after riding your desired length, come back to Cafe Luwak and purchase your chili tasting kits from the SOS Community Services table and visit the local vendors in and around Depot Town and try their Chili's. If you arent into cycling but enjoy a good cup of chili, come to Cafe Luwak and get your kit. The chili tasting runs between 3 and 6 pm and chili will be provided by Cafe Luwak, Sidetrack Bar and Grill, Aubrees, Queen of Hearts, The Ypsilanti Food Co-op, The Ugly Mugg Cafe, and The Corner Brewery.

 

I was a little disappointed by the turnout of the coffee tour, but I spent so much time putting the event together that I didn’t get around to promoting it till pretty late. Even so, we did raise over two hundred dollars for the Bike Ypsi Make a Wish WAM Team, and everybody who did show up thought it was really cool. We set the coffee displays up in the back area of the restaurant where we do our breakfast buffet, and it looked really sharp. Coffee Express, our coffee vendor, loaned us some very nice coffee dispensers and helped us with the descriptions of each coffee. I was printing posters in the morning and we got them mounted minutes before the event was supposed to start.

The coffee choices really worked out well too. I think the overall favorite was the Hawaiian Kauai Peaberry. For some people having 5 different coffees was a little too much and by the time they got to the fifth, they said their taste buds had trouble telling the difference anymore. There were definitely some people like me who loved tasting the different regions over and over. We will work on refining this event, and we will definitely do it again.

It was also a lot of fun hanging out with Forrest, Tom, and Trey. There were a number of people from the local Bike Ypsi group that came out to support their fellow riders and discuss the community rides that are going to be happening this summer. If you are into cycling and looking for people to ride with, this is a wonderful group. You can find out more about them at http://www.bikeypsi.org.

If you weren’t able to make it to the event, but would still like to sponsor one of the riders, you can click the links below to get to each of their pages:
Forrest Karnopp – http://www.wishmich.org/forrest
Tom Lennon – http://www.wishmich.org/tacotom
Trey Allen – http://www.wishmich.org/treymotion

I always get nervous when it comes to events especially when they involve other businesses. When I agreed to head up the Chili Challenge this year, I was really worried I wouldn’t be able to put in the time necessary to do it the way people expect. In the end everything went really well. The only problem that we encountered was that people started running out of chili. SOS ended up with $1149 toward their charity, and Ypsilanti residence got the chance to try some of the best chili around.

I really enjoyed the event, but not for the reason you would probably expect. When the event started everyone came to Café Luwak to purchase their bags and get their chili. After leaving my place people would disperse and to the next vendor of their choice. For us, the first hour was crazy busy, and my winter staff was not ready for a rush like that. Forrest and I jumped in and started running plates of chili from the back of the house to the front. That is what I really enjoy is when my son and I are just cranking and working together. We make jokes and taunt each other as we pass one another going back and forth from the kitchen. Then when we were in the back, we would joke around with Gertha, our main cook, while she was keeping us stocked up on chili. We served almost 400 cups of chili in two hours and it was pretty much just Forrest and I.

I don’t get out in the front of the house as much these days. There is always paperwork and orders to complete, so when an event like this happens, it is really enjoyable to work side by side with my son and put all the college students to shame. This is just a warm up for ice cream season where we have lines going all night long.

I have had this idea for a while where customers would come in and purchase a ticket at the front of the restaurant then go from station to station trying different coffees from around the world. At each station would be a display that describes each coffee and things like that. The problem is that this really needs to be a charity benefit. There really isn't a way to make money doing this. Well it so happens that this year Forrest is going to ride in the Make a Wish Foundation WAM 300 bike ride. The ride is a 300 mile ride from Traverse City to Chelsea over three days. Forrest is really excited about riding in this ride, but there is a fund raising requirement, so I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to try out my coffee tour idea. Forrest will by riding with other riders from the Bike Ypsi group, so we are doing this benefit for the bike Ypsi riders.

So come down to the cafe on March 21st from 3-6pm and pay $10 (all proceeds go to Make A Wish), and try coffees from 5 regions around the world and support a really great charity.

If you want to donate directly to one of the riders, you can click one of the links below:

Forrest Karnopp: http://www.wishmich.org/forrest
Tom Lennon: https://www.wishmich.org/tacotom
Trey Allen: http://www.wishmich.org/Page.aspx?pid=503&frsid=3210

This should be a weekend to make anyone want to come to Depot Town. First we are going to be having the third anual Depot Town Chili Challenge on Saturday March, 7th from 3-6pm. Come into Cafe Luwak and purchase your tasting kit from one of the friendly SOS volonteers then visit the participating establishments and vote for your favorite chili. All proceeds from this event go to SOS Community Services.

And if that werent enough, we put off our 4th anniversery celebration to coincide with the chili challenge. So while you are at Cafe Luwak tasting our fabulaous chili, you will also have the opportunity to try a cup of the most expensive and unusual coffees in the world, Kopi Luwak. This coffee was featured on Oprah and in the movie the The Bucket List and is the namesake of our cafe. So give it a try and wish us a happy birthday.

We recently linked up with Wireless Ypsi (Steve Pierce and Brian Robb's project) to share our bandwidth throughout Depot Town. Being that we already had a dedicated internet connection, and we were providing free internet access to our customers, it only made sense to participate in the Wireless Ypsi project. Also since I work in the technology field and love anything that is techy and cool, I was a pretty easy sell for the idea. This is another one of those things where a couple of people get together with a great idea, the community gets behind it, and it gets done. This is what I really love about Ypsilanti. There has been talk about a wireless Washtenaw for several years now, but it is a long way from getting completed. Here in Ypsi, we work together and get things done. By summer you will be able to sit in Riverside Park with your laptop (hopefully with an Ice Cream from Café Luwak) and connect to the internet while enjoying the outdoors.

Being and employer can be very challenging. One of the hardest parts of the job is finding combinations of the staff that work well. Each person has a different personality and some people just can’t work well together. Every now and then I find an employee who works well with anyone, and the rest of the staff wants to work with them. Liz is just this type of employee. She started working for me last fall, and no matter who she works with, it always turns out to be a great combination. Other employees are always happy to work with her because she has such a positive attitude about everything she does. I have had several employees like this over the past few years, and they make my job so much easier.

You are probably asking yourself why I would single Liz out like this. Well I am going to be loosing her for about 2 months this summer. She is going to be participating in the American Lung Associations “Ride Across America”. This is a bike ride from Seattle Washington to Washington D.C. Her ride will be 48 days totaling 3300 miles at an average of 80 miles per day. Liz has been training all winter long, and she will be leaving in just over a month. I will definitely miss having her at the café this summer, but I think this is a wonderful opportunity for her, and it is for a really good cause. For the next month she will be working on getting the pledges necessary to participate in the ride. She is already over half way to her goal of raising $5500 for the American Lung Association.

If you would like to donate and support Liz, you can go to the following link, or you can drop off cash donations at the Café Luwak. Every dollar helps her get that much closer to her goal.

https://www.mrsnv.com/evt/e01/part.jsp?id=1061&acct=4903105004&rid=0

This doesn’t have anything to do with my restaurant directly, but I am happy to support any of the other initiatives around Ypsilanti that are doing things to help the environment. Forrest and I have both pledged our support for installing solar panels on the city hall building. The article below written by Murph explains the idea much better than I can.

Join the YPSI People’s Solar Initiative today!

For those who haven’t been paying attention, there’s some energy out there around the idea of equipping City Hall with solar panels as part of a wider initiative to save energy and cash - as well as showing off our city as environmentally forward-thinking. Dave Strenski, who previously scored a grant to outfit the Food Co-op with solar power, has been the visionary behind this idea, and I think I’d be correct in saying that our Council members, the Brians, and DPW Director Bill Bohlen (aka the Patron Saint of the Frog Island Garden) think this is an idea worth pursuing.

But, as Councilman Robb has pointed out, $20k in solar panels may not be the top priority in the City’s budget, so he suggested that maybe this was something a “friends of” type group might help out with.

So, here’s your chance to help out! Would you put up $50 of your money to see City Hall start producing solar power? I sure would, and 19 other people have already pledged their support - there’s $1,000 right there! If you want to put in your support, I’ve set up a Pledgebank page for this project:

http://www.pledgebank.com/ypsisolar

Now, technically, what you’re pledging is to donate $50 if and only if 200 other people make the same pledge - so not only am I asking you for your pledge, but I need your help publicizing this effort. Pass that link around!

The Stuff Your Stocking event had a really nice turnout. In all we raised over $400 in cash and had two boxes full of stockings to donate to SOS Community Services. Forrest and I shopped at all the stores in Depot Town and filled 5 stockings for donation to SOS. Sandee French from Cady’s had Forrest do her shopping for her since she was out of town, and there were a number of local merchants, Ypsilanti Jaycees, and local political figures that came down to show there support. The best part of the event was when Forrest and I came out of Nelson Amos Studios after shopping at all the shops, and all along Cross Street were families and couples with stockings in and going in and out of each business.

For a lot of the merchants in Depot Town, the first Cruise Night really marks the beginning of the summer season. This is definitely the case at the café. Our sales of sandwiches and ice cream on cruise night rival the sales of even the festivals. If you have never been to a Cruise Night in Depot Town, you really should. First of all it is free and always has been. Cross Street is closed between Huron and River St, and Classic Cars and Hot Rods are put on display. Some nights there are over 300 cars lining the street. Classic Rock is played my a DJ right by the clock tower and at 7:00 pm there is a hula hoop contest where everyone who enters gets a free scoop of ice cream compliments of yours truly. All in all it is a fun night to walk around with friends get something to eat or drink and mingle with the local motor heads.

The Depot Town Cruise Nights occur every Thursday night between 5:00 PM and 9:00 PM, June 8th through September 14th.

I have been a member of the Ypsilanti Jaycees for many years now, but since I took over the restaurant, I havent been able to be very involved with the projects that they work on. I do however let them use my space whenever I can for meetings and events. Last night they took over the rear of the restaurant and spent several hours filling bags with candy and prizes for the upcoming easter egg hunt in Frog Island park. The assembly line they put together was really quite amazing. The Jaycees are a fun group of people, and they do a lot for our community. I am glad that I can contribute to their events by providing space.