Sarah Willets used to be in broadcast news, but after achieving her goal of becoming a news producer and reaching it at a young age, this 23-year-old says it wasn't what she wanted. An investor approached her about financing her longtime dream of owning a coffee shop, and Willets seized the opportunity.
Last September, Willets opened
Wired Espresso Bar in the former Brittany Café space at 1503 Plainfield Ave. NE. From the outset, the plan was to be a 24-hour shop because Willets found that local coffee shops were closed when she left for work as a news producer at the odd hours of the morning.
"One-third of our sales come from between 9 p.m. and 3 a.m.," she says. "I know how to target the college crowd through Twitter and Facebook – they're mostly from
Calvin,
Cornerstone and
GRCC now we're starting to get more
GVSU students. I've had times when I've left at 7 at night and come back in at 5 a.m. and the same customers are still here because they're here studying."
Inside, four small dining areas are now one large room with tigerwood laminate flooring. The original tin ceiling is painted silver. The walls are non-traditional coffee shop colors: light blue and light green.
Besides coffee and beverages, fresh baked goods, croissant sandwiches, wraps and soups, the shop serves Waffle Dogs – a breakfast sausage wrapped in waffle batter, cooked in a specially shaped waffle iron, and topped with any of the flavored coffee syrups, powdered sugar, or mustard and ketchup.
Willets is from Erie, Michigan near Toledo and came to West Michigan to attend Grand Valley State University.
"I had friends here and I like the area and that was enough to keep me here," she says.
Wired Espresso Bar won Best New Business at the
2009 Neighborhood Business Awards.
Source: Sarah Willets, Wired Espresso Bar
Deborah Johnson Wood is development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at [email protected].
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