2020 The Lifequake we needed
2020 the year Kyle and I had to shut down our businesses, only one month after opening our cafe, Close Quarters. Before then we were on our way to building a lifestyle empire of ethical & sustainable businesses. We were living to check items off our list of things to accomplish. Once the global COVID pandemic hit, it shook us to our core, and made us question our life purpose.
Shutting down Torpedo Coffee during the pandemic 2020
We were forced to close our doors for 8 weeks, go into more debt and we had to cash out some of our IRA to keep our businesses and employees afloat while we figured out our next move. At this point our cats, became my new therapist
As a small business entrepreneur, a skill you quickly learn is how to recover through adversity. The moment you become paralyzed by challenges, is the moment failure happens. You have to be flexible to pivot from one challenge to the next, which is just what Kyle and I did. We quickly adapted our cafe to create our own in house burritos that we sold at both shops and even created a wholesale account during that time. Within 2 years he managed to produce and sell over 30,000 burritos!
burrito making at Close Quarters
Renovating at the salon
The salon we adapted with redesigning the space, created an online store, provided virtual consultations, and hired additional people.
Throughout 2020, something we really enjoyed was the opportunity to be together more, to have less of a strict schedule and to have some time to breathe. Even through endless tears of stress and anxiety, we found happiness by being together and finding gratitude in what we did have, that gratitude got us through the hardest time yet in our businesses.
On New years of 2021, over brunch we reflected back on what a shit show of a year that was, how crazy we survived through what we thought was soon to be the end of the pandemic. We thought, what would we do if we weren’t just surviving through life, and actually living? Are there other options? During 2020 we read an article about 1 Euro homes for sale in small villages in Italy. Of course we thought that was too good to be true, and of course it was. However the search led us to look more into what are the prices for homes there, what’s the culture like, politics, the climate. Politics and the culture in the United States hasn’t been something we’ve been proud of since Obama left office. I was very interested in looking for a different country with better gun laws, healthcare, environmentally conscious, and something that aligned more with our values. Snow has also been something that we have grown tired of. Having lived in Colorado personally for over 22 years, I’m not a fan of the snow or the seasonal depression of not being in the garden.
Blizzard 2021
Our search in Italy led us to look into France, and then our future home, Spain. Kyle came across a website for rustic stone homes in Galicia, Spain. We looked into the climate, the culture, healthcare, the cost of living and all of it really checked all the boxes. We came across another realtor website Lucas Fox, and started our search for the right place.
We knew there were a lot of obstacles and hard work we would have to get through before we could make our dream a reality. Not only do we have 3 businesses, but also a house we’ve lived in for 13 years, which is full of things we love, and 4 cats that we’d take with us. There were so many questions, how do we sell our businesses? How do we ship things to another country? How do we get a visa? A Bank Account? We don’t even speak Spanish fluently! Are we going through a midlife crisis, this is nuts!
Yes we did think that, but we also thought, we have achieved the impossible before, and this really isn’t that far fetched for us. If we get something in our heads that we want to do, we will make it happen! If there is one thing 2020 helped us realize, life is unpredictable and not guaranteed. This is the only life you have, make it what you want and don’t be afraid to take action to go for it.
We wrote down our goals, questions we wanted to research, our budget and created a timeline with actionable steps to get there. Starting this process, made it seem more realistic to move to Spain, and created more clarity on what needed to happen.
We searched how to sell a business, and thanks to Google a company called Exitfactor.com came up, they had a course called “Prep to Sell”. In the course they teach you how to make your business more valuable and how to find the right buyers. It was a great way to not only stay accountable to our goal, but also to make sure we were taking the steps to be more prepared when the time came to sell. We gave ourselves the deadline of Jan 2022 to list our businesses.
We then booked a trip to Spain for my 40th, we knew it would be months before we could go, and with COVID we were hoping it would still be possible.
We have now sold both Close Quarters and Torpedo, and will be moving to Spain August 9th of 2022. I’m so proud of what Kyle has created at Torpedo and Close Quarters in only 4 years! With zero coffee experience Kyle built an ethical and sustainable coffee shop, with the intention of creating connections and a sense of community over high quality coffee & food offerings. In 4 years Kyle has accomplished:
In 4 years Kyle’s accomplished:
Providing a great place to work, offering better wages, 401K and flexible scheduling.
Better for the planet, offering compostable paper goods, composting and recycling.
Opened Close Quarters coffee & cocktails a month before the shutdown and pivoted operations staying a float during the pandemic by creating their own house made breakfast burritos including vegan options, selling over 43,000 at Torpedo, Close Quarters and wholesale to other coffee shops in the metro area.
Sold over 147,000 Coffee Beverages
And contributed towards multiple charitable and community functions.
Kyle achieved everything he set out to do, and now it’s time to pass the torch to the new owners. Brad with Atlas coffee will be taking over Torpedo where Kyle left off and Chuck with Grist Brewing will be turning Close Quarters into a local brewery tap room!
Without creating personal deadlines, it’s easy to stay complacent and not push yourself to go for what seems out of reach.
Cheers to making progress!
Stay tuned for our next blog as we share about our scouting trip!
