We’re in!! Now seeking a licensed plumber and electrician to work with us on getting this done. We’ll do labor to keep costs down! Any ideas, please contact us….we’re making this happen. Below you can find a constantly updated list of furniture, equipment and items/decorative gadgets, etc…that we’re looking for in case you have any leads!
Also, a good portion of our upfit budget is the city retail grant. We should find out the answer any day now. We really need it in order to complete the plumbing and electrical for a full bar and hope it comes through. In the case that it doesn’t we may have to upfit the plumbing and electrical like at a trade fair, which will keep us from having ceramic cups at first. Keep your fingers crossed with us. Thank you. Leon and Areli
This weekend’s schedule is now up. All you have to do is hit the schedule section in Pages on your right! Any time…
Here’s a constantly updated list of things we need or are looking for. We’ll be adding specific furniture soon. If you have any leads, please contact us.
Some things will be defined by space and design, but feel free to send us any idea. We appreciate you looking out!
| Basic Updated Website |
| Machines & Equipment |
| Espresso Machine – seeking La Marzocco Linea 2, 2 group with PID Controls |
| Espresso Grinder – seeking Mazzer, Robur Electronic (ideally competition) |
| Bulk Grinder – Have |
| Single Door NSF Refrigerator – Have |
| Single Door NSF Freezer – Have |
| Ice Machine – Have |
| Three Basin Sink NSF – seeking 2 drain boards, 18 x 20 basins |
| Refrigerated Glass Case – Have |
| Kegerator/Refrigerator – Lead |
| Wine Cooler – 2 zone for 21 bottles |
| Dishwasher NSF – undercounter, with booster heater – Lead |
| Liquid Gas Tankless Hot Water Heater – now calculating water needs |
| Barista Hot Water Heater Zojirushi – Need Second |
| Barista Fast Hot Water Heater Bodum – Need |
| Brew Bar Designed/Welded |
| Coffee Brewer – Have |
| Blender NSF – seeking Blendtech Smoother – Lead |
| Barista Fridge – 48” uncercounter nsf on casters |
| Water Filtration Setup |
| Syrup Racks – Have |
| Cup Dispensers – Have 4, Need 2 |
| Liquid Warmer NSF – Have |
| Bodum French Presses – ? |
| Tea Pots – Need #More |
| Steam Wand Cleaner |
| Stir Spoons – Have X, Need # |
| Pitchers – Have |
| Pallo Tool |
| Pitcher Rinser |
| Tamper – Have |
| Portafilter Upgrades |
| Barista Rags |
| Barista Aprons/Station Shirts |
| Syrup Pumps – Have |
| Whip Cream Whippers – Have |
| Iced Coffee Brewers |
| Shot Glasses/Beakers |
| Machine Cleaners |
| Clever Brewers – Have |
| Drip Trays |
| Tea Dispensers |
| Milk Pitchers |
| Sugar Shakers – Have |
| Squeeze Bottles |
| Stress Matts |
| Ceramic Cups |
| Trays |
| Barista Spoons |
| Sipping Chocolate Trays |
| Ice Water Dispenser |
| Infared Thermometer – Have |
| Dipping Forks |
| Metal Chocolate Scraper |
| Ganache Molds |
| Chocolate Molds |
| Chocolate Tempering Machine – seeking Chocovision 10 LB |
| Cacao Bean Grinder – Have |
| Chocolate Packaging |
| Sound System – hmmm. Cobbled, but could use better |
| Dymo Labelwriter & Labels – Have |
| Menu – Need Printing |
| Bar Construction |
| Shelving |
| Drop Ceiling |
| Furniture |
| Tables |
| Chairs |
| Lamps |
| Electric Installation |
| Plumbing |
| Lighting |
| HVAC |
| Dry Goods |
| Toilet Paper |
| Paper Towels |
| Napkins |
| Receipt Paper |
| Coffee Bags |
| Stir Sticks |
| Paper Cups and Lids |
| Sleeves |
We believe in the idea of a coffee shop as a public house, a democratic place that welcomes difference in language, belief, conviction, idea, color, background and history. We don’t just tolerate it. It’s a catalyst for us to do what we do.
It is tempting to make our personal beliefs those of our shop. Who we are is most certainly embedded in everything about Cocoa Cinnamon. Yet, we aim to make people of all walks of life and personal beliefs comfortable at ease and in discussion at Cocoa Cinnamon, so long as they are not hateful or violent. And so we keep our specific political viewpoints out of the business.
For us, this very openness and engagement fights one dimensional thinking, absolutism and is a basic building block towards health and peace.
This much we will say:
We are against prescribed thought and absolute thinking.
We believe in liberty and life for all.
For those reasons, even as a business, we are vehemently against Amendment 1!
Tonight we will be at Moshi Moshi for DtownMarket’s new regular gig setup w/ raw cacao balls, tabla & spices. We are selling out of spices from our market setups as we prep for the shop. So if you need organic spices, it’s buy one get one free! We won’t have coffee – Blend is just a couple stores down.
DtwonMarket at Moshi Moshi for Third Fridays!
Saturday morning we’ll be setup across from the Farmer’s Market from 8 to 12ish.
Sunday we’ll be at Motorco for brunch 12 – 5 with our friends Pie Pushers who are filling in for Ko Kyu (while they’re over at Shakori Hills).
The rest of the time, we’re working on the shop!!
Also, take note, you can now look on our schedule by hitting the button on our menu to your right!
KICKSTARTER THANKS: Areli and I can’t thank you enough for all of your support and love! Really we can’t. Our kickstarter campaign was something of a life changing experience for us. It galvanized Durham, us, our family, a lot friends and strangers from around the US and world. We had contributions from at least 5 countries. Amazing. The money will go a long way towards building Cocoa Cinnamon. The moral support is worth more than we can tell you! We start working on the shop in May and are shooting to open this summer! We are going to take care to make Cocoa Cinnamon the amazing place you expect, so we will work swiftly and diligently, but not rush it. So many folks have offered to help. Keep an eye out here to see what we might need in case you have a way to help out.
TWITTER HANDLE: We’ve update our twitter handle for bikeCOFFEE! Was @bikeCOFFEEdrm. Now @bikeCOFFEE. Thanks to a nice woman in Minneapolis who wasn’t using it! A lot of people are actually nice.
Outsiders Art & Collectibles - Photo by Christopher Gurr
bikeCOFFEE! Schedule:
Thursday 5:30 – 8:30 PM – Outsiders Art & Collectibles for the opening of The Cut Up Method.
Friday 6PM – Full Frame Film Festival Outdoor Screening Food Truck Roundup at Durham Central Park
Saturday 8 AM – Noon Across from the Durham Farmers Market
Saturday 6PM – Full Frame Film Festival Outdoor Screening Food Truck Roundup at Durham Central Park
Sunday 12PM – 5PM DtownMarket at Motorco with Ko Kyu & the Parlour
Sunday 6PM – Full Frame Film Festival Outdoor Screening Food Truck Roundup at Durham Central Park
Upcoming:
Tasting and Methods Session at the Durham Spirits Company. Get a preview into our shop at this special tasting of chocolates, teas, coffees and sipping chocolates. For more info or to sign up click HERE.
SO LITTLE TIME SO MANY WORDS! We’re heading over to work brunch with bikeCOFFEE and will update later!!
Short and Sweet.
Last night: a beer at Fullsteam with Milton Brasher-Cunningham. Support “Take a Pint out of Crime” because someone stole their cooker. Uggh.
Grabbed a beer. In short, Sean, who owns Fullsteam gives and give and gives, without saying much about it. Helping the helper is good.
Conversation – “start relationships with what we have in common” and the rest falls in place. Milton’s blog “Don’t Eat Alone” and poetics. The great pleasure in connecting, even within difference of idea and belief. Small cumulative acts as a means of transformation. Crowdfunding “occassioning” community. Occasion as a verb.
Openness, within religious practice. The emotional impact of forgiveness. Of each other and self. Internal idea that sets a path.
Leading me (us) to think of Cocoa Cinnamon as a place for all. The business doesn’t have a politics. We might personally, but the space is for all ideas (except violent or hateful). A house where nothing is assumed. A place where real democracy can flourish. A place to be.
I think in many fundamental ways, Milton and I (and many you out there) are talking about the same thing!
My references on this beautiful day of new life:
Friendship, family – Mom
Strive for purity – Areli
Eudaimonia – Aristotle
“The destining of revealing isn’t just any danger, but the danger” - Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology
Portrait of an Anti-Semite – Sartre
“You can’t step in the same river twice.” Heraclitus
“Speak what you think today in words as hard as cannonballs and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict everything you said today.” – Emerson, Self Reliance
Limited edition signed poster by Franco avaialbe on our kickstarter page.
In the spirit of friendship, family and exchange, today at Motorco’s Brunch, Ko Kyu BBQ is doing this:
Kickstarter is putting us in an amazing whirl! There’s a whole lot of communication going on! We’ve been posting to Facebook, twitter – @cocoacinnamon and on our Kickstarter page as updates!
If you want to get the high up, low down and all over, that’s where you can look. Our campaign only goes until Monday at 2:47PM and we are working to keep the momentum going strong!
Here’s why: Carpe Durham post.
Help us by spreading the word and if you can put in at least $1 if you haven’t already.
We love the small contributions just as much as every other. It says that you are part of the team and we love that!
This week’s happenings:
Wednesday 5 – 10PM: $1 for every slice from the Godparents of Durham Pizza at Fullsteam Brewery. The one and only Pie Pushers will be contributing $1 per slice for every slice they sell tonight! That’s Italian! AND That’s amazing! Eat any of their hand tossed pizzas with fresh local ingredients and you will be in pizzecstasy!
Thursday 7PM – Midnight: Kickstart the Night Away at Motorco Music Hall Computers ready for Kickstarter Contributors, Special Sipping Chocolate, Kokyu, Music, DJs, Silent Auction with work by Lee Moore Crawford & Jackie MacLeod!!!! And Dance Dance Dance!!! No Cover. Here’s a LINK to the invite.
Friday 4 – 5PM: First Friday Funding – an Online Crowdfunding Flash Mob - At a Computer Anywhere on Earth. Here’s a LINK for the details. A few of us are gathering at Fullsteam at that time, then Motorco to chill grab a locally brewed beer or homemade ginger ale and casually talk about our projects.
Saturday Morning: Saturday Dip and Sip with Monuts Donuts! We’ll be there with bikeCOFFEE, plus our other friends Berenbaum’s Bakery, The Parlour Iced Cream and Pie Pushers. We’re all just across from the Farmer’s Market.
Monuts' famous Hibiscus Cinnamon
Saturday 2 – 4PM: Durham Easter at Central Park We’ll be there with bikeCOFFEE! TEN THOUSAND EASTER EGGS need to be gathered on Saturday at Durham Central Park from 2-4pm. After you get some eggs, how about a free cotton candy? Or balloon? Or a bounce in one of THREE bounce houses? Perhaps you’d rather do a craft provided by SEEDS, The Scrap Exchange, World Relief, TOMS Shoes, Indent-a-kid, Durham Cares, Reality Ministries, & others? Perhaps you want to wind up your arm at the dunking booth or check out a race car? Whew… after all that, you’ll need a snack. Good thing Cocoa Cinnamon, Will & Pop’s, Only Burger, Locopops, Daisy Cakes, & Sweet & Savory Express will be there. Durham Easter. Get on it. www.durhameaster.com
http://durhameaster.com
Sunday 12 – 5pm: MotorKokyu Brunch at Motorco Music Hall This is our home base event! We are incredibly grateful for the folks at Motorco for hosting at this weekly brunch. Here you can find great drinks, great food, great company, great ice cream, great music and carefully prepared coffees and teas. What a Sunday! With Motorco’s meal of a Bloody Mary (and secret homemade ginger ales!), Ko Kyu BBQ, The Parlour Ice Cream and bikeCOFFEE! Come on out! We’ll have a computer setup too – It’s the last full day for our kickstarter campaign and we’re going to be running to the finish line!
Grandpa Fontana as a young man.
Pssst! There will be some kind of soon to be announced some kind of Italian Grandfathers bring it on home with a bang Cocoa Cinnamon Kickstarter special for the last full day of our campaign with Ko Kyu BBQ!!
Hi all!!! If you have not heard the amazing news, thanks to a lot of wonderful, thoughtful, motivated, community oriented people, we have reached our goal on kickstarter. This goal represents the minimum amount that we can raise to get funded.
We still have 12 days left and we are going strong – by 8PM on our first day after reaching the minimum we have raised $865 which will cover our painting, polyurethane and supplies budget. Now we’re working on outdoor seating, so please help us keep moving forward! In the next 12 days we will keep working to get the best start we can for opening day. Please continue to help us spread the word!
You may check out our Kickstarter campaign by clicking on the beautiful shot of sipping chocolate being poured located to your right 
. ALSO! Check out this wonderful post by Carpe Durham!
Our sincerest gratitude goes out to every single one of you who believes in and supports us! 
You all have a part of our hearts and are integral parts of making Cocoa Cinnamon a reality. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Special thank you to Monuts for going up, up and beyond in showing us their love and support, also to Harts Tarts, Parlour and Pie Pushers for their love at our Kickstarter Party at the Pinhook and to everyone that came out to support!
bikeCOFFEE SCHEDULE:
THIS SATURDAY! March 31st
1pm – 8pm
BREW DURHAM NUMERO DOS! <—-click to get tickets!
If you did not go to the first Brew Durham, you missed an amazing Durham event. Don’t miss it again. Click on the link above to buy tickets. All proceeds go to the wonderful Scrap Exchange. There will be 73 home brewed beers available and these folks do not mess around!! Chirba Chirba, Pie Pushers, Loaf, and Monuts Donuts! will be there as well serving quality deliciousness!
SUNDAY APRIL 1ST
12-5
MOTORKOKYU BLOODY BRUNCH AND DTOWN MARKET
Don’t miss the first dtown Market of the month!!!! Come buy locally and support some amazing artists and designers! Have some Kokyu, wash it down with a Bloody Mary and then have a coffee from us and some Parlour Ice Cream to finish off a relaxing Sunday. That’s how we do it anyways!
Just another Dtown Market before we had the bike! Thanks for helping us get started!
WE WILL ALSO BE…..
Celebrating PIE PUSHER’S 1 YEAR ANNIVERSARY! at the Pinhook! from 8 pm on. The theme is HEROES IN A HALF SHELL obviously! Come join us and Mike and Becky while they are NOT working <– a super rare occasion along with Chirba Chirba and the Parlour!
Hope to see you around this weekend! Lots of exciting events and it’s not even a prank!
Love!
Areli and Leon
A few months back, we had dinner with Cici Stevens, Jonathan Nyberg, Rebecca Wellborn and David Solow.
After a delicious, fresh and healthy dinner prepared by Cici, we served sipping chocolate with an array of organic spices. Jonathan is extremely knowledgeable about spices, and shared his many insights, speaking particularly to the history of cloves and nutmeg.
He shared some pics of a Nutmeg shrine…
Jonathan Nyberg's Nutmeg Shrine
Jonathan Nyberg's Nutmeg Shrine
And David shared this story with all of us via email the next day. I had heard it many times before, but never the part about the drinking chocolate! It was a great night of stories, food, chocolate and friendship, both old and new.
Here’s David’s story:
About thirty years ago, after watching so many French films, I decided to get a one-way ticket to Europe to move to France. It was my very specific fantasy to fall passionately in love with the baker in a small French village, and we would live happily ever after (with the requisite amount of angst and tragedy in the dramatic arc of many French films as well as in the romantic fantasies in the hearts and minds of many angry young men, myself no exception). Alas, that was not to be.
I did follow a woman from France to Morocco, realized I was quickly running out of money and met a fellow traveler who told me I could get work in the olive harvest in the village of Alikianos on the island of Crete. So, off I went. On the way to Crete, I sprained my ankle badly in Italy. I spent about week or so in a Fellinii ward in an Italian hospital. The ward was for all males. We were a group of about twenty or so, ranging in ages from about ten to really old, wrinkly and curmudgeonly. There was one guy who had worked as a cook in England for a long time and spoke perfect English, and the ten-year old spoke passably well. I didn’t need translation most of time. It was Italy. Hand gestures, facial expressions and the incredible range of tone of voice made most every communication quite clear. The doctors also spoke English as well and paid little attention to my ankle. They were fascinated with my recent knee surgery, which was cutting edge at the time, and peppered me with questions about the procedure, which I happened to know about in great detail. Basically, I was having the time of my life. There was no hospital food. We ate delicious meals, with pasta fragioli, greens and whole fresh fish (we were minutes from the Mediterranean), all cooked with lots of garlic and spices. We each got a half bottle of the local red wine with our midday meal and fresh bread from the village bakery. I became close with one of the nurses, and she kindly arranged for me to live with the priests at a nearby church, while I continued to recover. By the way, the treatment for the sprained ankle was a cast. I asked how long I should wear it before having it removed. They informed me cheerily that I was to walk on my foot until the cast crumbled away. That’s how long.
While I was staying with the priests, I knew I had to get more money to make it to Crete. I decided to sell my camera. I found a camera shop in town. The owner spoke no English, but his daughter did and took care of the negotiations. She was a beautiful teenage girl and a huge Doors fan. At the time, I knew many of the songs by heart and later recited them like poems to her and her friends in my best Jim Morrison imitation. I was treated like I was the rock star. The girl was so sweet and innocent. I was only three or four years older than she was, but I felt so much older. At one point, she said that I could live with her and her family, while I recovered. She was sure that it would be ok. She would just ask her father who I thought was eyeing me rather suspiciously during the sale. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I thought I was a scruffy vagabond, wandering mendicant, dharma bum, looking dangerous and unpredictable. Now, looking back I probably looked like a fresh-faced kid with a small beard and slightly long hair. Still, I didn’t take her up on her offer.
Now, I come to the reason I’m telling you this story. The girl took me to a cafe for a sipping chocolate. For thirty years, I’ve described this sipping chocolate to people, and every place I went to, that seemed like they might have a great sipping chocolate, I ordered one and was always disappointed, and not because the drinks were bad. Some of them were outstanding hot chocolates, but none of the drinks had that same quality of the one I had in Italy, which I had always described as the best bar of chocolate you ever had melted into a cup. No other drinking chocolate had that same viscosity and intensity of flavor. I started thinking that my memory was creating an experience I never had, until last night.
Last night I finally found the drinking chocolate I have been searching for for thirty years. It is rare in life to have an experience surpass an idealized memory. Last night I had such an experience.
David Solow
Here’s a video that has some shots of that sipping chocolate and a little of the story of Cocoa Cinnamon: Click this LINK.
1 Year, 11 months and 3 days ago, Areli and I fell in love. We had known each other for 6 years, yet it came completely out of nowhere. I believe one day in either direction, if it hadn’t happened at just that moment, in just the way it did, we would not now be married and in love.
Two simple text messages opened up a world of love and a dedicated marriage and partnership. For that I remain amazed every day and forever grateful.
After expressing feelings that came up in me because of a simple question from a friend, “Is there anyone down there that you want to see?” I stopped for 10 or so seconds on the phone, and then said, “I have never even thought this to myself…I don’t know what I’m going to say,” I started talking about Areli. Once I said the words, the feelings came up in me and took over.
Days later, I decided to express these feelings, telling her that I didn’t even know how I felt, but that I felt like I could love her. I most certainly surprised her, as much as I was still shocked by the realization of the feelings myself.
- The place where I had planned to ask Areli to marry me in Stockholm’s Archipelago. We had been married for one week already, as life made other plans for us (not pregnancy!).
A path, complex, yet amazingly simple, began. We had no intention to get married 4 days short of two months later, but that is exactly what we did. In a way, it happened to us. Friends said that there was something greater happening and that we felt magical together. We felt it too and over the next weeks, even with a tumultuous world around us, we felt like we were on a boat floating serenely down a river towards each other. Each moment, story and action led us closer together.
Since then, we have seen things that have confirmed again and again little signs that there is something that we don’t understand that makes us so in love.
Here’s one little example I found out well after we were married:
I made an artwork called The Umbrella.
Areli has images of umbrellas through her journals.
Both are significant to each of us in ways that when we saw the connection, felt uncanny.
Characters in a story I had been working on for years overlapped directly with ideas explored in Areli’s journals, almost sounding as if I had written them, or she had conceptualized mine. These connections are evidence of what led us to each other and keep leading us back as we live and create our lives together.
These are just a couple of coincidences. Maybe it is just a way of seeing, informed by the amazement and connection, that is love. I don’t know, but for whatever reason the signs show up again and again.
I am so not someone who normally believes in the idea of “meant to be.” Yet I am sure that there is something that I don’t understand, some kind of life poetry that has brought us together and feeds our love.
There is a lot more detail and complexity to our amazing story that I feel in my heart just as much as I did with Areli’s first reciprocation. Maybe one day that will be a little book, I think we’ll call Ti Amo. Maybe.
For now, we want to share some of the love that we channel into Cocoa Cinnamon! As we start up our shop, we are letting life lead us together. That feeling has done us well so far, and we feel the need to keep following it.
Be happy in love – of one another, of this earth, of yourself and of this great Bull City, Durham. We hope we can add a little something special to it. We so appreciate everything you have contributed to our dream and are grateful for continuing to pass it on.
If you like this and can, please share the link to our kickstarter page. Be sure to check out the sipping chocolate in the video. You can be a part of our project for as little as $1. Every contribution means a lot to us.
Here’s the link:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bikecoffee/cocoa-cinnamon-the-coffee-chocolate-spice-and-tea
Merry Marry Durham!
Leon and Areli Barrera de Grodski
Cocoa Cinnamon & bikeCOFFEE
http://cocoacinnamon.com
FOLLOW us on Twitter HERE! and “FRIEND” us on Facebook HERE!
CAMPAIGN NOW LIVE! To Contribute Press HERE!
OUR GOAL
To grow from our mobile bikeCOFFEE into Cocoa Cinnamon, a brick and mortar coffee, chocolate, spice and tea lounge in the heart of Durham’s DIY district!
Raise $20,000 by April 9th for initial upfit and equipment to open Cocoa Cinnamon — where we will infuse storied spices and recipes into sipping chocolates, carefully pulled and prepared espresso drinks and teas, and hand made chocolates!
Thank you so much for checking out our project! This is an all or nothing campaign. Please help us spread the word to kickstart our DIY business and take community engagement to the next level! Check out our fun and tasty limited edition rewards for all levels of contribution.
We very much appreciate any and all support! One dollar makes a difference to us! Please contribute any amount that you can and spread the word!
Click here to see the sipping chocolate, coffees, beautiful spices! Saleem Reshamwala’s (http://kidethnic.com) Video is not to miss!
Thank you,
Sincerely and with much excitement!
Leon and Areli
Cocoa Cinnamon + mobile bikeCOFFEE
