Our doors officially opened at 7am Monday the 13th July. We had opened a few sporadic days over the previous two weeks earlier and were pleased that a small group of loyal customers eagerly awaited our full launch and five day trade.
We were super excited about the fact that we had (*touch wood*) no power issues (which for those of you who aren't in the know, has been our primary issue/concern for the past couple of months). Hot water, the fridges, dishwasher, grinders and Synesso have all been firing without a hiccup and I couldn't be happier.
Of course our pastry chef came down with swine flu, and any and all of Adelaide's decent cake suppliers are all terrible at following up on potential new clients (aka 'me') which meant that we needed to bake a hell of a lot of cakes and pastries to go along with all of the coffee that was heading out the door. Many long hours (2am finish) followed by many early starts (back up at 5.30am) meant a fair amount of coffee was in order - luckily we knew just the place! I can honestly say I haven't consumed as much coffee as I did over the past week. So we are eternally grateful to our expert roaster, 5 Senses and the other roasters whose guest blends kept us going!
We were a lot busier than I anticipated, which is always great, but it did cause quite a few stress related headaches. Luckily we had some of the best Barista's in the state pop in to lend a hand and pull some shots. We also had a few special guests including the owners of Auction Rooms (one of Melbourne premier destination cafe/roastery's), Ash and Libbey of Crema Magazine and
Instaurator ('Inny'), author of the Espresso Quest, Chairman of AASCA and all round coffee guru.
We've actually been overwhelmingly surprised by the amount of interstate visitors, especially Melbournites, who have popped their heads into Bar 9. We've had an army of caffeine veterans from the likes of St Ali, Brother Bubba Budan and Seven Seeds. I'm not sure what these people were doing in SA, or how they heard of Bar 9, but thanks! Having such educated palates coming though has been nerve-wracking but in lieu of the tons of positive feedback we've been getting it has also been very comforting.
We have also had our first online review so thank goodness it was positive! And a big thank you to Beanhunter for making us the featured cafe (at the time of this writing). We are also being profiled in the next issue of Bean Scene so keep an eye out for that.
All in all the response has been very positive, and we welcome any further feedback graciously. A great big thank you to everyone who has popped through the doors and to everyone who has helped make the opening on bar 9 a reality. I've said it to many of my friends, if ever there was a cafe destined to never get opened it was Bar 9 - but perseverance, a pinch of luck, and a tonne of help and support has helped get us over the line. So thank you once again to everyone, and to those of you who haven't been in yet please pop in and say hi!
,.,
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