A Little White Rabbit Appears! White Rabbit Coffee Co. Now Open In Westminster CO

White Rabbit Coffee Co | 11187 Sheridan Boulevard #9, Westminster, CO 80020

Finally a local coffee shop (that isn’t a national chain) has opened up in our neighborhood. No longer do I have to drive down to Denver to get that local coffee shop vibes to read my comics at.

Having been open a few weeks now White Rabbit Coffee has become a great new addition to our community. Owned and operated by John Kirk, White Rabbit Coffee sits in one of the shops on the corner of Sheridan and 112th avenue. 

With Starbucks and Dutch Bros opening new locations on 120th ave, I was fearing we would start to lose more and more small businesses to our corporate overlords. Once we heard about the coffee shop opening up we headed on over to check it out. It’s important to support your local shops, besides comic shops I also like to frequent coffee shops to give my business to the community.

Now over the weeks the interior has slightly changed with more artwork popping up. John likes to fill the place with art and is slowly building an eclectic collection of artwork on his walls. As more furniture, artwork & merch was added, the more it was starting to feel like a place to hang out at. 

The atmosphere is always a friendly vibe. They’ve done a great job hiring charismatic & social staff that makes early morning chatter turn into sit down conversations that bring in more and more people. I missed the times when you could hang out at a coffee shop and not feel like you have to be quiet because of everyone clicking & clacking away on their computers. This local coffee shop has brought that community feeling back that many of us have longed for.

I’m a pretty basic person when it comes to my coffee, however whenever I’m feeling dangerous I like to get a hot mocha to start off my work day. Usually I’d have to go to Starbucks for that in which it always felt like I was drinking chocolate milk. The mochas have always been on point and my go-to drink to pair with their new pastries. 

White Rabbit Coffee is a taste of what a community could really be and we couldn’t be happier with its opening. It’s now become a weekly date for my wife and I to enjoy our coffee and do some reading. We wish the owner well and hope everyone reading this gives it a try! 

WhiteRabbitCoffee.com

When's The Shop Launch?

Since I’ve had numerous people on Threads ask as well as friends and family, “When is the shop going to launch?”

I figured i’d write this post. The answer is soon, I hope at least. I was trying to find a CPA/Business Advisor who could help me with registering the Coffee and Comics business here in Colorado, but I was unsuccessful. Instead I went with the same team my business partner and I use for Resin Refinery/Chronicle, our web agency and start-up, who is based out of Texas. I just got that filing sent out and am waiting to hear back.

Why am I going through all of this and registering the business? Well I don’t want to just start selling things online without any regards to what I need to do for taxes and then come tax time, get royally screwed by the IRS. So to eliminate the chances of that happening, I’m taking the time to handle all of that from the very beginning. Plus if I want to open a brick and mortar shop down the line, I’ll already have the proper paperwork setup.

There are two main “goals” I have with operating as an online shop right now; spread brand awareness and raise funds for an actual shop. If I execute a well thought out plan, I can go to a bank and use that data to show there is an interest and an extra channel of revenue besides coffee and comics. Should I be successful with that, I would hope that I can get a loan to start this shop for real. The online shop is only the beginning and there is so much more to go.

While launching and then operating as an online shop, I plan to learn as much as possible for this business. There is a workshop in September that will help me with writing a business plan, hopefully by then I can have a few months of data from the online shop. So in the meantime I will need to find a coffee wholesaler to partner with, a comic shop to partner with or just start building my own inventory of comics and maybe even start looking for a site location.

Finally, the shop. I don’t want to get stuck with boxes and boxes of apparel should I not be successful and can’t sell anything. Instead of doing that, I want to do limited drops in which I’ll only put up a few items at a time. My hope is to build excitement for each drop and entice people to purchase and rep the brand. I’ll be posting on social media about the limited drops but I’ll be using my newsletter as early bird access. So as a way to build an email list for when the brick and mortar shop finally launches, I’ll announce that subscribers to my newsletter will get alerted of the limited drops first and then social media the next day. The limited drops will help me with not having to front so much money at the start of this project. You know the saying, you need to spend money to make money, well I'm kinda running low at the moment so I have to be very careful with how I spend my money right now.

Here is a look at how a Limited Drop post on social media would look like.

Besides apparel, what else will be in the shop? Right now I’m working on custom comic bookmarks and stickers. The bookmarks have become quite fun and therapeutic to create and have been well received on Threads. There will be a few on there at the time of launch, I will continue making them depending on how they sell. There is a second design I have worked on that I included on the print screen I got. The design is of the saying “Just One More”, as in “Just one more comic” or “Just one more cup of coffee”.

Stickers + limited drops of hoodies and shirts will be available on the shop.

That design will be available on shirts as well as the canvas tote bags I’ve been creating. In Colorado, they have been going after the use of plastic bags at stores, making you pay for them each time. With a reusable bag you can go about your shopping business without having to worry about paying for plastic bags. I also want to make these bags or cheaper versions of them for comic shops to purchase on a wholesale basis to sell in their own shops. I’d even be open to shops paying for their own screen and I’ll print their logo on one side and the coffee & comics brand on the other. All of this will develop as time goes, I'm not sure if it’ll lead anywhere, but here’s to manifesting it into existence. 

These bags had the designs drawn on, but the bags will be screen printed from now on.

Thanks for following along on this journey and be ready to subscribe to the newsletter when it’s ready! Don’t worry, you won’t be spammed. I plan to only do 1-2 emails a month; to give an update on where I'm at with the business and announce the limited drops.