“Great Bear was inspired by my love of coffee houses. I discovered coffee when I was a student at Berkeley. I love the atmosphere and how fun it was to have espresso and talk about ideas. I love the idea because the coffee house is a gathering place, and I saw an opportunity here to bring a little bit of funkiness to downtown.
It's a big challenge to stay on top of changes; for example social media is a huge change for somebody like me who's older. I'm so glad that I have my manager here to do our social media presence because it makes a really big difference.
Being aware of the trends in coffee roasting is so important because we roast our own coffee, but sticking to our own idea of what we like and being able to explain that to the public or just stand for it is hard. You're probably familiar with the trend of roasting it very lightly and we've never done that. We roast until fully dark. I just happen to think it tastes incredibly delicious that way. Our customers like it too. I think we have a good formula. I am very proud of the quality that we offer people and we have a really fresh coffee we stand by.
My go-to when I'm here is a single cappuccino in a porcelain cup – I love the way we make our cappuccinos! We don't do latte art, but we microfoam the milk.
As a small business owner, these last five years have been challenging, topped off by the pandemic. I think small businesses are really important for communities and individuals for the well-being of the downtown. I just hope that people will understand why we have to charge the money that we do – it's really important to be able to pay people!
Hi, my name is Sue Ann and I'd like to invite you to come out to Great Bear Coffee to have a nice relaxing time.”
