In April 2015, La Vita Dolce became a new business. While the name didn’t change, the owner of the business retired and sold the café’s assets to me and my partner (his name is Alexander and he is a “silent partner” — he’s also my significant other).
My intention was never to continue running an existing cafe. From the beginning, I intended to use this opportunity to create the best café possible.
As our first year of ownership ends, it’s important to review how we’ve moved toward that vision, and to share our progress with the community.
While the new La Vita Dolce is still an espresso and gelato café, there are many new developments here, with the following being some of the most significant:
- New Coffee & Espresso
- Barista Development
- Dolce Nitro
- Community Involvement
- Gelato Flavors
- New Menu Offerings
- Wine & Beer
- New Vibes: Environment & Culture
New Coffee & Espresso
Finding the perfect house coffees was one of our first priorities at La Vita Dolce. By last April, I had already spent months, with the help of a group of tasters, trying coffees from around the globe roasted by leading specialty roasters across the country.
We tasted several absolutely amazing coffees. But I was never confident that any of them could fill the role of La Vita Dolce House Coffee.
And then I tasted Empire Blend. After one cup, I knew we had a winner, and we introduced our new house coffees just a couple weeks after taking over.
Today, our house coffee (Empire Blend), organic decaf coffee (Deco Decaf), and the coffee we use to brew espresso (Streamline) are roasted by Victrola Coffee Roasters in Seattle, and shipped to us fresh each week. La Vita Dolce is the only café in NC where these coffees are available and you can learn more about why we love them here.
Barista Development
Great beans can be a waste if baristas aren’t trained in how to bring out their best when brewing. So we spent weeks providing baristas with training and practice in espresso brewing and milk steaming. Now everyone at the cafe pulls beautiful espresso shots and is versed in the subtleties of milk steaming for drinks ranging from macchiatos to lattes and everything in between.
Dolce Nitro
We’ve introduced several new products during the past year, but Dolce Nitro deserves it’s own recognition.
The first nitrogen-infused, beautifully frothy, cold brew coffee offered in this area, Dolce Nitro took us months to perfect. But once it was ready it hit the tap running.
It has since developed its own brand and following and you can read more about it here, or in Chapel Hill Magazine’s article.
Community Involvement
We love being part of the Southern Village and Chapel Hill communities, which have warmly welcomed the new La Vita Dolce. We’ve tried to find ways that we are uniquely qualified to support people and organizations that make this such a wonderful place to work and live.
We’ve hosted family-friendly holiday events (e.g. pumpkin painting and gingerbread decorating), offered gelato samples at the Southern Village Farmer’s Market, brought kegs of Dolce Nitro to Super Cooper’s Little Red Wagon fundraisers, handed out cider to Holly Jolly Jog runners, kept local teachers caffeinated, and contributed to almost a dozen local nonprofits in our first year. We’re proud of our involvement so far and look forward to new opportunities to support and connect with the community in coming years.
Gelato Flavors
Erin Farmer, who was making the gelato at La Vita Dolce when I bought the café, was doing a fantastic job. So I left her alone. Actually, I made her Manager.
As Manager and overseer of all things gelato at La Vita Dolce, Erin has continued to produce outstanding gelato and go beyond the status quo to create new and adventurous flavors (Sweet Corn, Avocado Sage, Sangria Sorbet, and Wildberry Lavender to name a few customer favorites). She has passed this enthusiasm for meticulous flavor creation along in her training of new gelato makers, who continue to invent gelatos and sorbettos unlike anything I have ever tasted.
New Menu Offerings
We’ve added new options to the menu at La Vita Dolce — and that’s not to say that every addition has been a keeper. For example, we tried Cookie Cake for about a week and while it was great cookie cake, customers voted with their ordering selections (which rarely included cookie cake) and it got nixed.
Among the most popular new options are the Raspberry Oat Bar, Chicken Salad Wrap, an assortment of non-cookie cakes, new espresso drinks, and 4 different Breakfast Tacos. We will also be introducing a new “Small Plates & Snacks” menu section in the next couple of weeks.
Wine & Beer
La Vita Dolce always offers six or more wines and numerous craft beers, which change seasonally. Once each month (on Parents’ Night Out at The Tumble Gym) we offer 50% off all wine and beer.
We’ve also created a few delicious drinks that pair our wines and beers with our made-in-house gelato and sorbetto (e.g. the Hard Root Beer Float and popular Frozen Lemon Vinho) and the upcoming Small Plates & Snacks section on our menu was largely designed to complement our adult drink selection.
Creating Vibes: Environment & Culture
My goal is to make our café a community gathering spot where people meet up, catch up, and have spur of the moment run-ins with friends and neighbors. I want it to be a welcoming place where customers talk to the barista about more than just their coffee orders, and where they enjoy hanging around to chat, do work, or have lunch.
To this end, we have created a new physical environment (e.g. new paint, décor, furniture, music), and we’ve focused on building a positive culture. Our baristas are encouraged to take initiative, find ways to apply their particular strengths at the café, offer ideas for improvement, and make this a fun place to both frequent and work. And they’ve been amazing.
I’ve never witnessed café staff who were more dedicated to making their café the best that it can be, or who cared more about each other and their customers and community. As a result, we’ve developed a wonderful culture that I believe can be felt by staff and customers alike.
There are several other areas that we’ve worked on during the past year – becoming more environmentally sustainable, upgrading equipment, earning a darn good sanitation grade, etc. – but here we end the list for this blog post.
As we kick off our second year, we continue to work toward creating the best café possible. Feedback from the community is extremely important to us — it’s what spurred some of our greatest changes in Year One — so please feel free to contact me at ann.habersham@gmail.com with comments, questions or suggestions.
Note: We’re celebrating our 1 year anniversary with 50% off some of our best drinks & treats for an entire week (4/23-4/29)! Learn more.