Beatnix Gone

This is a purely personal post, with no updates on the game.

Beatnix Coffee House went out of business yesterday, and today we started selling off its assets and winding it up. Almost three years ago, my wife Penney started Beatnix in collaboration with her mother Sandy (seed capital) and old friend Todd (professionally trained chef). It had been a dream of hers for quite some time, and she made it a glorious reality. We had art, music, poetry, great friends and great coffee. We had cool, funky employees and customers. All four of our children worked there, and two of them performed on stage there, at one time or another. You can read more about it in our local paper or the Beatnix web site.

For most of Beatnix's existence, I was in law school. In recent months, I hosted open mic poetry, but that was about the extent of my involvement. I was very proud, though, of what Penney had accomplished - apart from Todd's tasty muffins and paninis, all of the things that made Beatnix great were due to Penney's creativity and hard work.

Many, many people loved Beatnix, but in the end, that wasn't enough to keep it going. Sandy, Penney and I invested a lot of money that we won't be getting back, and Penney and Todd spent a great many underpaid or unpaid hours. All that is left are memories of the good times we had and the little community of wonderful people that gathered around us. There are quite a few things that we would have done differently, if we had it to do over, but there is no question that we would do it all again if we could.