Michelle Wunderlich, owner

Seaside Coffee House

5 N. Holladay Drive

Seaside

The Seaside Coffee House, along with Seaside Coffee Roasters has come under the ownership of the Wunderlich family, opens at 6 a.m. weekdays and 7 a.m. weekends, serves several brews daily, along with a full espresso selection and offers seating to hunker down in during a rainy day. For more information or to order some coffee, call 503-739-0226 or visit bearflagcoffee.com/webstore/category.cfm?Category=57

What do you do?

We make coffee and food, just kind of do a little of everything. We do a lot of paninis, which a lot of people dont know we do food, and we bake a lot. We dont emphasize our art yet. Wed like to start doing Art Walk in the summertime, but right now thats not really a focus. We roast our own beans. We have Seaside Coffee Roasters, so everything we have here is all superfresh and local, because we do it ourselves. The espresso we use is our sweet Italian-style espresso, and thats always the same. And then our coffees, we have probably over 50 if you include all the flavors. We always have five at a time out, brewed up. So usually three regular a medium, two dark, a decaf and a flavor. But we change those daily so youre getting something different each day.

How did you get started doing this?

I worked here a few summers ago and just loved it. Im a supersocial person, so I just enjoyed seeing people. And making coffees fun. Even if its something small, you can make someones day turn around with a good cup of coffee. I really like that, and I had the opportunity to do it full-time for myself. In May, it will have been two years (since I took ownership), so not quite two years.

What is the volume of your business?

It changes so much. Ive worked really hard in trying to make this a local place. I grew up here, Im from Seaside, so I recognize that people live here all year. But then you get a sunny weekend, and you do 10 times what youre used to doing, or spring break, theres just no way of knowing (the volume of business). This winter I thought would be a lot slower, but we stayed really steady. You can definitely tell when theres more people in town. You get busier, but I still have stayed busy through the winter. People come in every morning with their own cup. For brewed coffee, if you bring your own cup, its $1, so we get a lot of people that just come in every morning for that.

How has the economy affected business?

I think that the interesting thing about the economy is we have a low price point. Even if you dont have much money, you can bring in your own cup for $1 and get coffee, and people, they can be on a tight budget and they save $2.75 for their látte, because thats what makes them feel really good. So yes it affects us, because people arent spending money hand over fist, but at the same time, we have a lot of different options for people. I think the weather affects us. If its sunny, nobody wants to be in here; they want to be at the beach. But if its kind of gray or rainy, they want a nice, cozy place to sit, and thats exactly what we are. So rain helps us.