We bought a tiny building sitting on a lot just east of the heart of downtown. The site had hosted numerous coffee shops, with a layer of paint on the building for each one. Shortly after purchasing, the city tax assessor tracked me down to let me know that the previous owner was a year+ negligent on their property taxes and that the building would be put up for auction in the near future. “Surprise, congrats on the purchase, here’s another $2,000 bill”. At that time, we still had only a foggy idea of what we wanted to do with the property. Towards the end of the month, we took one of our now infamous “coffee tours” and came back with a more concrete idea of what the building would be used for. We had been running our catering business, The Russian Olive, for several years, then based out of a commercial kitchen in Wilton. With the layout of the building and property, it didn’t lend itself well to immediately relocating the catering business, so we decided to start with coffee.
After painting the building red on the last warm day of the year, we opened the week before the first major snowstorm. On November 21, 2016, we opened our doors as BittyBean: Coffee & Culinary. During that winter, my dad and I (Trent & Daryle) were there anytime the lights were on, usually, 6:30-2:00 serving coffee, then another 2-3 hours working on improvements to the building. The first winter was long and slow, with roughly 54 inches of snow. Yet, the excitement of being new business owners carried us forward.
Through the summer of 2017, we continued to participate in Urban Harvest and began setting up our mobile coffee stand at BisMarket. Nicole and I were the dedicated BisMarket team, while Dawn and Trent managed logistics at Urban Harvest.
By the fall of 2017, the whole Mindeman family had spent time working at the coffee shop, with Nicole (@Robust_Living) in charge of creating recipes for customers interested in healthy options, and Durant working on becoming the onsite manager. We completed our food truck and moved it onto the BittyBean property.
In the winter of 2018, I transitioned out of full-time window service and Durant became the new face of BittyBean. We continued to work on our brand, getting pre-stamped coffee sleeves (a time saver for sure!), purchasing the #BittyBeetle, and (for fun) creating specialized barista titles, such as “Smoothie Visionary”, “Coffee Counselor”, and “Barista Consultant,” to remind ourselves of our customer-focused approach. We partnered with @4purposeorganicenergy, becoming the ND distributor for the best coffee-based energy drink on the market.
By summertime, we had started to develop “Brewtopia”, moving away from a dry patch of grass, to the coffee oasis that it is today. As a part of the summer menu, we expanded our tea line, exclusively serving tea from our friends at @steepmeacupoftea. We also invented the recipe for the now iconic, housemade RWC (Raspberry White Chocolate) Latte. Rhubarb Tea made it onto the menu, thanks to Nicole’s skills, taking the sour-bitter combination of Rhubarb and making it into something that would literally fly off the shelves. It wasn’t until this year (summer of 2021) that we were actually able to keep it in stock for more than a day or two at a time.
In the fall, Durant & I had worked up quite a latte art skill, both going on to win in latte art competitions around the state.
The food truck was beginning to become more popular, and we debuted the beginnings of our now legendary BittyBean House Salad.
In January of 2019, in honor of New Year's Resolutions, we revamped our smoothies menu to fit within a 100% healthy guideline, crafting all of our smoothies to be GF, DF, free of added sugar, high in protein, & low-glycemic.
As the demand grew, we also upgraded our decaf espresso grinder to be on par with the main grinder, a feat almost unheard of for many coffee shops. Today, we continue to custom order our decaf to fit within our goal of bringing the best flavor without the caffeine.
In February we took on our first one-week intern, then in March another intern for 3 months. By April we had hired our first employee. For the first 2-1/2 years the business was run solely by the Mindeman family, and now it was time to branch out. Along with the increased coffee business, the food truck was also expanding. We started building the new kitchen in the spring, a process that would take until the spring of 2020 to finish. Luigi, our 1956 Divco Milk Truck, also arrived on the property mid-year. In summer due to our newfound busyness, we stopped participating in BisMarket but opened up #SlowBarSaturday in Brewtopia. It was a fantastic way to serve craft cocktail-style coffee with an extra flair. We hosted our first Main Street Cruze Night watch party in the yard. In September, Nicole got married and moved to Bottineau with her husband Peter of @ndbartlettfarms.
By October we started the tradition of #BeanFlannelFriday.
2020 started with a bang, continuing to be busy as ever. We helped plan the largest latte art throwdown in Bismarck to date in early February. As you know what happened, we went back to just the Mindeman family working at the bean for a while. After about a month, we began to pick back up in business, and it became necessary to cautiously hire more employees. Comically our main condition upon hiring was something like, “You must stay healthy, so hopefully you don’t have a social life outside of work and online school, right?” Throughout the year we continued to hire more employees, and it was one of our healthiest years ever. In May after a busy start to the spring, we deployed the new kitchen. In the summer we added new salads to the menu along with the “B23” (named after our friends at @Boutique23 who kept asking for avocado toast). Towards the end of the summer, we were thoroughly surprised and excited to receive 1st place in the Bismarck “Best of the Best'' for coffee shops. We have the best customers! In the fall we added the scrumptious housemade Pumpkin Bars to the menu. At the end of the year we had our first team Christmas party, as we were up to seven official employees, plus one intern, and the four Mindemans.
2021 started as a promising year. With the help of our additional staff, we debuted our GF, DF Coffee Cake & Scones to expand our all housemade treats lineup. We also started making housemade focaccia for our B23s and Breakfast Sandwiches. In the spring we got extra fancy with the new menu, bringing a few #SlowBarSaturday style drinks to the regular menu. We were excited to announce that Nicole was pregnant, our first #BittyBaby! Our longest-standing employee, Jessica, also got married. We continued with business as usual during the summer, eventually going Bismarck viral on the BisMan Eats Facebook page with our house salad and rhubarb tea. At the beginning of August, Durant got married and took his first real vacation from managerial duties since he started full-time. In September we officially moved into The New Realm (the larger building south of the original BittyBean) and were able to spread out a bit. With the original bean space available, we were able to convert it into a brew lab, and finally start brewing our own kombucha. We debuted with grape, the flavor served at Nicole’s wedding.
And here we are, present day. Nine employees plus five Mindemans make the team. A full kitchen menu & housemade pastries. Innovative & delicious coffee. 100’s of fantastic customers. Historically, most small businesses fail within the first five years. We are exceedingly blessed by our community & customers. Let’s see where the next five years take us.
