“She Moved Here For Love and Stayed For Coffee.”

By Ronald Paul Larson

This is the another one in a series of interviews with people in Kenosha who may not necessarily be artists, but through their life experience, actions, and their dedicated work ethic make this a better place for the artist community.

If Carolyn Kirkby sleeps until 7 a.m., she slept in. She is usually up by 5:00 a.m. “That is the time my body usually wakes me up.” Rising that early, while good for giving Carolyn a head-start on just about everybody, presented one problem in particular; finding an open coffee shop. Carolyn had recently moved to Carol Beach in Pleasant Prairie and was renovating a house when the need for early morning caffeine became apparent. However, she couldn’t find a coffee shop that was open before 7 a.m. “I’m up at 5:00 and that’s when I need coffee. By 7 a.m., I am fine. I don’t need it any more.” It was this inability to find a coffee shop open before 7 a.m. that first inspired her to open Carolyn’s Coffee Connection three years ago.

Carolyn grew up in Bartlett, IL, a suburb of Chicago about 35 miles northwest of the city. She worked as an account executive at a brokerage firm in Chicago then went back to school to study elementary education. After studying, she found her reaction to the profession mixed. “I loved working with kids but really hated the administrative part of it.” She moved to the Kenosha area six years ago. “I moved here basically because I had gotten engaged. My husband had a house up here, so I moved, we ended up in Carol Beach a year later.”

They stumbled across the building that originally housed Coffee Connection by chance. They learned from the shop owner across the street that the owners of the building might be willing to sell. It was owned by the family that owned Gottfredsen & Nicoll and was vacant. The owners had been working on the building for a wile; gutting it, replacing the HVHC, doing a lot of grunt work. The building wasn’t for sale but Carolyn and her husband approached them anyhow. The owners asked for a price that they thought was “extremely reasonable” and bought it in February 2006.

Originally, they wanted the building for office space on the second floor. They were unsure of what to do with the downstairs, however. An initial thought of Carolyn’s was to start a bookstore. After she moved here, Carolyn was shocked to learn that there was no bookstore in Kenosha. “You have to go to Gurnee or Racine to find a book store. It blows my mind.”
(Lakeshore Books is currently the only real bookstore in Kenosha. They sell used books). They also discussed opening a bar. But this was not good option for Carolyn because she is a “morning person, not an evening person.”

It was at this point that the memories of early morning caffeine frustration came back to her. “The thought of doing a coffee shop was very appealing to me.” Fortunately, the space was large enough to do more than just coffee. “I’ve always been into food. I love gourmet food, unique things. I wanted to do something that was food related.” She also wanted to create a place that she would want to “hang out” in. “I didn’t feel like there was one of those here.” As part of creating that type of place, she added a children’s playroom; a place for mom’s to “go and relax” while watching their children. After she decided to open a coffee shop, and while she was working on the renovation of the house in Carol Beach, she got a job at a well known coffee franchise “to see how they did it” figuring it might be a good idea to “see what works.”

The fact that the building was downtown and close to the lake was a benefit in Carolyn’s mind. While living in Illinois, she did a lot of sailing and was surprised to learn that easily accessible food was a problem for boaters. “You go into marinas and there would be nothing within walking distance. All you had was what you had on your boat for provisions.” This is where the building’s downtown location combined with her interest in food. “We wanted to be able to market it to the boats.” She did research and looked into the population of HarborPark, learning how many of them were full-time residents and would potentially be taking the train and looking for coffee on the way to the train station. Carolyn saw her new building and new business as a long term investment. She had no desire to purchase the building and turn it over. “It was a chance for us to be a part of something.” That something is a revitalized downtown. “To be honest, I didn’t know Kenosha had a downtown until we came down here to buy a suit at S. J. Crystals. I had never been downtown and I had been here for about three years.”

As for the struggling downtown itself, what can be done? Carolyn is skeptical that the city administration can do much. In her view, razing vacant buildings isn’t the solution. “Then what do you have? A building that is torn down and there is still not a viable business there.” To her, the best answer is for the city to go after an anchor store for downtown and put together a tax incentive program. “Downtown can’t support retail without an anchor store in this economy.” Aside from this, she thinks the initial goal should be to make downtown an entertainment destination. “I think we need to become an entertainment district first and get people coming downtown.” Once people are coming downtown, the retail stores will stand a much better chance of success. “People will see them and they’ll come back downtown to go to them. The important thing is to get people downtown.” But, she doesn’t expect this to happen overnight. “What is key is that business owners start being proactive and working together to promote downtown as a whole.” “Second Saturdays,” she thinks, is a good example of this and has great potential but “business owners need to take more active roles in promoting their own businesses.”

Unfortunately, not all downtown business owners are interested in promoting their business more. “There are some who say they don’t need to stay open later, to promote their businesses and do things like that. Their business is doing fine. To them I say, that’s great for you, but now it’s your responsibility to help your neighbor and take your customers and make sure they are becoming the customers of the other businesses as well. I’ll send my customers to The Nook, Common Grounds, Moe’s or Scoops for lunch if I don’t have what they’re looking for. We all need business. It doesn’t help any of us if a business opens and closes two years later.”

While some of the downtown business owners have a “leave me alone” attitude, many do not. “We’ve got a really good group down here that all work together. There is really a great vibe. I think the difference now is we don’t see each other as competition. I don’t view The Nook as competition. I view them as an occupied store front. In order for downtown to succeed, everyone has to work together.” This is why Carolyn’s support of the arts downtown and events such as “Bloomin Days” and “Lightin’ Up” is so strong. She sees them as a way of supporting downtown and her own business. “I think you can blend both together.”

Much of this new, positive attitude comes from the new business owners downtown. “The great thing about getting new people in is that you get new energy. When I came in three years ago, I had an energy that some of the business owners down here were burned out on. I can see that happening because it becomes two, three, or four people doing a lot of the work.”

As for the vacant buildings downtown, she believes the responsibility lies with the building owners realistically pricing their properties and renting them at a price that takes into consideration that downtown is not a popular destination yet. “If you want a business to go in there and to succeed, you need to charge them a reasonable rent. Don’t make them suffer four months out of the year, because January through April they are going to be slow until the boats get back into the water. That is just the reality of it. We make it through the fourth quarter because people remember we are here and they keep coming down.” She noted that “You don’t start a small business for the money. You do it because you love what you are doing. And you will keep doing it even if you can’t afford to.”

It is this huge commitment of time, energy, and passion that can make opening and owning a small business difficult. “It is a balancing act. You’re trying to run your business, manage your family and then trying to revitalize an area. It is very easy to get sidetracked and focus on downtown and building up other people and neglect your own business.”

In addition, Carolyn notes, “You have to have a life. There is no way I could have done this if I had kids. And it definitely took a toll on my personal life.” Starting her own business “brought to light some weaknesses” in her marriage and ultimately doomed it. “I started this married. I am now divorced. I don’t regret the marriage. I wouldn’t have had the courage to open this without my ex-husband. I also don’t regret the personal fallout from it. Owning your own business shows your strengths and your weaknesses.” But the personal cost was high. I got married, renovated a house & opened a business all within two years. Starting a business with “someone you are married to” is difficult. “You never leave work. You go home and it is still there. You can’t go home and not talk about it. Even if you take a day off, the other person is working. You have no escape from it.” Carolyn would be very picky about who she chooses to mix business & pleasure with in the future. “If somebody I know wants to be a financial investor; a silent partner, that’s easy.” But, she’s very aware of the toll that starting a business with a friend let alone a significant other can have “you spend a lot of time together and it’s natural you are going to get on each others nerves.”

In the process of opening the Coffee Connection and creating a successful business, Carolyn Kirkby has become a business leader downtown. She is on the Board of Directors at Lemon Street Art Gallery and has been on the Lakeshore Business Improvement District board for the last two years. She was the Chair of “Kenosha Bloomin Days” and “Lightin’ Up Kenosha” this year and will be the chair for “Kenosha Bloomin Days” in 2009. “The “Bloomin Days’ this year was very different from the first year and the committee that we had was incredible. They did much more work than I did! I think a lot people around here give me more credit than I deserve. I just do what comes naturally to me which is get involved.”