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 See you there.

h 

Yes, it's true. The last day of training is Friday. There's still some furniture not in, and a few of the items on the menu won't be available until next week, but we will be open on Friday and all food and drinks are free for everyone who shows up. We'll be there our normal hours (5:30 AM to 9PM), so please stop by.

This free food and drinks is our way of saying thank you to everyone in the community who has been so patient in waiting for us to open, and for our staff to get more experience with our food and drinks and our customers. We aim to serve the highest quality products and getting real feedback from actual customers is going to help us do so.

 So, we hope to see you on Friday for Free Day, and then we officially open for business on Saturday at 8am.

The end of construction, that is. We recently installed our new outdoor signs for the café. For those who cannot simply walk past and check them out, here is a pic of the installation:

Thanks to everyone who has been applying for jobs recently, but we no longer have any open positions. We're very proud to have so many great people onboard.

This past weekend, we had 2 full days of training for the staff. We spent a lot of time talking about the mission and values of the cafe and how they fit with Prairie Crossing. We were so impressed by how well each person did, and by how collaborative the group was when asked to self-organize to accomplish training tasks.

We also did a massive cleaning to remove 99% of the construction remains. For the first time, it's really looking like a cafe and not a construction site. Glasses are on shelves, knives and forks are sanatized, fridges and freezers are ready to be filled with food. 

We still have more decorating, barista training and food prep training to do. We're scheduling everything now. Once that's all set, we'll announce the date of our GRAND OPENING!

Also, thanks to the many people who have written, commented (on this blog), and stopped by to say hi during construction. Thanks for your continued support and we hope to see you very soon!

 -johnh

Ten Thousand Villages is hosting a movie screening of the film, 'Black Gold'' on Friday evening, May 18,  at 7pm in the Wacker Building next door to Ten Thousand Villages. The film provides a compelling introduction to the fair trade movement and is being co-sponsored by Ten Thousand Villages and Prairie Croissant Cafe in cooperation with Prairie Holdings Corporation. If you want to taste the delicious difference in fair trade coffees (brought to you both by Ten Thousand Villages and Prairie Croissant Cafe) get a good sense of what fair trade is all about, and visit with others that care about these issues, then you don't want to miss this event! Call now to reserve your space: 847.986.3585 

Join us for the Organic Prairie Plant Sale at Station Square. The Café is not yet open (very soon, though!) but we will have a booth in front of the café. Please come by for coffee, croissants and assorted other drinks and pastries.

Saturday, May 12, 8:00 AM - 2:00 PM