The Herald Sun Announces Our New Home

A big thank you goes out to Ms. Monica Chen with the Herald Sun for reporting an update on Beyu Caffe. Feel free to check the article out directly from the Herald Sun, or you can simply read the article below.

We are almost there! A couple of months to go before we are all toasting a glass of champagne in celebration of a new coffeehouse in downtown Durham.
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After Search, Beyu Caffe Finds a Home in the Snow Building

BY MONICA CHEN : The Herald-Sun
mchen@heraldsun.com

DURHAM -- The 3,000 square feet inside the Snow Building's first floor is just a shell.

Bare floors, exposed columns and piping fill the empty space, but Dorian Bolden can already see Beyú Caffé alive inside, filled with people, conversation and the aroma of freshly brewed coffee.

"It's going to look great. It's going to feel great," he said.

Bolden has been working towards opening his coffeehouse/jazz lounge for more than a year. At the start of 2009, he secured financial backing. Now, months later, he has finally signed a lease for a location and done substantial work on the design of the café.

The décor will have an Art Deco theme that's in perfect keeping with the history of the Snow Building, a distinctive building in the city center that was built in 1933 -- featuring a Gothic roofline and a manually operated elevator.

The café, located at 335 W. Main St. off to the side of the building's main entrance, will have 80 seats, tile flooring and soft seating, with a retail component directly in front of the entranceway and the dining and bar off to the right. Space for musicians and poetry readings will be to the right and front of the restaurant.

Alicia Hylton-Daniel, an interior designer with HagerSmith Design in Raleigh, has picked teal, yellow and burgundy as the color scheme, offering a dark and rich contrast to the stark white and neutrals of Revolution restaurant and the fresh minty green of Toast.

The space had been a furniture store and then a bagel shop, and Hylton-Daniel, a Durham resident who has had her eye on the Snow Building's Gothic look for some time, said she jumped at the chance to work on the space.

"Beyú will be its own unique spot," she said.

Signing a lease and beginning the design and construction of the space was the second big hurdle toward opening the restaurant, Bolden said. The first is raising the capital, which was $500,000 for Beyú. The third milestone will be to finally see it become profitable.

Beyú started as a dream for Bolden when he was working in financial services in New York in 2004. In the past five years, he has quit the banking industry, gotten his hands dirty working at various cafés and eateries in New York and Durham and finished a business plan.

In 2008, he began working on putting the business together full-time. So far, the business has already achieved some successes, including setting up a Web site (www.beyucaffe.com) and snagging the title of the official coffee of the Durham Performing Arts Center recently.

Bolden kicked off the design process in May and signed the lease later in the month. Construction is expected to begin this month, with an eye toward opening in mid-September. Hiring won't start until later, and Bolden said he expects the upfitting to cost $75-$80 per square foot.

He picked the Snow Building space partly because it was more financially feasible than other locations, and partly because of its proximity to Five Points and West Village.

"All those factors made this building stand out," Bolden said. "It would be able to capture more foot traffic."

Bolden had gotten in touch with Duane Marks, one of the developers of the Snow Building, through Duke University alumni connections.

Carey Greene, another partner on the building, acknowledged that restaurants are usually risky ventures and expensive to build out, but that Beyú was in keeping with the long-term vision for the space.

"The long-term vision had always been to have some kind of a retail business down there," he said. "It's going to put the building on the map more than it is right now."

Bolden said that picking the right team to work on the design was a critical element. Working with HagerSmith Design and Burke Design Group, both of Raleigh, Bolden's team includes engineer Ben Burke, decorator Hylton-Daniel, LEED-certified architect David Black and Barbara Bennett, a food service consultant.

Having Bennett on board helped a great deal, Bolden said, because she knew how to design the kitchen for maximum efficiency.

"If you don't have an efficient kitchen, you won't be able to succeed," Bolden said.

"I'm not a chef, but I like to think I'm a gifted businessperson," he added. "We wanted to make sure we don't get so encompassed in the design that we forget about the kitchen."

Bolden hopes to open the restaurant by mid-September.

"The day I can sit back is the day when I can say that we've broken even, paid back the investors and loans and seen it really become a community coffeehouse," Bolden said.

That third milestone will take a while in coming. Hopefully, Bolden said, they'll be able to break even two years from opening.

Putting a Vision on Paper

After meeting with several great architects, I have chosen to work with HagerSmith Design PA out of Raleigh, NC, as the company’s architectural and design firm. I will be working with Alicia Hylton-Daniel, Interior Designer and Durham resident, as the primary project manager and designer, in addition to Barbara Bennett, Food Service Consultant/Restaurant Designer, and David Black, Architect and LEED certified. I believe this three-person team will provide a great value for our concept and operations by specializing in both restaurant design and interior finishes. Together, they bring over 35 years of experience in restaurant and architectural design with interior finishes.

Together, we are finalizing the design phase of the project whereby I will receive full construction documents in a few weeks. Over the past 3 weeks, we have finalized our kitchen equipment list and overall floor plan, which includes the specific layout of our new space (i.e. kitchen and equipment, coffee and bar area, restrooms, seating area, etc.). Now we are working with an engineer to include the plumbing, mechanical, and electrical aspects of the restaurant so that we can bid the project to a contractor, and begin permitting with the city of Durham. Permitting will take approximately 2-3 weeks, and we anticipate starting construction by mid-July. We have 3 to 4 different contractors whom we will bid our project to.

The above photo is a visual rendering of our proposed concept standing at the right-side front entrance of the building. Now we simply have to implement this visual rendering into a physical space!

After Wall Street, Alum finds drive in coffee biz (Duke University Chronicle Newspaper)

By: Julius Jones

When Dorian Bolden, Trinity '02, graduated from Duke, his future seemed promising. Degree in tow, Bolden headed to Wall Street and started his dream job at Bank of America, working in investment banking.

For two years, Bolden, the kid from the ATL, was living the life. Everything was great until a pair of unforeseen events in 2004-the death of his father and a merger by his employer-triggered a series of events that have led him back to the Bull City. Bolden left Wall Street and spent three years working in coffee houses and restaurants, hoping to find his passion instead of simply a career.

Bolden has returned to Durham ready to fulfill his dream of owning a coffee shop, Beyu Caffe. The "Caffe" shop, which will be located on Main Street, has a target opening date of September.

"After my father died and with everything that was going on at work, I was going through a rough period," Bolden said, reflecting on the origin of the shop's name. "When I was deciding what I wanted to do moving forward, my roommates would come to me and say 'be yourself' or 'be you,' so that is where the name comes from."

He added that the name is also his special homage to coffee and to the love of espresso he gained at an Italian coffee shop in New York City, called Si Caffe or "Yes Coffee."

Bill Kalkhof, president of Downtown Durham, Inc., said Beyu Caffe will join a long list of business and entertainment options downtown.

Both Kalkhof and Bolden said they hope Beyu Caffe will encourage students to come downtown and become more familiar with the city in which they live.

"With Beyu Caffe we are creating an atmosphere that we hope that Duke students will find attractive and exciting to come to," Kalkhof said. "You couldn't have said that seven years ago but you can say that now."

Bolden came back to Durham in 2005 because his girlfriend, now his wife, was in the city studying medicine. Originally, Bolden planned to move back to his home in Atlanta, but as he began doing research for his business proposal, he realized that Durham was the perfect place.

Even before returning to Durham, Bolden was confident he wanted to go into business for himself after watching his mentors at Bank of America, who were laid off as a result of the merger, begin their own businesses.

For three years, Bolden jumped from job to job, working everywhere from a coffee shop to a French restaurant, of which he became manager and learned the intricacies of running a restaurant. Along with the skills he had gained, Bolden's background in finance helped him in raising capital.

Bolden credits his Duke education, however, with increasing his management skills and discipline.

"It's so amazing how my Duke education prepared me for opening my business," Bolden said. "You never really realize how balancing school and organizations and working late into the night will help you as you try to manage your life."

Bolden said his Duke experience, however, left him unfamiliar with the city he now calls home.

"I did not see myself ever coming back to Durham," he recalled. "At Duke, we don't normally venture out into Durham. We might go to Ninth Street or Brightleaf [Square] on the other side, we might go to Erwin [Road], but that's about as far as we go."

The multicultural nature of Durham appealed to Bolden, who attended an all-black high school. Disappointed by the culture at Duke where students too often did not interact with their peers from differernt backgrounds, Bolden wanted to create a place where you, his customer, can be yourself-or Beyu.