Prologue

The Pennyroyal Cafe has begun construction. No. Demolition. At 155 N University Ave in Provo, UT, you'll find a once obscure, purple looking atrocity that was oh so recently known as "The Hookah Connection." Nothing against our peace-loving hookah vendors, but the place was a dive and I have the pictures to prove it.


4600 square feet of potential. That's all we have so far. That and not nearly enough money. Also, an army of willing volunteers, correspondents, designers, artists, musicians. . . in short, the most brilliant people in the Utah valley.


The point of this blog is to prove the old adage: Where there's a will there's a way. We're in over our heads, unexperienced, unmoneywielding and unbusiness-savy but we make up for it with. . . something or other. Or maybe I'm downplaying it all (except the not being filthy rich part) and we actually are the most brilliant business people this side of Donald Trump. Apprentice this!

I guess that's what we're going to find out.


You will either learn all the ways to fail miserably at opening a small business while in college or you will learn how to start a thriving business on pennies and turn it into one of the greatest things your small college town has seen.

I guess this is where I should mention that it's going to be a soup, salad, sandwich joint. It's focus is to catch the green wave and go healthy and organic. There will be lots of vegetarian and vegan options along with the average, run-of-the-mills meaty stuff. Also available will be a full cereal bar and soda bar. It will feature a revolving gallery on it's abundant wall space and maybe even a used book/movie/cd shop. Now that's class! The basement (the apple of my eye, mind you) will be a sort of VIP lounge with a small stage for jazz acts, movie nights, poetry readings, etc. Anything to bring more people in, am I right?

It's a stay-as-long-as-you-want, open-to-the-wee-hours-of-the-night joint. Need a place to study? Come to the Pennyroyal. Need to get away from 10 crying babies? Come to the Pennyroyal. Need to sleep on a couch after reading 400 pages of Crime and Punishment for a report that's due the next day or else you'll fail your Russian Literature class? Come to the Pennyroyal.