Behind the sugary glazes, fresh-baked treats and soul-warming cups of coffee that take up residence at a local coffee shop, The Bean, is a lot of hard work.
It is 4:35 in the morning, before most people have even pressed the snooze button for the first of many times, and Sydney and Ben Nichols, owners of The Bean, are awake and prepping for the day ahead of them.
By 6 a.m. they will be in the shop baking an array of goodies and brewing fresh coffee.
The baking is split into two separate categories - the cinnamon rolls and everything else.
Ben is in charge of making the cinnamon rolls, a process he describes as labor intensive.
“It is labor intensive compared to a pie or a cake where you just put it all in there and throw it into the oven," Ben said. "You are having to roll the dough, and then usually … people tell you to … roll up the whole sheet and make it into a log and cut it, and I roll them individually. I don’t think it is that much harder to do that, but you are able to get more consistency from one cinnamon roll to the next. But it does take time.”
For her part, Sydney bakes the many other sweets The Bean offers.
Her recipe repertoire includes German chocolate cake, Key lime pie, caramel apple cheesecake and Blue Bombs, biscuit-donut hybrids topped with a blueberry puree, to name a few.
And for the fall-loving foodie, Sydney will be whipping up pumpkin and pecan pies.
When she bakes, Sydney said she prefers not to follow every recipe down to the word.
Sydney said, “I freestyle it. I have it all written down ... but once I freestyled it, I couldn’t go back”
Sydney and Ben, along with their daughter, tend to The Bean’s customers from 7 a.m.-11 p.m. during the week, working in shifts.
"We work the store all day," Ben said. "We work in different shifts, tagging in and out, running to the store, stocking supplies and stuff."
Then at 11 p.m., Ben said another 30 to 45 minutes is devoted to cleaning and shutting down the shop before they can finally lock the doors and head home.
The work is enjoyable, but the long days do take a toll, according to Sydney.
"We enjoy it. Of course, it is psychically demanding ... we do get tired," Sydney said.
Ben said the long hours can partly be attributed to having a customer base composed in good part of college students.
"Traditionally, in coffee shops ... the bulk of their business is before 10 a.m. College students, they are not typically up and really intent on going to get breakfast and coffee and everything," Ben said. "They are more, get up and hurry to class and get stuff later. So we still have to do the early hours to cater to not just students but also locals. But then students want to be here late in the night, some socializing and a lot of them studying."
At the end of the day, though, Ben said he enjoys making connections with the people who come in The Bean.
"We enjoy being here and enjoy the interaction with a lot of the customers. That's been one of the fun parts of this," Ben said. "You got folks that you see them come in the door and you know what they are going to order, and it is kind of a first name basis type of thing."
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