Today we’d like to introduce you to Travis and Randy Patterson.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
We grew up in Bolton and attended the public schools through high school. I (Travis) am 27 and my younger brother Randy is 25 making us two and a half years apart from each other. After graduating from Nashoba Regional High School I went on to Westfield State University where two years later Randy would join me in my junior year. We grew up doing just about everything together from sports to boy scouts.
During high school and college, Randy and I would come home on vacations and weekends to work with our Uncle Jeff who is a carpenter. The reason I bring this up is because shortly after Randy and I graduated college, our father bought the building in the center of our town Bolton, and called upon us to help him rehabilitate the structure. After a complete exterior facelift and some serious inside demolition, the building was ready to start housing tenants. During the rehab process, we contracted a sign to hang out near the road that asked the passerby’s what they would like to see go in.
We received a numerous amount of ideas but the one that kept reoccurring was the idea of a coffee shop. As we continued to plug away at the building and finish getting spaces ready to rent, the time came where we made the decision to open a coffee shop ourselves and start building it. So, with absolutely no restaurant experience at all between the two of us, Randy and I started swinging hammers until the coffee shop was created how we liked it. At that point, we realized that it was time to buckle down and focus on what the coffee shop was going to be about and what we would offer to our customers.
After tasting several different roasters and finding a food distributor, Randy and I, along with a team of people we put together, sat down and created a menu. The menu was based of ideas that we had liked from extensive visits to other cafes and lunch spots. A couple months later we finally opened with a small food menu including breakfast and lunch options as well as a list of specialty coffee drinks using a product from George Howell Coffee Roasters.
A few months into being open, we decided to add a few new menu items and do some tweaking on our menu to suit the needs of our customers. As we progress, we constantly are trying to further expand our brand past the day to day operation. We do this through events at our Cafe, being involved with community projects, and social media pages on our Facebook and Instagram pages, @BoltonBean. We are obtaining our beer and wine license to be able to host live music at night and give the community a new hang out for a beer and good tunes. Every day is a learning experience for us and we continue to listen to what customers have to say and grow our business through their input.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
For the most part, it has been a smooth road. Our biggest struggle was just opening the doors. We were extremely nervous to open because we did not think we. were ready but the only true way to tell if we were was to open the doors and see what needed to be fixed.
Working with family can also be difficult at times because its tough to admit being wrong or being open to ideas that may not be exactly what was wanted personally. Randy and I have mutual respect for each other and it keeps us honest and willing to work together with minimal issues.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Bolton Bean story. Tell us more about the business.
We opened as a coffee shop that had a small food menu for people to snack on. Today, the shop is more known as the town lunch spot where one can get an exceptional latte. We serve George Howell Coffee which is a small batch gourmet coffee roaster that has a culture in itself.
We offer a wide variety of sandwiches and paninis as well as soups, salads, rotating quiche options, pastries, and the new addition of Poke bowls. We opened specialized in coffee however after hearing what our customers had to say we quickly realized that there was a high demand for lunch. This being the way it was, we started crafting healthy lunch options that people could choose from rather than going to the same old sub shop.
As a company, we are most proud of being able to start a business that grows every day having absolutely no background in the food service industry and turning it into a place that the community enjoys coming to or working from.
Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
In Life, we have both had our fair share of good and bad luck. We depend on the ones we love when we are less lucky for the support and encouragement and celebrate with the same people when life brings us luck. In business, we feel it has been the same way.
We felt unlucky that we didn’t reach our targeted market as much as we intended, which are the commuters headed to Rt 495 right up to the road. We then felt very lucky that we have had so much success with a totally different late morning and afternoon crowd. We are also very lucky to have been able to start this business in the first place and have so many people who love our product.
Contact Info:
- Address: 626 Main Street Bolton Ma, 01740
- Website: Boltonbean.com
- Phone: 9786341188
- Email: boltonbean@gmail.com
- Instagram: @BoltonBean
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BoltonBean/
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