Are your early bird tendencies wreaking havoc on your social life?
With summer here, the days are longer and sleep schedules are shifting. The positive side to this is your morning productivity and focus are likely higher. The downside is you may be struggling to stay awake and engaged during late-night social events.
You aren’t your best when you show up to dinner club or Thursday night drinks with a drained battery, and that can affect your enjoyment and others’ experience as they notice your lack of engagement. When the next meetup comes around, you’re even less enthusiastic about staying out past your preferred bedtime.
And chances are you aren’t alone.
It’s time to rally the seasonal Advanced Sleep Phase troops and build a summer sunrise social community!
There’s a growing trend of early morning meetups brewing. From run clubs and “hot girl walk” gatherings to home cafes and sunrise porch talks, more and more people are taking advantage of those early morning hours and squeezing in a bit of socializing before clocking into work.
Morning workout groups seem to be the most common pre-work social event, but regardless of how smell-proof Zoom meetings are, not everyone is up for that much sweat that early in the day.
Enter, the “home cafe.”
A home cafe is a cheaper, more flexible alternative to a dinner club. It’s a hosting trend in which people play barista and turn their kitchens or living rooms into a free “coffee shop” for friends, complete with menus, pastries, and sometimes even branded to-go cups.
Whether you host a home cafe during the week or over the weekend, the focus is on enjoying time with friends while you fuel up for the day ahead. As a host, your home cafe can be as simple or as extravagant as you want, making it an easy—and incredibly fun—entry point for beginners or an exciting challenge for experienced hosts to up their game.
Here are a few basic steps for anyone wanting to host a home cafe that will make your friends forget you skipped last month’s happy hour book club.
Step One: The Invites
People have busy lives, so it’s best to send out invites earlier than you think necessary. It can be as casual as a group text or as novel as handwritten invitations sealed with wax and delivered to their front door. The amount of effort you put into your home cafe is up to you, each step of the way. I suggest you specify a set range of hours you want people to stop by. Typically, people come and go throughout that time, just like a real cafe!
Step Two: Pick a Theme or Vibe
This isn’t required, but it is fun and adds to the experience. You can find inspiration online or at your favorite local coffee shop. Turn your living room into a Parisian cafe or fill your kitchen with picnic decor. You can even create your own branding and order custom stamps for to-go cups or print your logo on a hat. The possibilities are endless.
Step Three: Create a Menu
If you have an espresso machine, you can print out a menu with all the basics—latte, cappuccino, macchiato, etc.—and maybe a signature summer drink. If you don’t have a way to steam milk and pull shots, a pot of coffee with a few coffee creamer options works just as well.
Experienced bakers can make pastries from scratch (I recommend prepping the night before), but you can also call in a friend who makes the best croissants or buy a few premade pastries from local shops. Again, keep it as low-commitment or involved as you want.
Step Four: Socialize!
Remember, the entire point of a home cafe is to spend quality time with friends. Relax and enjoy the morning. If you have leftover pastries, bring them to your neighbors with an invitation to your next home cafe!
The times they are a-changin’ and an early bedtime no longer has to be the death of your social life. Of course, hosting a cafe pop-up in your home is fun, but simply inviting a couple of friends over to drink black coffee around your kitchen island sounds like an equally good time. Plan whatever will get you and your friends together and talking.
Share photos of your home cafe with Benicia Magazine (through socials or email) so that we can share some hosting inspiration with the whole town!
