關注社會:愜意茶文化
【英文原文】
Tea cozy
(Fortune Small Business) -- At Samovar Tea Lounge, a chain of three teahouses in San Francisco, you'll find no wireless Internet or bulletin board littered with local news and advertisements.
"The goal is to create relationships with customers where they become guests -- or friends," says CEO Jesse Jacobs, a dot-com veteran who opened the first Samovar, in the Castro/Mission district during the 2001 tech crash. "Our design reflects that. We try to provide a cocoon from the outside world, so we need more than just a few chairs and a Formica countertop."
Seating space at the teahouse's bamboo tables is intentionally tight. Jacobs, who built his shops without consulting professional designers, says the setup encourages patrons to mingle and try menu items that beckon from neighbors' plates.
"It's easy to overhear conversations, but that's good," says copywriter Paul Tootalian, 42, a regular customer. "There's a real community feel."
Jacobs, 38, wanted to re-create the physical closeness he experienced as a child when his family gathered around his great-grandmother's samovar, a traditional tea vessel that looms large in Eastern European social life. Jacobs hosts Friday tea tastings at his Yerba Buena and Hayes Valley locations. In Hayes Valley they're held at the bar, a 20-foot-long slice of wind-fallen redwood installed by woodworker and friend Michael Deakin. The craftsman gave Jacobs a 40% discount in exchange for $1,000 worth of Samovar gift cards, which he distributed to his VIP customers -- generating marketing for both businesses. And the inexpensive repurposed wood fits with Samovar's aesthetic, which is based on wabi-sabi, a Japanese concept that finds beauty in simplicity, age and imperfection.
Resisting chain-store uniformity, Jacobs tries to match each Samovar to its neighborhood. When city officials asked him to help revitalize a dreary business district by setting up shop in Yerba Buena Gardens, he turned a failed Starbucks into a clean, modern space for business lunches, eliminating the candles, flowers and menu cards that typically clutter caf tables.
The independent design route spared Samovar from a cookie-cutter look, Jacobs says. And bartering with friends like Deakin helped him shave hundreds of thousands of dollars off construction costs, which totaled $1.2 million.
Revenues have doubled every year since Samovar launched and are expected to hit $3 million in 2009, all with no paid advertising. Jacobs estimates that word of mouth accounts for 95% of sales. When a restaurant conglomerate approached him recently to discuss franchising the Samovar concept, Jacobs passed.
"We don't think like a franchise," he says.
【中文譯文】
(Fortune Small Business) -- 沙莫瓦茶吧（Samovar Tea Lounge）是舊金山一家有着三間茶館的連鎖店，在那你找不到無線網絡，也找不到塗滿本地新聞和廣告的宣傳板。
該企業CEO傑西•雅各布斯(Jesse Jacobs)曾在互聯網產業摸爬滾打多年，2001年互聯網泡沫破滅時，他在舊金山卡斯特羅區和米慎區交界處開了第一家沙莫瓦茶吧（沙莫瓦：俄式茶飲——譯者注）。他說：“我們的目標就是與顧客建立起良好的關係，把他們當做我們的客人或朋友。我們的茶樓設計也體現了這一點。我們試圖提供一個與外部世界隔離的私密空間，所以我們需要的不僅是幾把椅子或福米加桌面。”
雅各布斯的店鋪全由他自己一人打造，沒有諮詢任何專業設計師。他說：“茶樓裏竹桌周圍的座位故意設計得很緊湊，這種安排可以鼓勵客人們相互混熟，並嘗試着點鄰桌餐盤裏的食物。”
今年42歲的撰稿人保羅•圖塔利安（Paul Tootalian）是沙莫瓦的常客，他說：“這兒座位很緊湊，很容易偷聽到別人的談話，但這很不錯，有一種真正的社羣感。”
雅各布斯今年38歲，他想重拾小時候一家人圍坐在祖母的俄式茶壺周圍時那種肢體的親近感。俄式茶壺是一種傳統茶器，在東歐人的社交生活中佔有非常重要的地位。每週五，雅各布斯都會在位於耶爾巴布埃納和海耶斯谷的茶樓舉辦品茶會。在海耶斯谷店，品茶會在一個吧檯邊舉行，該吧檯由一條20英尺長被風颳倒的紅杉木製成，是雅各布斯的好友——木匠邁克爾•迪肯（Michael Deakin）安裝的。迪肯給了雅各布斯40%的優惠，作爲回報，雅各布斯給了迪肯價值1000美元的茶吧禮券，迪肯將它們分派給自己的VIP客戶，如此一來便同時宣傳了兩人的生意。而且，這根便宜的改裝吧檯木條非常切合沙莫瓦的審美風格，沙莫瓦的審美風格基於“侘寂”——一種日本設計理念，以簡約、成熟和非理想性爲美。
雅各布斯拒絕連鎖店整齊劃一的模式，他試圖讓每家沙莫瓦茶樓的風格都與周圍的環境協調統一。當市政府官員讓他在耶爾巴布埃納公園開設一家店鋪，以幫忙重整該地區蕭條的商業時，雅各布斯將一家已倒閉的星巴克咖啡屋改造成了一個整潔而具現代化的商務午餐場所，摒棄了一般咖啡屋餐桌上常見的燭臺、鮮花和菜單卡。
雅各布斯說，獨立的設計風格使得沙莫瓦茶吧的外觀跳出了千篇一律的俗套。而且，通過與像迪肯這樣的朋友的物物交易，雅各布斯也省去了幾十萬建設費用，總建設成本共120萬美元。
自創立以來，沙莫瓦的收入每年都會翻一番，到2009年預計會達到300萬美元，而且沒有花任何廣告費用。雅各布斯估計，口碑對總銷售額的貢獻率高達95%。最近，一家餐飲業巨頭找到他，想跟他商討出售沙莫瓦特許經營權的事宜，雅各布斯回絕了。
他說：“我們並不想做成一家特許經營店。”
