By Julie Shapiro
Two months have passed since Pam Chmiel was forced to close Klatch, her popular Maiden Ln. coffee shop. She hasn’t slowed down since.
Chmiel spent the first several weeks trying to reopen her shop after her landlord evicted her for falling three months behind in the rent. Since it became clear that she would not be able to negotiate a lower rent and a deal to reopen, Chmiel has poured her energy into two summer projects: opening a small seasonal outpost of Klatch in Riverside Park on the Upper West Side and expanding her Teen Entrepreneur Boot Camp.
“It might be a harsh reality in the fall,” Chmiel said, but for now she is keeping too busy to think about reopening Klatch elsewhere in Lower Manhattan. “My passion really is the Teen Entrepreneur Boot Camp. I’m very excited about making this work this summer.”
The boot camp consolidates the months-long process of opening a business into just two weeks. That’s how long the group of 12 teenagers each session will have to plan and launch an espresso bar. They will likely be working out of a storefront on Chambers St., donated by Michael Garr & Co.
Chmiel, a Financial District resident, led her first teen boot camp last summer in South Street Seaport, but between the closure of Klatch and the recession, she expects this summer’s boot camp to have a different tenor.
“It’ll definitely come up in conversation,” she said of her experience with Klatch.
This summer, Chmiel will put more focus on teaching the teens to develop a business plan. The 15- and 16-year-olds will work with an accountant to figure out startup costs and potential profits.
Chmiel will also teach the teens the lessons she learned from Klatch’s closure: Never ignore an eviction notice, don’t be afraid to charge the prices you need to charge and it’s up to you to protect yourself with a solid plan.
When Chmiel started Klatch in 2003, her experience was not so different from the one the teens will have in her program. She opened Klatch, her first business, only about 12 weeks after thinking up the idea of a neighborhood coffee shop just a few blocks from the World Trade Center site.
“I didn’t have a lot in place,” Chmiel said. “It took me a year to get a feel for it.”
This summer, Chmiel will run two sessions of the espresso shop boot camp in July, and in August she will launch a video production boot camp that will teach teens to make commercials for local businesses. Each two-week session costs $650.
For more information about the boot camps, visit teenentrepreneurbootcamp.org.
