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Thanks for sharing your story with us Lee Corrina. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
Miguel and I (Lee) met in graduate school at the Institute of Design in Chicago. We both have backgrounds in design, strategy and sustainability, and in 2004 we founded Design Union, a product design consultancy. But we both wanted to create something that would be bigger than us and allow us to learn more about customer experience and business. Miguel had watched his parents, who were immigrants, open and grew various businesses and we both have strong independent streaks. We’ve also always had an intense love for all things simple and delicious, and after discovering the world of high-quality specialty coffee in 2004, it wasn’t long before we came up with our own plan to fill a niche for accessible, hand-crafted coffees in an authentic, warm-modern environment. At the time, there were only a handful of high-quality coffee options in Chicago and after doing a lot of research, brainstorming, dreaming and planning, we put together the financing and started searching for the perfect location all over the city (which ended up being a five-minute walk from our home!). It took us over two and a half exhausting years from when we first hatched the original plan in our living room late one night to when we finally opened The Coffee Studio in Andersonville in late 2007....
