Visit from Stephanie Mckenzie

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Stephanie McKenzie is the owner of Metro Coffee. She started working as an employee at Metro Coffee in 2006 when she was 21 years old. She took over management and ownership of the company in 2009 when the previous owner took ill. She talked about how in the beginning she worked with her partner to keep up the business and help it grow. Working with her partner was hard because it was stressful to have both her personal life and professional life wrapped into one. Having her partner there to support her was great though. There were times she couldn't make it to work, either from sickness or mental stress, and her partner was able to provide and cover for her. I was particularly interested in this because it's very likely that for myself that my partner and I would be working together in building what we want in business early on. My partner has had a lot of time spent working in her parent's business, and so we know what boundaries we would need to set for each other to remain happy and productive in what we're doing. I think that having that happiness is important, because if running a business becomes a slog then it's taking more than it's giving the owner.

When Stephanie was asked why run Metro Coffee, she simply stated that it's because she loves the place. The value of her business didn't just come from earning money, but from the community and environment Metro Coffee provides for her and her customers. I think that's admirable and a great reason to start my own someday.

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