Our grand opening last week was a huge success with great customer feedback and a line down the block! I had a whole speech planned at our ribbon cutting ceremony, but when the time came, I couldn’t speak. I was so proud of our team and so thankful of the people that have helped us get to where we are today that all I could do was think of all of the amazing people and cry from the love and support from everyone. There are so many people that I would like to personally thank for being on this journey with me and that have impacted my life and this business more than they will know.
In July of 2017, Macadons was approached by Esprit Smith with Starbucks. She asked us to be a part of their new initiative to have Starbucks locations in underserved areas in the community and work with minority small businesses. It took a lot of work, but they helped us get our operation set up so that we could work with a large business like Starbucks and we had Macadons in 12 local Starbucks stores! Director of U.S. Social Impact for Starbucks, Rodney Hines led the charge and the store in White Center was the 7th Community Store that was developed in the nation. Working with Starbucks was what really kickstarted our path to where we are today.
In their efforts to help small businesses grow, Starbucks partnered with the University of Washington to sponsor Macadons into the UW Business Growth Collaborative (now known as Ascend Seattle) and that’s where the business went into growth mode. The Director of the Consulting and Business Development Center, Michael Verchot and his team of amazing people like Wil Tutol and Rebecca Thornton, have been huge supporters in the growth of Macadons and have been rooting us on since the day we met. I have been working with them since early 2018 and have been enrolled in more programs there than I can keep track of.
From our involvement with UW and the CBDC, we have met amazing advisors and mentors like Ivan Barron, Odette D'Aniello of Celebrity Cakes, Deb Tuggle of Bite Me! Cookies, and Olga Sagan of Piroshky Piroshky.
Another shout out to our first and long time wholesale partners, Quyen Phan with Vinason and Torrey Le with Crawfish King. They have been with us since early 2015 and still carry our macarons to this day and we wouldn’t be where we are today without their ongoing support. They have paved the way for all of our other wonderful wholesale partnerships (Space Needle, Climate Pledge Arena, Bambu Tacoma, and Bobae to name just a few).
Thank you to all of our large corporate partners Microsoft, Amazon, Starbucks, and University of Washington, as well as many others for your ongoing orders.
In August of 2019, we had the pleasure of meeting Bob Livingston from Homestreet Bank. Bob came into our store with the most positive attitude and energy and expressed his love for small businesses and the want to help them grow. At the time, we already had a banking relationship with another bank and although we loved Bob, we felt like there wasn’t a need to switch everything over. All of that changed in March of 2020 when the pandemic hit and we needed help with getting our EIDL and PPP loans. We weren’t getting any support from our bank, but Bob reached out to help. He helped us get all of the forms we needed and helped us fill everything out. Without the help of those loans to get us through the pandemic, Macadons would not be around today. So a huge shout out to Bob and Homestreet Bank for being there for us.
Our relationship with Bob has been a beautiful one so far and he has supported us by ordering our macarons whenever he could. One of the events that he hired us to cater for was the Tri Chambers After Hours event which includes the Kent, Renton, and Seattle Southside chambers. He wanted me to stay so that he could speak about our relationship and introduce me to the community and I’m glad that he did. I had the pleasure to meet Diane and Ashley Dobson with the Renton Chamber of Commerce and we hit it off so well. It’s because of them, that we can now call this wonderful community in Downtown Renton our home and we couldn’t be happier.
Ashley and Diane connected us with Dave Smith who is such a positive influence in Downtown Renton. He owns several properties and is doing a great job of bringing in a mix of businesses that will improve the area and puts that goal ahead of profit. Being his tenant in his gorgeous corner space on 3rd and Wells is an absolute honor.
Thank you to Jessie Kotarski with the Renton Downtown Partnership and the Arts Commission. Thank you to Denise Walz, Nick Ash, Shalirrah Wisney, Chun Li, and Natashia Evelyn for their help in consulting and rebranding Macadons into the great identity it has today. Thank you to Rishabh Jain with Chief Financial Partners for being our fractional CFO and helping us out with the numbers for us to keep Macadons going. Thank you to Chun Li with Digital Encounter for the wonderful marketing campaign that brought us a line out the door and down the block. Thank you to Glenn with Promoshop for creating our custom keychains that we gave out on opening day. Thank you to Custom Valor Clothing for the custom canvas bags and team aprons. Thank you to Reneille with Gian Events for setting us up with the photobooth at our store. Thank you to Olympia Coffee and Miro Tea so that we can have great drinks to offer to our community. Thank you to Armondo Pavone, the Renton mayor, for coming to celebrate with us and participate in the ribbon cutting ceremony.
Thank you to Melanie Corey-Ferrini for the consulting and project management. For taking all of our ideas and coming up with a plan. Thank you to Greg Canright and his team for turning that vision into a reality. Thank you, Hoang for adding a tranquil touch by adding all of the plants that makes Macadons a warm, relaxing, and inviting space.
The biggest thank you I can give is to my team, because none of this would be possible without them. All of our macarons are handmade with the absolute highest quality standards around so that we can guarantee that our wonderful customers will always get the same consistent, great experience every time they bite into any of our products. Our 5-star reviews on multiple platforms wouldn't be as high as they are if it wasn't for their hard work to make sure that every customer leaves happier than they were when they came in. Running a small business is extremely difficult and there's just too much to do to do it all alone, so thank you to our Chief of Operations, Philip, for joining our team in early 2022 to take on a huge part of the workload, to streamline operations, and help get our new storefront open.
And last but very much so not least, thank you to our friends, family, and neighboring businesses that have supported us and continue to support us. Forgive me if I missed anyone else who has been an important part of what makes Macadons what it is today. I just want you all to know that if you're a part of my life, you are SO important to me. I love you all!
-Michael Huynh
Owner, Macadons
