25 years of Summit.

I remember so vividly writing about 20 years, a whole pandemic ago, and imagining what it may feel like to someday hit 25. I remember so vividly celebrating Summit's 13th anniversary, in September 2011, mostly because that was my first day as a full-time Summit person. And yet, 12 years later, it feels like while so so much has happened, it's all gone by so fast.

Summit has learned, through the recession starting in 2008 and Covid starting in 2020, never to count the next anniversary before September arrives. For small businesses, homegrown and self-funded, tomorrow is never a given. So please humor us while we pause, for a moment and for a month, to celebrate. When Summit opened its doors in quaint downtown Davidson in 1998, Bill Clinton was still the president, the iPhone was a decade from having been invented, and nearly half of our current leadership team had yet to enter this world. 25 years ago is a long time, and also it's just not.

We still remember what Main Street was like in 2005, when we'd close Summit in the afternoon because not a car was in sight. We still feel deeply the excitement of opening our 2nd cafe, The Outpost in 2013, and the anxiety of years spent losing money and trying to figure it out. We still feel the perspective we gained during our first coffee origin trip to Colombia in 2016. We remember the first nights of live music at Basecamp, the first IPAs served. We remember the Twilight 5k running races and the hundreds of people who showed up. We remember all of the many sick moments spent wondering if this week's payroll would finally be the one that sank the ship.

More than anything, though, we remember leaning into each other. We remember celebrating with our coworkers, cheersing our neighbors, serving our guests. We remember when hundreds of people showed up to raise money for victims of Hurricane Katrina, and the hundreds more who lined up to get coffee and donuts at our Drive-To in 2020. We remember dozens of times where we looked at each other, in the cafes and the roastery and the office, for encouragement and support and ideas. We remember a balance sheet indicating we were going to run out of money. We remember dozens of Christmas in Davidsons spent frolicking in the streets.

We remember bringing our babies to Summit for their first visit, and the thousands of visits since. We remember celebrating Davidson basketball, and counter protests along Main Street, and box turtle mochas and Kindred donuts and buckets of Fun. We remember shoveling the sidewalks so we could open during the blizzards.

It's the gift of a lifetime to have spent so much of our lifetime as part of the Summit community. And this community exists not just because we opened a cafe and have served coffee for 25 years. The Summit community exists because of all of you reading this journal, who've come through our doors in Davidson and Asheville, Charlotte and Roswell. Those of you who've allowed us to lean in, allowed us to try new things and mess up over and over again, and those of you who still showed up for us the next day anyway.

We remember so many of the friends we've met, those who have moved on and those who we've lost, and all of the friends that have been here since day one.

Running a business is beautiful and rewarding and hard as heck. It's messy, it has brought us to tears (not the good ones, like we're wiping away now, but those oh-my-goodness I am freaking out ones). We've had panic attacks and arguments, we've had hugs and parties. We've definitely had lots of Summit parties, and y'all sure showed up for those, too.

But I cannot imagine making it to 25 years without having lived through this rollercoaster. I cherish the memories we've earned, I long for some of the moments we won't get back, I regret some of the choices we've made and things we've said. But all along, we've made Summit a core part of our lives. Not just those of us fortunate to call ourselves owners, but for the hundreds of baristas and employees who've given so much to making Summit what it is. For every person on our Instagram, there are hundreds more bringing Summit to life.

What a gift Summit has been for us. How remarkably lucky we are to get to wake up each day and be the first in line for coffee, to be so excited to get to the office. We're hopeful that many of you, too, feel like Summit has in some moment or in some way been a source of joy and connectivity in your lives.

What we feel more than anything after 25 years is gratitude. To our families for supporting this wild adventure, to our staffs current and past for so much good energy and hard work. And to you, for buying coffee and showing up and making it possible for us to be here in September 2023. While Summit is ours, Summit is yours.

Here's hoping we're fortunate enough to keep doing this thing for many, many more coffees to come.

- Brian