FROM DISASTER COMES OPPORTUNITY

“It’s not fancy, it’s dire” is the motto of a Toronto coffee shop called Two Hot Babes Coffee Co.

Nancy Silverman started the company as a way to survive the pandemic. (Full disclosure: the other hot babe is her dog/bestie Penny).

“People buy a coffee and that means I can put dinner on the table tonight, it means I can pay my rent,” she said, in a recent interview with @cbcthenational.

Before the pandemic, Silverman was a full-time yoga instructor. “Life was great, I had a great life,” she said. Then, like it has for everyone, COVID changed everything. Silverman went from teaching 25 classes a week to three. Her income dropped to almost nothing. So, to make ends meet, she decided to sell coffee.

In just two weeks, Silverman registered her business, built a website and set up shop in a neighbourhood bar called @wenonalodge that was also hit hard by the pandemic — business there was down 90 per cent.

“I think the biggest scare is losing everything,” said Wenona Craft Beer Lodge owner Faye Blais. “We’ve been on the brink of having to close for the last six months at least.”

Renting out part of her bar to Silverman to sell coffee [take-out only due to COVID restrictions] helped them both.

“From disaster comes opportunity. It’s in these kind of trying times that beautiful things can come from it.”

Watch the full story at CBC The National’s YouTube channel (link in @cbcthenational bio).

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