California Love
Last week Rory and I packed our bags and flew across the pond to visit Amy’s in sunny California, along with our partners in crime, Mark, Bruce and Johnny from ilovedust. Having worked together to create the website for Amy’s Drive Thru, we were there to talk about phase two, as well as to discuss building the main Amy’s website.
Last week Rory and I packed our bags and flew across the pond to visit Amy’s in sunny California, along with our partners in crime, Mark, Bruce and Johnny from ilovedust. Having worked together to create the website for Amy’s Drive Thru, we were there to talk about phase two, as well as to discuss building the main Amy’s website.
Amy’s Drive Thru opened in July 2015 and has already done over $2m in trade in the first 6 months which is phenomenal for a start up fast food joint. People really LOVE the brand and we spoke to some who had driven over 4 hours just to get a bean burger!
Although we were there to discuss building and designing the main Amy's website, it was great to see the venue in the flesh after spending so many hours looking at photos of it. When we rolled in at 9am an hour before it opened, where there were already people waiting outside. The food was delicious (killer milkshakes), the interior was well thought out, friendly staff and tidy packaging.
Amy’s is the parent company behind the Drive Thru which manufactures organic and non-GMO convenience and frozen foods. Amy’s is a massive brand in the US and not just for vegetarians and vegans. As a family owned business, Andy, Rachel and Amy have the freedom to run it in line with their vision and values, rather than being pressured to deliver short term profits for shareholders.
Over the course of the week we heard about various projects the company were investing in, such as building a mobile vegetable processing plant for a community in Mexico, to help revive the local economy. This was just one of several social projects Andy mentioned in passing during our stay, but you would never hear about it as the family are very humble and prefer to get on with things rather than blowing their own trumpet.
After we said our farewells to Amy’s we headed to downtown San Francisco to visit Benny Gold at his store in the Mission. We’ve worked with Ben and the team for over 2 years and collaborated with him on his Magento website and email campaigns.
We were big fans of Benny Gold before we started Superrb, so it was great to finally meet him in the flesh along with his dog Levi who features in many of his graphics. It also gave us the chance to check out his latest collection which just dropped that week.
Ben is an inspirational designer and a tenacious entrepreneur. It’s amazing to see what he and his wife Hiromi have achieved while juggling two young kids and Ben still kills it on a skateboard!
The brand continues to improve with each new collection and it’s great to see how it’s evolved but remains true to the original values it had from day one.
Once our work obligations were done and dusted, we had the weekend to ourselves to see the sights and soak up some Cali vibes.
We managed to cram a lot into a just a few days, but we still felt like we barely scratched the surface and came away hungry for more… french toast.
