Today we’d like to introduce you to Amalia Litsa
Hi Amalia, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
Hello! I’m a Greek American in Austin, TX.
My mom, Elenie grew up in a little village called Talada in the province of Lakonia. She was born in a little one-room hut made of stone with her parents and four brothers and sisters. Her mom would garden and forage, and her dad was a shepherd. When my mom was 11, her family sent her, alone, to live with a well-meaning, but misguided old woman in Florida. The woman, Amalia, for whom I am named, rescued a lot of Greek children during the famine in the early 1940s. In 1969, my mom was the last of these children to be brought over.
Amalia lived in a Greek diaspora in Miami. This is where she met my dad. He was a first-generation American, born to a Greek immigrant to Ellis Island. My parents bonded over Greek dancing. They married, my dad became an enlisted Airforce guy, and at some point my sister and I happened.
Growing up, my little church friends were Greek and Syrian. My little military friends had foreign moms like me: English, Korean, and Japanese. Between church life and military life, I thought every family had some home nationality and all we looked the way we did because we all hailed from different countries.
That changed when my dad retired in Texas. Here, people must conform to one of three or four “ethnic” buckets: Black, Brown, White, or Asian. Based on my appearance, I was white, but culturally I did not fit anywhere. In general, Texans don’t realize that there are pretty significant differences between Eastern and Western caucasians. It’s a bi-product of slavery, segregation and discrimination, I know, but for me, the culture shock was real. I made friends, but I also felt “othered.”
This is why value activities so much. I feel instant kinship with other artists because I used to draw as a kid. We’re the same! Bike rides, running groups, open mics, trivia nights, karaoke… activities like these reach into people, past their exteriors and into their hearts where their joy lies. These things allow us to bond over the most authentic parts of ourselves. More specifically, creative activities bring together creative people, and creativity is something that exists at the soul-level.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
The idea for Dear Diary Coffee formed in my first years in Austin, Texas. Long story short, I dreamed of creating a coffee shop with amenities for artists because art meetups at coffee shops is how I made all my friends when I moved here.
Austin Sketch Group was a weekly art meetup founded by an amazing local illustrator named John Rubio. I don’t remember how I learned about it, but that group is how I made all my first friends in Austin. It’s also the reason I ended up with two really great animation jobs: I did background art for Horsebacksalad and worked on a Linklater film called A Scanner Darkly as well.
Those were really magical years for me, and I wanted to make it last forever. After “Scanner,” I sort of accidentally slid into the world of tech. HTML editor jobs were plentiful back then because no one understood the internet. I’m so lucky because I was able to become a “web master” with very elementary web skills. I’m really lucky timing-wise: all this happened during a little reprieve between the 90s dot com crash and the 00s housing crash.
That dream heavily influenced every financial decision I made in my 20s and 30s. I lived way below my means and aggressively saved money for my coffee shop. I was ambitious, but also desired stability and security, so I bought a house in 2008 and paid it off as quickly as I could. Always living with other people helped me do that. It was my “anti homelessness” plan. Later, that decision would come to save me.
I also bought a house off of a friend of a friend for next to nothing. It was in horrible condition, but my mom and her husband traveled to Austin every week for a few months to help me fix it! Again, I’m so lucky. Anyway, the sale of that house, plus my savings, helped me finally buy a commercial property in 2019: the little unit at 1212 Chicon.
I wanted to buy, not lease, because I had spent years prior asking the small retailers for advice. I heard again and again that rent could be brutal. So instead of renting a large space with a parking lot and outdoor seating, I bought a tiny spot within my means. Dear Diary’s unit cost me $380k, which is nothing. It is impossible to find commercial space in Austin for less than $2MM. I have Chestnut Neighborhood Revitalization Corporation to thank for this.
Dear Diary Coffee was an idea in 2004 and made real in 2019. Even after all that saving and planning, I still didn’t have enough money to actually open the business. I had poured everything into the commercial space. My friend, Joshua was entertaining the idea of opening a coffee shop at the time, and I asked him if he wanted to go in with me. Together, we invested in the final pieces: the buildout, inventory, and our first staff.
And then, just as we were ready to announce our grand opening, the pandemic hit! The whole world shut down. The city offices shut down. I had just dumped my literal life savings into this shop, and even so, I was in debt for this shop. The fear and stress was unbearable. There was no financial relief at any government level for new businesses like ours.
I wasn’t my best self in those years. I was in constant fight-or-flight, terrified that I would lose my baby business. I didn’t have a spouse, I didn’t have kids, I didn’t have a life other than this one that I had held out for. I became critical and hyper-vigilant. I was only paying myself $10/hr and donating all my tips to the employees. Even so, they didn’t like me; I had no warmth.
2021 continues to be the best financial year for small business since the pandemic hit. Folks had stimulus checks to spend and they weren’t traveling. Dear Diary earned $500k that year, more than any year before or after. My business partner resigned the last day of 2021. This time, he had the good timing. The very next month, Russia went to war with Ukraine and inflation soared.
2022 was a tough year. Every little retailer in Austin suffered, but coffee shops more than any. Coffee is the first thing people give up when they feel like they need to save money. It’s easy to make coffee at home. That same year, Dear Diary had to cash out my former business partner. Even though that was hard, I’m very thankful to him for making Dear Diary happen. At the end of the day, he lost money on his investment, and I wasn’t that fun to work with. So he’s a good guy in this story.
At the end of 2022, I finally sought help for my anxiety. My healthy lifestyle wasn’t enough to combat my mental and emotional distress. The turning point was when I started a new relationship. I knew I should have been on top of the world, in love, honeymooning, and all that. But instead, I was having weekly meltdowns. I felt guilty about not fully participating in the new relationship.
My life is completely different now. I have my warmth and joy again.
In 2023 I decided to go back to office life again for a while. I told myself I’d work a tech job and save money for three years. Then I’d figure things out. Dear Diary Coffee struggles in its tiny little spot because without a drive-through or parking lot, we really can’t get the volume we need. However, there is a real affordable commercial crisis that no one in Austin seems to know or care about except the dozens of little businesses that close their doors every year. As someone who worked hard for mine, I really feel for them.
My wonderful coffee shop manager, Colleen made the office job possible for me. I knew my business was in good hands. Colleen, who was really interested in mechanical engineering, eventually secured a super cool job at Machinisti, a local espresso machine repair shop. Now our manager is Wallace, and we are extremely fortunate. Wallace is the most conscientious, caring, attentive human I’ve ever met. They care for the shop as if it were their own.
One day I hope the City of Austin will implement measures to preserve small, local business. Without intervention, all commercial spaces will continue to be owned by investment firms that funnel small business’ hard-earned income right out of the city. My new dream is an Austin with a thriving village economy: a city where walking and public transportation are actually viable options because people can buy what they need in their own neighborhoods.
People do not realize the extremely high standards small business owners are held to by the community. If a small business annoys enough people, customers can retaliate simply by dragging the shop’s google rating. Every small business is less than 0.5 points away from instant death. To survive, small businesses must be good stewards of the communities they operate in. Meaning, in a village economy, each neighborhood benefits from the volunteerism and do-goodery of the proprietors that live there.
I’d like to see the Austin City Council relax commercial zoning such that more houses may be converted into shops. I want them to require that all residential construction on otherwise commercial thoroughfares (such as Airport Blvd and Springdale Rd) build a minimum number of commercial units. We can prevent predatory price gouging by implementing rent control for commercial spaces under a certain size — in this way, lease options are more equitable for retailers who are not big box stores. Rent control would discourage investors like Eureka Holdings, which owns almost all of 12th street, from depriving locals from owning their own stores. As it is, there is a pipeline of money that flows from dozens of little Austin businesses to a huge conglomerate in Dallas.
Until the City of Austin addresses the affordable commercial crisis, small businesses are surviving on the generosity of folks that don’t mind paying $10 for a latte.
…And that’s the history of Dear Diary Coffee (so far).
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Dear Diary Coffee?
Dear Diary Coffee is a small neighborhood coffee shop with a big heart. Their menu is 100% vegan, and the shop sources its menu from other local businesses such as Celeste’s Best, Cake Thieves, Vegan Nom, and Sightseer Coffee Roasters. Over 20 artists sell their work at Dear Diary, and the bright interior inspires creativity. The shop’s mission is to promote community-building and friendships through creative and healthy activity. As such, open mics, drawing groups, bike rides, and running clubs use the space to meet up and hang out. Dear Diary Coffee is also a proud employer, and guarantees its employees fair wages.
Can you talk to us a bit about happiness and what makes you happy?
Today, Dear Diary Coffee brings me so much joy for multiple reasons.
First, I love my little team. I would work with every single one of my barista again. They are all creative and kind. I very much want to be a good employer to them.
Secondly, I’m so proud of our local impact. We are a place where lots of good memories are made. We’ve sponsored cycling teams, hosted art shows, created space for open mics, and so on. I’m really impressed with the volunteerism in this community. Every bike ride, every art market… each of them happened because someone woke up and decided that they would invest their own time and money into making a fun day for friends and strangers alike. I appreciate our movers and shakers, and so I’m happy when Dear Diary Coffee can help in some way.
I don’t make time to draw or pick up my guitar much these days, but I get a lot of second-hand delight from the artists that use our space to sell their work. I feel genuinely enthusiastic about their beautiful prints, fabric arts, and ceramics. Wallace did an incredible job of curating this year.
Finally, I love, love, love to ride my bike. It brings me joy. It’s my source of friendships. Austin is a wonderful place to be a cyclist.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://dd.coffee
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/deardiary_coffee/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@deardiary_coffee
- Other: https://g.page/r/CU2rw_lTJr2QEAE/review
Image Credits
Amalia Litsa
Leann Funk
