Meet Connie and Yuki, two hip, eco-friendly gals who created the perfect new place for the urban dweller. READY is a cozy place with an industrial, up-cycled feel and lots of soul-warming details.
Everything in this place screams handcrafted love, from seating made of recycled wooden pallets, the DIY accessories made of concrete, the little handwritten welcome quote at the entrance… And of course the handmade food and drinks, served in mason jars and wrapped in lovely kraft paper. Feeling comfortable yet?
What inspired you to create READY?
It’s been a while we had a passion to work with food and drinks and it was always a dream to create our own place. We have always had some ideas along the way but now seemed to be the right time to make them happen, as we have matured and know exactly what we want. So these last couple of years, we were able to concretise this dream and make something out of it. A long-loved passion became a lifestyle!
What importance do you give to food, the quality, the sourcing, what matters to you the most?
If the quality of the food is good, then you don’t have to do that much with it, as it’s going to taste good on its own. We only try to create food and use ingredients that we’d be happy to eat ourselves. The menu changes often, but our attitude won’t change, the food will always be simple and tasty. We also try to stay as seasonal and local as possible, so that people can feel good about themselves and their environmental impact, and we encourage local providers.
What is your target group?
Everybody is welcome, but the concept is definitely for young people, professionals, families that are conscious about the environment, about their health and feeling good. People that come to READY are people who are mindful about their food and don’t just see it as a belly-stuffing necessity, like say, kebab-target groups would. However, we are always surprised by the broadness of our target group in real life. We see grannies, young students, full families, vegans, fitness geeks… A lot of people feel at home here!
Do you consider yourselves being part of a new and openminded movement?
To be honest, we really didn’t consider ourselves that way, but as we go along and with the feedback we have heard from people, it does start to feel like it. We have been living in London, where our idea would be seen as a very “basic” coffee shop. Then by bringing and adapting this idea here, it’s a completely different mentality. Suddently people tell us “wow, this is something I haven’t really seen here before”. We didn’t start out thinking that we were part of something bigger, but it turns out we might as well be!
What do you like about being located in Luxembourg?
It’s home. It’s still home, even if we have lived abroad. We have a very important thing here which is a strong support system from friends and family. They have helped us so much with setting up the place and encourage us to keep going everyday. As for Luxembourg itself, a really cool thing here is the international crowd. We started noticing this when we first opened the place, and I think the language we speak the most here in the shop is english, as everyone comes from a different place. It’s really great, this keeps the city moving! Another great thing is that Luxembourg seems to be an open pool for new businesses and makers. Things are slowly starting to grow around here, so it’s the perfect place to bring new ideas in.
What are your plans for the future?
For now we are really happy with what we have achieved. However, expanding wouldn’t be out of the question. We have to be patient though, because we have so many ideas and want to get so many things done, but it’s important to take the time to settle with what we have first. It’s definitely exciting.
What makes your day?
CONNIE: For me, the nicest thing is when a customer comes in and asks me to prepare a filter coffee. I just love to do that!
YUKI: I like to eat. I’m always happy when I can eat. Oh, I also really like when the day is over and we can hop on our bikes. It brings me a perfect balance of being inside and working during the day, then being active outside when the day is done.
What couldn’t you live without?
CONNIE: Coffee? And my bike.
YUKI: I couldn’t live without Connie! Oh and fun? I think the most important thing is for everything to be fun. We get stressed a lot, but we still have fun. When we accomplish things, we give each other a high-five. We support each other! That’s the fun part, and we like it. It wouldn’t be the same otherwise.
Have a coffee at Ready:
Visit Ready’s facebook page here.