How a San Francisco coffee shop is expanding with Gemini

A coffee shop based in San Francisco is leveraging the Gemini platform to streamline its operations in graphic design, email marketing, and sales forecasting.

Hrag Kalebjian, who manages Henry’s House of Coffee, uses Gemini to reduce time spent on manual tasks. This tool assists him in developing custom code for tracking sales, creating customer-facing documents, and crafting engaging newsletter content. By utilizing Gemini, businesses can automate spreadsheets, simplify internal guides, and summarize industry news to enhance marketing efforts.

Although Hrag Kalebjian didn’t initially plan to take over the family coffee business, he stepped up when his father neared retirement, aiming to preserve the family legacy. He concentrated on modernizing the traditional coffee shop to attract a younger, digital-savvy customer base. “I saw a big opportunity in the online space,” he states. “I’ve been here ever since and I love every single day.”

Currently, Henry’s House of Coffee is a well-established part of San Francisco’s coffee scene, with a successful subscription service reaching customers nationwide. Managing both e-commerce and a physical location involves multiple responsibilities, from roasting beans to handling accounting and marketing.

Three ways Gemini is helping

To streamline his workload, Hrag turned to Gemini for support in several key areas:

• Sales Tracking: Monitoring daily revenue is essential but can be time-consuming. Hrag utilized Gemini as a technical aid to write custom code for a daily sales forecasting tool. By communicating in simple terms and providing screenshots for error resolution, he set up the tool in about an hour and now receives daily reports automatically.
• Design and Documentation: When updating the instruction card for Armenian coffee kits, Hrag avoided a lengthy design process by uploading the existing PDF directly into Gemini. “After maybe 20 minutes of me uploading and talking to it, I had a card that was ready to print,” he explains. This method has enabled the shop to create assets 95% faster.
• Email Marketing: Drafting email content from scratch can be exhausting. Gemini aids in summarizing updates and maintaining the brand’s voice. For “The Sunday Pour,” a weekly newsletter, Hrag uses Gemini to refine his ideas and share engaging updates that resonate with his audience.

Hrag’s experience demonstrates that growth isn’t about working extra hours but about utilizing effective tools. By handling the routine tasks, Gemini allows small business owners to dedicate more time to customer engagement.