2011 LASATERS® Coffee & Tea Christmas Cash Sweepstakes Winners

We have winners! :)

Well, it's finally over. It's been a little over a month (I think) since we started this awesome promotion for LASATERS®.  There were many announcements, "shares" and "likes" on Facebook, re-tweets on Twitter and daily conversations about our Sweepstakes.  We'd like to give a special thanks to WJZM 1400AM Radio, ClarksvilleOnline.com and all of our LASATERS® Coffee & Tea Franchisees for helping to promote such a fun promotion!


We've got some pretty cool data to show you where all of our entries came from.  Most of you who entered have probably never had the privilege of experiencing the delicious goodness that comes from LASATERS® Coffee & Tea, but surely you'll visit one of our stores (or online store) one day soon!


We had a lot of interest in our selection process; how we randomly chose our finalists and winners.  Before we share who won, we'd like to show you where people submitted their entries from (there were some comments on our Facebook page with some people curious as to where the entries came from, so, we're answering their questions).  You can also watch the videos below to see how we selected the winners.  From sea to shining sea friends shared with friends the excitement of the 2011 LASATERS® Christmas Cash Sweepstakes - you can see that from our pictures below...


There were 6,879 entries from the United States:

Entries from Alaska:

Entries from Hawaii:

Entries from the United States (excluding Hawaii and Alaska):

Of those 6,879 entries we selected 20 finalists:

Of those 20 finalists we selected the 6 winners:

Here's the list of winners (along with the video announcement) with the list of prizes that they won (if you are a winner please contact us)!

• Jennifer Kmita from New Smyrna, FL: AMAZON KINDLE

• Gayle Davis from Sewickley, PA: ROKU 2 STREAMING PLAYER

• Ana Saenger from Arcadia, CA: APPLE iPOD TOUCH

• L. Jensen from Waverly, TN: 26" VIZIO LED LCD 1080i HDTV

• Pat Underburger from Englewood, OH: APPLE iPAD 2

• Michael Clark from Clarksville, TN: GRAND PRIZE $1000

Thank you so much to everyone who participated!  We are looking forward to doing this again next year.  Meanwhile, follow us on our Facebook page, our Twitter page and learn more about our franchising opportunity at LasatersCoffee.com!

God bless you all and have a Merry Christmas!

-Mat Lasater

Lasaters Corporation

LASATERS® Coffee & Tea Franchising

Ah, the memories... by Mat Lasater

Making memories.

As we prepare to open a franchised location in Cleveland, TN (facebook.com/Lasaters.Cleveland) I go about my day with planning, scheduling and forecasting for the coming weeks.  I take a quick break to look through the Lasaters pages of Facebook and I am reminded how many challenges we've had as a company, from the beginning, and the successes that we've had this far.  I wanted to share just a few pictures with you and hopefully blog about them all some day. There are many, many more to come, but here are just a few... 

Bumper stickers.

We took a poll to find out who like what bumper sticker that we had designed a couple of years ago.  While we never went forward with bumper stickers (yet) we did find out that most people liked this design the most:

Buttons.

A few years back some of the staff started wearing buttons of their favorite seasonal drink.  Fun!  Do you remember these?

The Great Flood of 2010.

Who could forget this?  Well, if you weren't here in Tennessee, you probably heard about it on the news.  Tennessee, specifically Clarksville and Nashville, were hit with a massive flood that ended many businesses and brought our regional economy to a near standstill.  Our original Lasaters Coffee & Tea Store on Riverside Drive (facebook.com/lasaters.riverside) made it through this tough time though.  Thank you to the owners, Ricky and Nicole Edwards, for putting in tireless efforts to get their store up and running again.  

Gift Cards.

This was the first gift card that Lasaters ever had - notice the original logo? :)

Trip to Finca La Perla, Guatemala City and Antigua, Guatemala.

Lots to tell here.  We were driving through a village to meet with a lower-elevation farmer when we passed these children.  They were playing on a small concrete coffee-drying bed.  When we showed them the picture that we took of them playing they were all-smiles!  The above picture is the one we snapped next. :)  Lots to share about this wonderful trip... one day. :)

Our first coffee roaster.

This awesome drum roaster was the beginning of REAL coffee for us! We've since upgraded to a much larger, fluid-bed roaster that is more efficient and won't leave the coffee tasting like smoke. :)

2008(?) SCAA World Barista Championship.

A couple of us have gone to a few Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) trade shows.  The above picture is of a shot of espresso by one of the top contenders of the World Barista Competition.  GOOD ESPRESSO!  Some baristas are unbelievably awesome at their craft.

2008 World Tea Expo.

This is Anando Chatterjee and his wife (her name escapes me right now, but she is very pleasant).  He is our contact in Kolkata India for all of our teas from the region of Assam, Darjeeling and Nilgiri. 

Even snowmen like coffee.

Franchise owner Nicole Edwards and Katherine Rowe put up a snowman when Clarksville got a bit of snow.  It makes it fun to enjoy working with good people!

Fluid bed coffee roasting.

This is a picture of our new coffee roaster at our old warehouse.  We can now roast 38 pounds of coffee in 8 minutes. This thing is awesome!  Anyone for a tour of our new roasting facility? :)

Ok, that's it for right now.  I'd love to share more photos and stories in the future.  We've got thousands of pictures that we've taken throughout the years and many, many memories.  Thanks for being a part of Lasaters Coffee & Tea.  We love you all!

-Mat Lasater

New Healthy Grilled Wraps at Lasaters!

This past week Lasaters Corporation and its franchisees worked together to create an all-new lunch/dinner item for our customers.  While a couple of offerings didn't quite make the cut (Sausage, Bacon and Egg Breakfast Burrito, aka: the heart attack) we're proud to announce a couple of the healthier options did!  

The tasting panel consisted of Lasaters Corporation CEO Mat Lasater, local Franchisee Nicole Edwards, and of course, a few awesome baristas who stopped by from time to time to sample some of the delectable treats. :)  However, it's going to be up to YOU to tell us just how good the new options are!

Up first is the Turkey Pesto Grilled Wrap...

NEW! Turkey Pesto Grilled Wrap $5.99

The Turkey Pesto Grilled Wrap is amazing (and healthy)!  This offering consists of a spinach herb tortilla, sliced oven-roasted turkey breast, shredded cheddar-jack cheese, freshly sliced tomatoes, red onions, baby spinach, pesto basil sauce and a touch of mayonnaise.  

Up next, we've got what just may be the top contender, the Southwest Grilled Chicken Wrap...

NEW! Southwest Grilled Chicken Wrap $6.49

Another VERY healthy option, the Southwest Grilled Chicken Wrap comes with grilled chicken, shredded cheddar-jack cheese, freshly sliced tomatoes, red onions, baby spinach, Japanese horseradish (wasabi sauce), a touch of mayonnaise, all wrapped in a grilled jalapeno tortilla.  

We're working on getting this offerings launched in the next two weeks, but, some stores may have them available before the others.  These will be available at the Lasaters on Riverside Drive, Wilma Rudolph Boulevard (St. Bethlehem) and Highway 76 (Sango) locations.

We look forward to serving you soon, and, as always, thank you so very much for your business!

Lasaters Corporation

Lasaters Coffee & Tea

32" Flat Screen LCD TV Raffle!

We're having a raffle! Why? That's a good question...

32" Class (31.55" Diagonal) | UltraVision^® LCD Flat Panel HDTV | MSRP $ 649

I was going through some things at the office the other day. I was cleaning, organizing and basically simplifying some of the little details at our operation at Lasaters Corporation. One thing that has changed in the last couple of months is my presence at the office (our coffee roasting facility). Since opening the store in Sango (894 Hwy 76, Suite 101, Clarksville, TN 37043) I've been busy with the operation of our new store and haven't been spending as many hours at the office (thank you laptop). :) The daily operations, such as the orders, coffee-roasting, packaging and shipping have been handled very well by our coffee roaster, Sir Nate Witiuk.

One thing that I decided to do is do away with is a 32" Flat Screen LCD TV. I've had the TV for 4 months but realized that it was no longer needed since we've changed so many things at the office. My natural inclination was to sell the TV. After all, it was nearly brand new, I still had the box and the stand. And then, it hit me... let's have a raffle! After discussing the idea with my wife, Annie Lasater, we decided to not just run a promotion to raffle off the TV, but to also donate 100% of the proceeds to a local charity! FUN!! :)

So we thought, "Ok, so what's the plan?"

First thing's first: who do we donate the proceeds to?

Some of you may think, "what about a church?" or "why not the Red Cross?" or something like that. We wanted to hear from you, our customers, and we have. We offered a poll on our facebook page (www.facebook.com/lasaters.coffee and www.facebook.com/lasaters.sango) where the charitable organizations were listed (some of you listed your favorite charities) and the majority voted for The Fisher House / The Wounded Warrior Project. This is pretty awesome! :) It's good to see our customers interact and be a part of such a fun promotion! So, The Fisher House it is...

Here's some quick information on The Fisher House at Ft. Campbell, KY:

What is a Fisher House?

Fisher Houses are comfortable homes that serve as a temporary residence near a military or VA medical facility where Family members can eat, sleep, relax and find support from other Families in similar situations.

Does the Army provide the funding for Army Fisher Houses?

No. We are a Non-Appropriated Funds (NAF) activity. With the exception of payroll, the house is funded through donations. Donations, either monetary or in-kind, allow us to provide our guests with a well maintained & furnished home, food, detergent, toiletries, toys, computers, gift cards, holiday decor, etc...

If I make a donation to a specific Army Fisher House, will the money actually be spent there?

Donations made to a specific Army Fisher House are accounted for that house. The money is used to improve the facility, provide amenities for the guests, celebrate holidays, and enhance the range of services provided.

More information on our local Fisher House can be found by clicking the link below.

http://www.orgsites.com/ky/ftckyfisherhouse/index.html

The next step, "When is the raffle?"

We'll start the raffle soon (probably by Friday this week). You will be able to purchase your raffle tickets at any Lasaters Coffee & Tea store (not our corporate office). Store locations can be found on our website here: http://www.lasaterscoffee.com/SearchResults.asp?Cat=59

Tickets for the raffle will be $1 each.

You can buy as many as you want - just remember, whether you win a TV or not, every single dollar of each raffle ticket you buy will go to The Fisher House.

The raffle will end some time in July. We're not going to announce the actual ending date yet but we will give you a heads up the week that it will end (before July 31st). We'll announce the winner on:

Twitter: http://twitter.com/lasaterscoffee

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/lasaters.coffee

...and at all Lasaters stores.

Thank you so much for participating in this worthwhile promotion - God bless you!

Mat Lasater

CEO, Lasaters Corporation

Award-Winning Coffee

Here at Lasaters Corp, we've been involved in a lot of exciting new things. 2010 has been a great year of growth and development. We have never been so proud of our brand than now. Recently we've been very busy with a few monumental things:

- We moved to a new and much larger warehouse and office space.

- We recently put into production our very own full line of Lasaters® brand Pure Cane Syrups.

- We have been working for almost a full year on our new Certified Organic and Fair Trade Certified single-estate teas and herbal tisanes(more on that in the months to come).

- We have had outstanding customer support with remarkable sales numbers and our social networking proving to be important to our company.

But probably one of the most exciting and proud moments for us here at Lasaters, was when we received the official word from the Specialty Coffee Association of America(SCAA) that we have been awarded the SCAA Golden Cup Award for the FIFTH year in a row! That means since 2006 we have had Award-Winning Coffee every year! It's important to us, because we know it's important to you. Nobody wants coffee that's not good, right? So we take it to the next level and send our coffee(and H2O) to be analysed and judged by the SCAA. The SCAA has taken this very seriously and has set up a very strict standard to measure whether or not a sampling of coffee is on target to receive the Golden Cup Award.

In the early years of our company we would end up sending two or three samples before we met the standard, adjusting any number of things like our grind or water temperature between each sample sent. So we invested in our own analyzing hardware and software(the iPhone app was the most fun). Well this year, we are so proud to report that we only had to send ONE sample and we received the award! What's all this have to do with our customers? Well all this to say, when you get a cup of Lasaters Coffee, you know you are truly getting a high-standard award-winning 'cup of excellence'. Enjoy.

Add some pumpkin spice to your party!

Pumpkin Spice Latte!

Each year when the leaves begin falling, nature kicks into full-swing...
- your front lawn begins to slowly stop growing,
- the animals begin to prepare for winter,
- birds begin to instinctively head for a warmer climate,
- AND your taste buds begin desiring a Pumpkin Spice latte!

Well, we encourage you to indulge the urge and feed your taste buds what they're craving. All 4 of our Clarksville locations now have a limited supply of Pumpkin Spice that will add the flavor to your latte that your taste buds have been longing for!

Make sure to swing by your nearest Lasaters location and grab a large Pumpkin Spice Latte on your way to work, on your lunch break, or just for fun. Spread the good news - let you friends know that PUMPKIN SPICE LATTES HAVE ARRIVED!

New hires at Lasaters Headquarters

In addition to adding French presses and oatmeal to our menus, we've also made some new additions to our staff here at Lasaters headquarters...

Nate Witiuk is our new warehouse manager and coffee roaster. We works part-time here at the warehouse overseeing shipping & receiving, coffee roasting, delivery, inventory, and more. He has years of coffee experience from working at at a local coffee shop in his home town of Albuquerque, NM, where he helped a coffee shop get started and managed one of its locations. We're glad to have Nate on the Lasaters team!

Beginning next Monday, October 11, we'll be adding a new graphic designer to our team as well - Chris Varble. Chris recently moved to Tennessee from Oregon with his family. He has experience with graphic design as well as websites. He'll be working part-time here at Lasaters HQ overseeing advertising, web design, social networking, and more. Be on the lookout for some fresh new designs from him!


And speaking of hiring, Lasaters locations across Clarksville are always taking applications. You can download one here and drop if off at the nearest location.