What compelled you to open a chai lounge?There was a woman offering samples of her homemade chai at the University District Street Fair in 2003. My husband and I really liked it. Less than a month later we had a lease and a license to serve it.
Did you have previous food-industry experience?Nope. My husband and I were both computer programmers at Microsoft—that's how we met. I had a crush on him for eight months before I sent my coworker over to talk to him in the cafeteria. She said, 'My friend has a crush on you. Will you go talk to her?' We've been together for four years.
Geeks! What's your favorite chai flavor?The Mount Rainier—vanilla with Irish Cream and Kahlua (all nonalcoholic). But we offer 21 flavors that we've tweaked for this region so they're not as sweet.
Are Seattleites snooty about sweetness?When we've offered samples of different chais, we noticed that people here liked them a little less sweet than the original recipes. So we tweak them a bit. Sometimes we even customize flavors for our customers.
That's so nice!When I was going to school (for astrophysics and math) in Berkeley, there was one coffee shop that I really felt a connection to, and that's what we wanted to create around here. A coffee shop near a college campus creates community, especially for people under 21.
Interview by Cienna Madrid