The holiday season is my favorite time of year for many reasons. One, I can’t stand the heat. Rain, cold, blankets, fire, BRING IT. Two, the FOOOOD. Snickerdoodles, gingerbread, cranberry stuffed Field Roast, So Delicious coconut nog… need I go on?! Reason three is my favorite. Two years ago, this week, the hubs and I officially got hitched. What’s awesome about this memory is that unlike most traditional wedding days where the couple are <insert romantic wedding stuff here>… we were elbow high in dough preparing a donation for the SF Vegan Bakesale. I think we broke our first record that day. 4 dozen sold in 10 mins – at a street bakesale! And now, two years later. Here we are with a storefront. Crazy how time flys!

Ok, ok, enough strolling down memory lane. Let’s get to the good stuff. Christmas is really about giving, right?! This year we’re giving away a spankin’ new dvd copy of Bold Native AND a $10 gift certificate to one lucky winner! All you have to do is comment on this blog post and tell us what your favorite winter cinnamon roll combination is. Eggnog frosting with marshmallows perhaps? Best sounding roll, wins! (#gimmiegimmiegimmie)

2011 has been an amazing year. We’re looking forward to making many more memories in 2012. Thank you for your continued feedback and support. We wish you an incredible New Year.

From our kitchen to yours,

Happy Holidays from the Cinnaholic staff

We are beyond thankful for the cooler fall weather and we’re stoked on all the new additions it brings with it.
In honor of our 1 year anniversary, we offered $1 Old Skool rolls for 4 hours on Sunday, August 7th as a thank you to our customers. We hired DJ Noodles to spin some old skool hip-hop beats, set up a monitor in the store where you could display your tweets and gave away a $100 gift certificate to one lucky newsletter subscriber. Our oven was non-stop all day and we had a line out the door for up to 40 minutes! For those loyal customers who waited in line, this is the greatest compliment you could give us. We are beyond thankful for your patience, your loyalty and your business. We love you!

Picture: VegNews Magazine

With that said, we’ve taken a look back on all of our progress over the last year as well as some areas that need to be improved upon. As of November 1st, we will be adjusting some of our prices to match the costs of what we pay our vendors. Some companies raise their prices without telling you, but we’re not shady like that. We felt it was right to put everything out in the open. Here’s why…

First, we believe that a happy employee makes a happy customer. We know that surviving on minimum wage is nearly impossible these days which is why we make it a point to pay our employees a fair, liveable wage. We consider our employees family and not only do we care about what’s best for the company, but what’s best for our employees as well.

Second, we make sure that all of our vendors use vegan ingredients which unfortunately aren’t as easily available (or affordable) as non-vegan ingredients. Often times, we end up driving for hours to pick up these ingredients to assure that our product meets certain standards. Since our purchasing options are limited to such a small amount of vendors, we have no choice but to pay up when they increase their prices. Sadly, this has been the case with more than one vendor over the last year. We’ve done our best to buffer you from those cost increases, but feel that we are no longer able to meet the financial demands without compromising the product. In order to continue offering an exceptional product with a variety of options, we’ve decided to slightly increase our prices . Nothing drastic folks. We’re talking cents. Not dollars. We just thought it best to give you a heads up and thank you for your understanding in advance.

In more exciting news, we’ve teamed up with Harvest Home Animal Sanctuary this year to celebrate a “Toast to the Turkeys!” For the entire month of November, we’ll be donating 50% of all Baby Bun sales to help out with feeding, housing, and general care for the animals. That holiday spirit is creepin’ up on us!

Speaking of, be sure to keep an eye out for some of our favorite holiday specials! Pumpkin spice frosting with gingersnaps and holiday spices, peppermint hot cocoa with marshmallows, candy cane pieces, peppermint ‘Oreos’, ‘egg’ nog frosting…*drool*

Thanks again for your continued support and positive comments in the shop and on Yelp.com. We are eternally grateful for your feedback.

We look forward to spending another amazing holiday season with you!

Shannon Michelle

Fathers day. This was always a complex holiday for me. Like many of my friends, I grew up in a single parent home for most of my childhood. I never really celebrated Fathers day until I was about 16 years old and my mom re-married. As I grew older and became closer with my step-father, I began to realize that “family” isn’t necessarily defined by those who share the same DNA.

Michael, my step-father, walked into our lives with open arms. Not only did he have three of his own boys to take responsibility for from a previous marriage, but he happily embraced the task of caring for my brother and I as well. Unfortunately for him, I was a hellion at that age! I did what I wanted, when I wanted and I wouldn’t take no for an answer. Not once did he ever try to be my father or reprimand me when I deserved it. Instead, he was patient, understanding and extremely tolerant. He was my friend, someone I could confide in when I couldn’t talk to my mom, he provided a roof over our heads, food on our table, guidance and constant reassurance that I was a special, beautiful, unique person which turned out to be exactly what I needed to hear back then. He did more for me than my biological father ever could have and I thank him from the depths of my soul for that.

My ‘parents’ are still married to this day and continue to raise my two brothers. One of whom has been disabled since birth. I’ve seen them go through good times and bad and despite the circumstances, they always put us kids first. The amount of strength, dedication, love and compassion it’s taken to hold our small family together with all of our differences, hasn’t been easy and I admire him for sticking through it all and staying by our side.

With that said, this month we would like to offer a very special thank you for all the fathers out there who have made a difference in our lives. Whether you’re a father, a grandfather, a soon-to-be father, a step father or perhaps just a father figure, this month is dedicated to you!

On Sunday, June 19th, we are offering all dad’s a free roll of their choice! All you need to do is bring dad into the store with you for a special treat. Buy one, get his free!

For all those long-distance dads, from now through June 15th, we will be offering FREE SHIPPING on all online orders!

Happy Fathers Day!

Being a mom has got to be one of the toughest jobs in the world. The amount of sacrifice that comes with the “mom” title is ridiculous. Your time, your paycheck, not to mention your once sexy 20-something body… it all takes a backseat when it comes to raising a child.

Mom’s are some of the strongest and most powerful women in the world. It was once said that where the “man is the head of the family, the woman is the neck that turns the head”. No truer word had been spoken when it came to my family. My grandma was the boss and whatever mom said came directly after. Dad never had a chance.

In a home where there was 10% fear of my mother, there was also 90% love. As most teenagers do, I rebelled. Despite all the times I ditched school, disappeared for the weekend, snuck boys into my room or swapped water for peppermint schnapps in her liquor cabinet, mom was always there for me. While I was off causing chaos, mom was holding down 2 jobs and trying to raise me the best she could on her own. Not only did she survive my teenage years (by some miracle), she has been one of Cinnaholic’s biggest supporters from day 1 and is one of our most important assets today with her role as office manager.

Now that I’m older, a little more settled and I can appreciate what it means to have to pay bills and make grown up decisions, I realize just how amazing my mom really was – and is! That’s why this Mother’s Day, we’ve decided to honor all moms.

On Sunday, May 8^th, we are offering all mom’s a free roll of their choice! All you need to do is bring mom into the store with you for a special treat. Buy one, get hers free!

Mom not in town? No problem! From today until May 4th we’ll be waiving our shipping costs so that you can send mom a box of our sweet, cinnamon-y treats with no extra shipping charges just in time for Mother’s Day! Who’s the most awesome kid in the world? ; )

Looking beyond whatever relationship we may have with our mother today, there is one thing you can be sure of and be thankful for. At one point, they made the decision to sacrifice themselves and give us the opportunity to be something amazing. If that’s not love, then I don’t know what is.

Happy Mothers Day to all the beautiful women out there!

*My mom is going to kill me for posting this picture of her.

There were so many exciting things to be thankful for in November. Mainly, the “fame train” that ran through our store this month!

We were given the opportunity to present the movie premier of Bold Native when it came to town which was SUPER exciting. The movie captured Charlie Cranehill, an animal liberator wanted for domestic terrorism, who emerges from the underground to coordinate a nationwide action as his estranged CEO father tries to find him before the FBI does. Cool, right?

After the show, guest speaker John Robbins and Jake Conroy (one of the SHAC 7) dropped some crazy inspiration on us that left us all feeling enlightened and empowered. Finally, after months of emailing back and forth, we got to chat with director Denis Hennelly and producer Casey Suchan after the Q&A segment of the show. They’ve definitely made our list of top ten raddest people!  We ended the night with a round of hugs from friends we hadn’t seen in a while with hopes to catch up with them more at the Saturn Cafe Space Lounge later in the week. Turns out Joaquin Pastor, the main character in Bold Native, was playing a show with his band Masks. Amazing people, amazing music, amazing vegan peanut butter milkshake. That pretty much summed up the night.

Speaking of shows, we attended another event later in the month at the Regency Ballroom in SF that we thought was worth mentioning. One of our good friends who runs the sound board for Bad Religion was in town so we decided to trudge out in the rain to deliver some rolls and say hello. After briefly being hassled by security with our somewhat soggy box of cinnamon rolls in hand, we finally made it backstage in time to watch the end of the Bouncing Souls set and bump fists with Fat Mike and the Bad Religion guys before the main event. Needless to say, an incredible night for us, our friend, and our cinnamon rolls.

At the beginning of the month, a good friend of ours, Cello Dias, popped his head in to try out our rolls and drop off a demo cd for his new band Against All Will. If you live in LA, definitely check these guys out!

We were also blessed with a surprise visit from pro skater and artist extraordinaire, Ed Templeton and his wife who popped in to buy a few rolls! Staffer Justin, managed to snag a quick pic before they headed out.

By the end of the month we were beaming with excitement from everything that had happened. This was about the point where I logged into our Twitter account and saw a post that said…

“MV” meaning, Milo Ventimiglia. As in the star of the TV show ‘Heroes‘. You might also recognize him as Rocky’s son in Rocky 6, or the hot tattooed guy in Fergie’s ‘Big Girls Don’t Cry‘ video. You know exactly who I’m talking about ladies! Somewhere between being flattered and stoked, I noticed that he had almost 32,000 followers! Flattered just went out the window and turned into GRATEFUL. Thanks for the Cinnaholic mention Milo!

Ok, so all these crazy awesome things had been happening throughout the month. I was worried that I was about to have a stroke from all the excitement so we decided it was time to schedule a mellow night with our friends to celebrate and give thanks. We ended our perfect month with a perfect meal. A ridiculous all vegan Thanksgiving dinner with homemade Seitan and all the fixin’s!

Somehow we’ve managed to digest a weeks worth of Thanksgiving leftovers and now… we’re hungry for more action!

We’re gearing up to help you redeem your gift certificate purchases that you all generously purchased back in September when we needed a helping hand. We’ll be offering our tasty seasonal specials (Candy Cane topping, Peppermint Hot Chocolate anyone?) as well as organizing some fancy surprises and other exciting store announcements for the month of Decemer. Be sure to keep an eye out!

BRING IT December!

Shannon Michelle

When we started Cinnaholic, we had the idea of creating not only a 100% vegan business, but also a business that was more then just a workplace. Therefore, we made the decision to pay our employees 50% over CA State minimum wage from day one, and we intend to include benefits as soon as business is stable and predictable. On top of that, we spend more money than a comparable business on things like vegan sugar (which is difficult to find in bulk sizes since it’s only available from a couple of suppliers in the US) and other high quality ingredients. Lastly, we as the business owners, have not taken out any money yet in order to keep the business stable and running. To say the least, being a vegan and fair business is financially challenging!

We never thought that our small family business would evolve into a such a big family of loyal customers and friends.

With being in business for only 11 weeks, we are pleasantly overwhelmed by the support and feedback we are getting from our customers. Yes, we’ve had some rough days, and yes, hundreds of little problems that needed adjustment. We especially took a big hit when the recent heatwave kept our customers from indulging in warm cinnamon rolls. But thanks to all of you, we made it!

October, here we come!

With the holidays just around the corner, we have some amazing specials planned for you. Make sure to stop by for Halloween to see us in action. Have a Halloween party planned? We’re now taking orders for our exclusive Halloween themed Cinnacakes!

We are putting everything we have into Cinnaholic and we value each piece feedback we receive from you. It not only helps us to improve our product, but it helps to make your experience in our store even better. If you have any feedback for us, you can send us an email or find us on Facebook, Yelp and Twitter.

Thank you SO MUCH for the first 11 amazing weeks so far! We look forward to the future!

Shannon, Florian and the Cinnaholic team.