John and Robin Spiteri have often looked to improve their business, Checker Records, but they also include Hillsdale County in their vision. Their latest venture at Hillsdale High School earned them the Entrepreneurial Vision Award sponsored by South Central Michigan Works.
Over the past two years the Spiteris have worked with students and faculty to establish a coffee shop in the high school.
“My wife had read about all the different colleges that were putting coffee shops in, and she approached a lady at the high school about having one at the high school,” Spiteri said. “The goal was that we might have some employees who have already been trained in the coffee shop setting.”
Mindy Boyd, a teacher and a co-leader of the Business Professionals of America Club at Hillsdale High School, said the plans for the coffee shop started when Robin approached her about the idea.
“It started with just an idea and my partner Jenny and I did some research on it,” Boyd said. “We put together a group of high school kids and sat down with the kids and wrote a business plan as if we were going to go to the bank and ask for a loan to start a business.”
The club submitted a business plan and grant request to the Hillsdale County Community Foundation and received $17,000 in grants. They took a loan to cover the remaining $7,000 of the budget. The Spiteris helped train the students.
“Robin set up for us to go to the Coffee Fest in Chicago, and we learned all about coffee and smoothies and the equipment and actually how to be a barista,” Boyd said. “Then during the summer we basically built the place and then Robin and John came back again and did all the food safety training and training on hot drinks and cold drinks. They also come in and help us get on our feet at the beginning of each year with retraining.”
The Spiteri’s only added coffee to Checker Records recently. They opened Checker Records 35 years ago after John decided he would open a records store.
“My dad had owned a [shoe] business in town so I had some retail experience working for him. I was dragging my feet though and he asked me what I really wanted to do. I said I would really rather have a record store, so he said you might as well do that because you got to have some passion for what you are doing. My wife called around and found a [records] distributor in Kalamazoo that helped set us up,” Spiteri said. “If you can sell somebody a pair of shoes you can sell them about anything.”
In the 80s Checker Records began hosting an annual rock’n’roll concert every summer in downtown Hillsdale called Checker Records Street Dance. In the 90s the series stopped until it started again five years ago.
For the first 25 years, Checker Records sold albums, 45s, and 8 tracks; 10 years ago they began selling coffee as well.
“Our kids had played travel sports and we spent a lot of time out of town, and we had time to kill so we started hanging out in different coffee shops, and we decided that maybe we could make it work in the record store, so we bought some used equipment from a guy in Lansing and kind of just jump into it blindly,” Spiteri said.
Since adding coffee, they have watched their business grow.
“There are a lot more people coming in. The music will never be what it was, but we are one of the 2,500 stores still left in the United States – as far as the census goes. We feel fortunate.”
