""The room looked insane," the 25-year-old told SFGATE. "It looked like a mad scientist's room, literally.""
""I didn't do enough due diligence before that, and I hopped into it because I just came from pure excitement," she said. "I was 22 years old. I had no real experience of a coffee shop where it's like location, location, location.""
Kashish Juneja began product-testing a boba business while attending UC Berkeley remotely in 2020, using Zoom lectures to multitask and field delivery orders from her dorm. She hosted campus pop-ups and sometimes hand-delivered drinks, advertising boba as an alcohol chaser at parties. After graduation, she declined a JPMorgan job and opened Aura Cafe in San Francisco in 2022 with investor funds and personal savings. Juneja chose San Francisco expecting a quick return to downtown offices but experienced slow foot traffic, prompting a pivot into corporate catering for tech companies to sustain the lavender-painted cafe. Plans include a second Berkeley location next spring.
Read at SFGATE
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