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With a new shop coming and a lot going on this new year, we wanted to re-introduce ourselves to those who may not know us. We’re Rachel and Weston Berchtold, and we’ve been the managing owners of Eli’s for almost 2 years now!
Rachel is a born and raised Tremont girl. She lived for most of her life on her family’s dairy farm east of town. Early morning milking shifts helped prepare her for a life of opening coffee shops before sunrise! Rachel started working at Eli’s in 2010 as a part-time barista and baker while she attended college at ISU. Being a history teacher was always the plan but opportunities to grow at Eli’s kept opening themselves up. Once the Tremont shop was opened, Rachel took the position of Tremont Manager and eventually purchased the majority of the business a couple years later.
As President of Eli’s, Rachel’s main responsibilities are setting the vision of the business, ordering, accounting, payroll, and everything else that comes with owning a small business. What she really loves though is spending time in the shops, talking with employees and customers, baking up new recipes, and making your favorite drinks.
In her very limited spare time, Rachel enjoys baking… yeah that’s right… she does that in her spare time too, gardening, and projects around the house. More often than not though, she can be found curled up on the couch with Weston watching that one funny episode of The Office for the 100th time. Rachel is most often working in the bakery or behind the counter in Tremont in the mornings or in the Morton office in the afternoons. When the Metamora shop opens, she’ll spend most of her time there for the first few months.
Weston is also a Tremont kid. He grew up in the heart of Tremont in his family’s house on James St. Weston was always business minded and started his first real business in high school working on computers for homes and businesses… unless you count mowing yards… then it was at 13 years old. After high school, Weston spent two years at ISU before dropping out to co-found a technology company in Normal. After 5 years of growth at that company, Weston started working full-time at Eli’s in July of 2016. As Vice President of Eli’s, Weston is responsible for managing the technology needs of Eli’s. This includes overseeing the website, managing the Point of Sale system at each shop, and the internal networks. Weston also spends a lot of his time working on special projects, running deliveries between the shops, and using his learned entrepreneurial skills to find new efficient solutions and growth opportunities in the business.
Weston enjoys his free time close to home, He loves spending time with Rachel, playing games with his close friends, reading a thought-provoking book, or just watching some of his favorite sci-fi movies. He has also found a love for coffee and is having fun finding out what his favorite latte flavors are! Weston can be found bouncing back and forth between the shops, either making deliveries, or working on his laptop.
If you ever see us around the shops, feel free to say hi! We love talking with each one of you and always appreciate hearing feedback on what you love or what we could be doing better.