A table and a solitary folding chair.

That's what Corvallis Boys & Girls Club executive director Helen Higgins encountered when she was first shown the club's teen center.

"And it was stinky!" Higgins said of the room. "If that was what they had for me I would never come here."

And few did.

In an attempt to attract more teens, Higgins has spearheaded the remodeling of the club's teen center - adding cushy couches, an air hockey table, computers, arcade games and a big screen television.

Still, only about 30 to 40 teens a day come to the Boys & Girls Club during the school year, and that number falls to only 10 to 15 per day in the summer.

Higgins had made it her mission to increase teen participation at the club to 75 a day. To accomplish this goal, staff has teamed up with teenage members of the club to open a coffee shop and lounge in the Boys & Girls Club building on Northwest Circle Boulevard.

A dozen members of Keystone Club - the organization's leadership club for high schoolers - have been meeting weekly throughout the summer. With the help of a marketing specialist, a business counselor and club staff, they have been working on a comprehensive business plan for the coffee shop, looking into everything from county health requirements to equipment and inventory costs.

Meanwhile a room on the south side of the building is already being transformed into what Higgins and others working on the project hope will be a new teen gathering place. A service counter has been installed. New laminate flooring is going in soon and the walls will be repainted "so they're kind of those darker coffee shop colors," Higgins said.

"We really want to help the teens to remember that the club is a place they can meet and hang out," she said.

The Keystone teens have divided into four groups n a marketing and promotions team, a finance and supply-chain team, an operations team and a team that will summarize the findings of those teams for the final business plan.

All decisions regarding the shop will be made by the teens, Higgins said.

"There are no decisions made by us," she said. "It's up to them to decide what they want for this."

They hope to have the coffee shop open for use as a lounge by September, but they don't expect to be ready to sell coffee, sodas, chips and pastries until sometime in November.

At a recent meeting of the finance team, environmental health specialist Scott Kruger from the Benton County Health Department shared information on licenses, permits and regulations.

"Keep it simple," Kruger advised. "Keep it as simple as possible."

When Kruger opened the floor to questions he was met with silence.

"I know that it's a lot to absorb in 30 minutes," he said.

By taking on this project, it seems the teens have absorbed a lot of information all summer.

Though they started out enthusiastically, over the last few weeks they have become overwhelmed with all of the information they've had to digest and the decisions they will soon have to make.

"It's pretty intense," said 15-year-old Kai Misner. "It's a lot more work than I thought it was going to be. There's a lot more things you have to think about than you'd expect."

"All the numbers," added Sean Williams, 15.

"And the health rules," Misner said.

"The honeymoon phase is over and the frustrations of implementation have set in," Higgins said.

The teens are hopeful that their peers will come to their coffee shop when it opens, but not very optimistic.

"As you get older you tend to do more things," said Kalesha Watkins, 14, explaining that many teens in Corvallis might be too busy to come to the club.

Williams pointed out that the coffee shop's location "is just too far from any high school to come at lunch."

The teens feel they have their work cut out for them when it comes to attracting the 14- to 18-year-old demographic.

"The Boys & Girls Club seems like a place that kids go," Misner said.

The teens have discussed ideas like advertising with flyers at local high schools to appealing to teens' edgy aesthetic sensibilities by featuring black walls and red lights in the shop to attract customers.

Williams summed up what would essentially be the deciding factor in the coffee shop's success: "If it was actually, like, good."