Sunday, May 11, 2008; Posted: 12:24 PM
Now, everybody who detests Starbucks, stand up and say "thank you."
Why? Because Starbucks introduced America to espresso, raising the buzz about specialty coffee so much that independent coffeehouses have flourished even as Starbucks became an international giant.
"Starbucks paved the way for businesses like us," said Dianna Del Giorgio, who owns Caffe Adagio, on Railroad Avenue, with her husband, Luke.
In Whatcom County and elsewhere, coffeehouses are filling people's need to meet, chat and linger, all with a good cup of java in their mitts.
A Whatcom County phone book lists more than 30 coffee shops, and the list is already behind the times.
Since 1995, the city of Bellingham has issued some three-dozen building permits for new or remodeled coffee shops, kiosks, booths, cafes, bars, drive-throughs, tasting labs and training centers.
Local coffee lovers include Cindy Paffumi, who leads free outings for walkers on Saturday mornings. Her walkers usually gather at a coffee shop after covering five to six miles at a brisk pace.
Sitting down over coffee and maybe a pastry makes it easy for them to reconnect after breaking into faster and slower groups during their walk.
"It's a way to get to know other people, more face to face," Paffumi said.
At the Starbucks at Barkley Village, about 15 members of Whatcom Young Professionals meet every Wednesday morning to visit, network and generally stay in touch.
"We're a savvy younger group, and we like the energy that Starbucks provides," said Troy Wills, the group's organizer and the manager of the Peoples Bank branch at Barkley. "It just fits."
Granted, Starbucks is struggling a bit these days, with its stock down and some stores closing. People pinched by the sour economy are spending less on pricey coffee, and some connoisseurs say Starbucks sacrificed top quality for consistency with its automated espresso makers.
Still, coffee shops remain numerous -- locally owned The Woods Coffee is opening its seventh outlet in the county, with more planned -- and coffee shops appear to be a settled part of the urban landscape. What's the attraction?
BETTER COFFEE
People are running to espresso shops, in part, because coffee used to be so bad.
Coffee consumption in the United States peaked in 1946 at more than 46 gallons per person, about twice the current rate. But the coffee was bland, thanks to the rise of instant coffee after World War II and to coffee companies' decision to compete on the basis of price instead of quality.
With poor taste rampant, coffee slid in national popularity, with soda pop taking the lead by the 1970s.
But there were glimmers on the horizon. In 1972, Mr. Coffee arrived, the first drip-coffee maker for home use. Then, in 1983, the future Mr. Starbucks, Howard Schultz, traveled to Milan, Italy, to attend a housewares exhibition and experienced an epiphany when he visited that city's espresso coffee bars.
There were some high-quality coffee shops here and there around the country, but Starbucks spread the gospel from its Seattle base to the nation's other three corners, and beyond.
Taylor Clark, the author of "Starbucked," a history of Starbucks and the broader world of coffee, cites four reasons for Starbucks' early success in the Northwest, along with high-grade beans and careful brewing:
* The Northwest's gray weather encourages people to sit inside with a warm drink.
* Seattle's water had a hardness level well-suited for making espresso.
* The Emerald City's immigrant heritage includes a hefty slice of Scandinavians, who remain ardent coffee drinkers.
* Seattle in the late 1980s and the '90s was filled with young technology workers with money to burn.
Yet people can buy expensive beans and grind and brew them at home instead of visiting a coffee shop. There's something else going on here.
SOCIAL SPACE
People used to hang out in soda shops, corner grocery stores and neighborhood taverns, among other places, to linger, see friends and familiar faces, and just shoot the breeze.
Ray Oldenburg, a professor emeritus of sociology at the University of West Florida in Pensacola and the author of "The Great Good Place," calls such casual settings "third places," with your home the first place in your life, and your job the second place.
"Third places" let people take a break from the pressures of family and job, and converse, joke and swap ideas. But soda shops and corner groceries are few in number, and zoning laws prohibit neighborhood taverns in many places.
"The worst thing that happened in the U.S. was single-use zoning," Oldenburg said. "There goes everything out of the neighborhood."
Coffee shops are helping to fill the void by providing a new hangout option for the public. It costs you a few bucks for coffee, but you don't have to plunk down big money for a meal, and you can dally if you behave yourself.
You don't even have to be sociable. Last year, sociologists Nicole Van Vooren and Grant Blank released their study of so-called "campers" -- solitary folks who spend up to eight hours at a stretch at coffee shops.
Campers prefer to be alone, but enjoy being alone in a public place where they can watch other people, maybe chat a bit, or just be by themselves without being isolated.
Of course, more people come to coffee shops in pairs and larger groups. People come to do schoolwork, to interview job applicants and to play cribbage. At The Lettered Streets Coffeehouse, people come to discuss business, to study the Bible, and to meet other mothers with new babies, said co-owner Kjirstin Haugland.
These days, coffee shops have a better chance of surviving than other new businesses. It seems that if you learn to brew a good cup of coffee, offer good food and be courteous to your customers, then people will come, they most definitely will come.
"Everybody has a desire in them to be a part of something bigger," said Haugland.
Keeping the coffee going
Other business people should have such problems.
Craig Stephens is so busy repairing and servicing espresso machines that he hasn't had a full-blown vacation in years. Stephens bought his Bellingham business from a bicycle buddy in 1998, and hasn't looked back.
He now has about 200 clients, mostly coffee shops and grocery stores, from Stanwood to Blaine, and in the San Juan Islands. Clients include some coffee chains and a slew of independent shops; Starbucks services its own machines.
Stephens, 35, has always been a tinkerer, fixing cars, toasters and, especially, bikes. He's an avid bicyclist. He also enjoys coffee, and worked at espresso stands while studying journalism at Western Washington University.
Stephens' focus is servicing machines, not selling them. His goal is to keep his clients' machines, drains and coffee grinders working smoothly, so he won't have to respond to very many "my machine won't make coffee" emergency calls.
Stephens has learned the ins and outs of espresso boilers, pumps, valves and gaskets through trial and error, talking to fellow experts, and attending machine makers' training sessions.
The machines heat water for coffee and tea, and make steam to froth milk.
"There's an Italian phrase, 'water is lazy,' " Stephens said. "Basically, my job is keeping the water in the machine."
-- DEAN KAHN
Contact Dean Kahn at dean.kahn@bellinghamherald.com or 715-2291. Read his Now and Then blog at TheBellinghamHerald.com/blogs.
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