The Coffee Business is Up Up Up!

Today’s a lovely day and my heart is full and upbeat. Perhaps that’s because it feels like the cafe is finally reaching a point of success. People come in who’ve never been here before, they always say how nice it is in here, and at the same time our regulars show up and make the place their own.

Rocky, a nurse who comes in daily, showed us a legal ad in the paper that said our friends Sean and Darren Pierce are getting out of the cafe business. Their Javahut Roaster’s cafe in Sunderland is being turned into a Dunkin’ Donuts. Egads, that’s sad….but not that surprising. The Pierce brothers moved their roasting operation up to Greenfield, that’s where they put their energy.

While I am always sad to see a fellow local cafe fold, I think of my friend Curtis Rich, owner of the five Shelburne Falls Coffee Roasters cafes. He told me that their Northampton store, on busy King St, does fantastic business two stores down from DD. In Shelburne Falls, he said a former employee opened up a cafe two doors down, but still there’s enough thirst for good coffee that his business has thrived.

I read that the fine coffee business amounted to $5 billion in 2003 and $8 billion in 2005. That’s why Mickie D’s and Burger King now tout new gourmet blends and DD offers lattes. Starbucks has turned Americans into coffee snobs. God bless ’em.