Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 18, 1990 TAG: 9007180183
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MACY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The TV cameras were rolling.
You could smell the beans roasting - 26 pounds at a time.
And it didn't drizzle, it poured.
You would've thought it was Seattle, what with all the umbrellas. But the Washington city that has the highest per capita coffee consumption in the U.S. now has something else: two fewer coffee connoisseurs.
"We quit our jobs, sold our houses, and came here. We were that convinced that this is gonna work," co-owner Dave Johnson said on Friday, opening day of the new Mill Mountain Coffee & Tea.
The first business to open in the renovated Marketplace Center on Market Square, the coffee-and-dessert shop has managed to take a West Coast idea that's so popular it's passe - and actually make news in the Roanoke Valley.
"This is really big on the West Coast," co-owner Scott Elich said of the laid-back shops where indulgent Seattle residents often go for shelter from the rain.
But Elich and Johnson were doing more than making area news when they gave up their jobs as middle managers for a Seattle company and started scouting out Virginia business sites.
Coming to the slower pace of Roanoke, they said, was in itself a form of indulgence. By leaving Seattle, they were able to escape its breakneck growth and traffic congestion. Not to mention a climate that fosters one of the country's highest suicide rates.
"We're used to working 50 to 70 hours a week, but this kind of work is fun and interesting," Elich said. "Before, the only satisfaction I got from work was collecting my paycheck."
Johnson, an Alexandria native and a 1978 Virginia Tech graduate, said he's confident that Roanoke is large enough to support a shop that sells no meals - only coffees, teas and desserts. "We feel like there are enough professional-type people who go for this kind of thing."
The atmosphere of the place definitely caters to the cafe crowd. Roanoke architect Ray Craighead artistically arranged the layout and decor, which includes salmon-colored walls, track lighting, pressed-tin ceilings and a fancy, custom-made oak bar. Works by area artists hang on the walls, adding to the gallery effect.
With table and bar seating that can hold up to 42 customers, Mill Mountain Coffee & Tea has a menu that's not easy to master, including 17 kinds of imported teas, nine flavored coffees, 14 specialty coffees and five kinds of decaf. There's also espresso and its many variations, and 24 flavors of Italian seltzer sodas.
Looking for an associate's degree in gourmet after-dinner items? This is the place to start.
Three blackboards list varieties and prices (coffees range from $7 to $12 a pound; 60 cents for a small cup, 83 cents for a large). And a refrigerated display case next to the bar offers the day's decadent desserts and pastries - coffeecakes, danishes, cheesecakes, tortes and the like. Lemon-poppyseed bread and Portugese sweet bread are sold as lunchtime filler; no other food is served.
"We want to have the best offering of desserts, so people can eat at home and come down here for a treat - or eat out someplace else downtown, then stop by," Johnson said.
While all varieties of coffee are sold by the pound, Johnson and Elich rotate the featured coffees they have brewed for sale by the cup.
A giant roaster imported from Germany is visible from the picture-window storefront, with a chimney that sends the aroma of the beans blocks away - talk about direct advertising.
A purist's approach dominates. No smoking is allowed because smoke could permeate the imported beans, which are purchased from New York and San Francisco coffee brokers, then roasted on the spot as needed.
"The freshest coffee is the coffee that's brewed right after it's roasted; that's the superior product," Johnson said. "Our coffees will be sold in a shorter time than it takes a supermarket just to get it on their shelves."
So far, reaction has been good, Johnson said Monday. Customers came in spurts over the weekend.
"We had a lot of questions, people wanting to know what's what," he said. "But we've got three whole blackboards just filled up with stuff; it takes a while."
As customer Ian Danielsen said, "Most people are uneducated about products that aren't shown to them by TV or in the supermarkets. Convenience is the name of the game - and this is something new and different."
Danielsen, a graduate student who works across the street at Books Strings & Things, said he'd been hoping a coffeehouse would open downtown. As a foreign exchange student in England a few years ago, Danielsen had grown fond of the coffeehouse atmosphere.
"I'd been hoping for a place here where you could enjoy quiet time with friends or reading by yourself," he said. "I hope Roanoke will support it, that people who like to go out, but don't like the so-called hot spots, will patronize it."
by CNB