DATE: Monday, April 28, 1997                TAG: 9704260261

SECTION: BUSINESS                PAGE: D1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY JON GLASS, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:  100 lines

RECIPE FOR SUCCESS GOURMET COFFEE SHHOP CAPITALIZES ON THE REBIRTH OF DOWNTOWN NORFOLK

The portobello mushroom sandwich special sold out in 45 minutes. The lunch crowd devoured all but two pieces of bread on another day.

Since opening earlier this month at 225 Granby St. downtown, the Aroma Coffeehouse's business has been so brisk that the somewhat dazed co-owners, Chris Coureas and Hasan Tanbir, already have hired more help and started a delivery service.

And they drew all this attention without even advertising.

``We did nothing,'' Coureas said. ``We took the brown paper off the windows and there they were.''

Three of the most important things in the restaurant business are location, location, location. Based on the response so far, Coureas and Tanbir are convinced that their gamble on downtown Norfolk was a safe bet indeed.

The construction of the $300-million MacArthur Center mall, the new Tidewater Community College campus and a Connecticut developer's plans to build a $30-million residential development along Duke and Boush streets are doing more than transforming the landscape.

They represent the critical mass city officials say is needed to draw entrepreneurs like Coureas and Tanbir.

Coureas, a Norfolk native whose father and grandfather once operated barbershops downtown during its heyday from the 1920s through the 1960s, said he is convinced the area has turned the corner.

``It's like it's waking up after being dormant for 25 years,'' Coureas said. ``I said, `I want to get in on this.' ''

Coureas said downtown would be attractive to him even without the MacArthur Center, which he is not convinced will offer much customer spillover for his specialty shop.

Instead, Coureas said other developments sold him: The growing number of residents who have moved downtown into upscale condos and townhouses created during the past two decades; the recent arrival of Tidewater Community College's Granby Street campus; and the existing base of government and business employees working downtown.

``There is a population base here,'' he said. ``There are people of means within two or three blocks walking distance. There is activity on the street.''

Coureas and Tanbir set up shop in a converted business office on the first floor of the renovated Tazewell Building on the corner of Granby and Brooke Avenue, a location they consider blessed.

After a five-month search that included a look at Virginia Beach and Chesapeake and a lot of ``person-on-the-street'' market research, their decision to open their 30-seat cafe downtown seemed like a no-brainer.

Upstairs in the Tazewell building - and easily accessible to the coffee shop through a back door off the lobby - are offices housing the city's police and fire and paramedical administrative forces, a solid customer base.

Across the street on Granby is the Federal Building - another ready source of customers. Coureas said he's thinking of opening at 6:30 a.m. - instead of an hour later - to catch the early shift of employees.

Just down the street is TCC's campus. The restored Wells Theatre is a short walk away. During the run of the Virginia Stage Company's ``Always. . . Patsy Cline,'' the coffee shop has remained open until 11 p.m. to catch after-theater customers searching for dessert and coffee - a decision that's paid off: Last weekend, they sold out of their desserts, Coureas said.

``I remember when the Wells Theatre showed nothing but skin flicks,'' he said, ``but now it's just another thing bringing people of affluence and culture downtown.''

Coureas said he ultimately chose downtown because he wants to part of its revitalization.

``This is my childhood down here,'' he said, ``going shopping with my mother in her hat and white gloves . . . on Saturdays.''

His dad, Harry Coureas, who died last June, ran a downtown barber shop, the Liberty, for more than 30 years on nearby City Hall Avenue ``until downtown went downtown'' in the mid-1970s, Coureas said. That's when his dad and several other downtown businesses moved to the newly opened Military Circle Mall.

Coureas said he recently discovered that his grandfather on his mother's side, John Briola, operated a barber shop next door to the Tazewell building.

``It's like the Twilight Zone to think that 55 years later I'm about 100 feet away from where my grandfather was,'' Coureas said.

Coureas, a non-practicing attorney, got into the restaurant business in New York's Upper East Side about seven years ago, discovering the coffee niche about four years ago. That's were he met Tanbir, a Bangladesh native who grew up in England.

With the advent of such national coffee chains as Starbucks, people are more educated about good roasted beans, creating a growing market for specialty shops like Aroma Coffeehouse, he said.

The Norfolk restaurant has imported a sophisticated style born of New York's cultural mix, Coureas said, offering a wide blend of coffees and a menu that features such breakfast specials as granola and yogurt and lunchtime delicacies as smoked turkey pinwheels, served on Lavasch flatbread from the Middle East and rolled up with tomato and arugula.

``We're doing something a little different, not necessarily exotic, but with a new twist, and it's almost like people are anxious for doing something different,'' Coureas said. ``I guess it's like TV - the more choices you give them, the more they'll take advantage of it.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photos]

MARTIN SMITH-RODDEN

The Virginian-Pilot

Since the Aroma Coffeehouse's opening in downtown Norfolk earlier

this month, business has been so brisk that co-owners Chris Coureas,

left, and Hasan Tanbir already have hired more help.

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