DATE: Monday, November 3, 1997              TAG: 9711010712

SECTION: BUSINESS                PAGE: D7   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MARC HELLER, DAILY PRESS 

DATELINE: WILLIAMSBURG                      LENGTH:   55 lines

COLONIAL COFFEE COMPETITION

Todd Arnette has a loyal clientele at his coffee shop, the Williamsburg Coffee & Tea Co. But he knows when a double agent is looking in the window.

``Sometimes people walk by with white cups,'' Arnette says - a sure sign they've been filling up at The Coffeehouse, his competitor at the opposite end of the Williamsburg Crossing shopping center.

Down at The Coffeehouse, owner Drew Haynie swallows hard - but rarely, he says - when someone orders a King James, the house blend at the other shop.

Is the shopping center too small for both of them? Not according to the shop owners, who say their friendly rivalry has turned Williamsburg Crossing into a destination for the Williamsburg area's caffeine-craving crowd.

``Specialty coffee is booming,'' says Haynie, who hopes to ride the nation's rising gourmet-coffee wave.

Coffee shops have a long but sporadic history in Williamsburg. Coffeehouses were common on Duke of Gloucester Street in colonial days, including one on a site now being excavated next to the Capitol. But the modern-day coffee shop, here as elsewhere, has grown popular only in the last few years, illustrated by the opening of three independent shops.

The first was The Coffeehouse, which opened in 1992. The Prince George Espresso and Roastery opened a few months later, catering to college students and tourists. Williamsburg Coffee & Tea followed in 1995.

Chuck and Mary Haines founded The Coffeehouse. ``There wasn't any good coffee here,'' said Chuck Haines, who sold the shop to Haynie last January.

Haynie became interested in coffee after designing the Gabriel Archer Tavern at The Williamsburg Winery, where he received a crash course in espresso machines. Like fine wine, he says, good coffee depends as much on how it's made and stored as on the quality of the starting ingredient.

Haynie's coffee supplier was The Coffeehouse. One day he picked up The Coffeehouse's newsletter and saw the shop's for-sale notice. After some negotiations, the Haineses agreed to sell him the business upon completion of a three-month apprenticeship.

Across the shopping center, Arnette had already established a regular set of customers, including wholesale clients from Virginia Beach to Richmond.

Although he dabbled in coffee retailing immediately after college, Arnette waited until 1994 to go full-steam.

After an apprenticeship of his own to a Baltimore-based coffee distributor, Arnette bought out his mentor, inheriting about two dozen restaurants and other wholesale customers around Hampton Roads.

Looking for better exposure, Arnette expanded the business in 1995 to include retailing. Arnette says he initially avoided Williamsburg Crossing as a courtesy to the other business. But the shopping center's managers did not object to two coffee shops, he says.

``To me, that says people are pretty much OK with it.''

Across the way, Haynie says if he had any doubt about The Coffeehouse surviving with another shop nearby, ``Obviously I wouldn't have bought it. I didn't have to.''

Send Suggestions or Comments to webmaster@scholar.lib.vt.edu