By Eileen Moon
ATLANTIC HIGHLANDS – If the coming of autumn makes you think of pumpkin spice, you have Starbucks to thank for sweetening the season with its signature latte.
The Seattle-based king of coffee chains introduced the beverage “with real pumpkin in the sauce” some 19 years ago, returning to star on its menu each year as the autumn leaves start to fall.
In the nearly 20 years since the birth of Pumpkin Spice Lattes, Starbucks stores have continued their caffeine-fueled march across the nation, attracting cars to drive-up windows like bees swirling around a can of orange soda.
In late August, Starbucks debuted one of its newest locations, at Route 36 and West Street in Atlantic Highlands, renovating a former Burger King to provide a welcoming space for drivers seeking a quick burst of caffeine, loungers with laptops and an umbrellaed outdoor patio where sippers can soak in a little sun while Fido enjoys a Puppachino. While Starbucks passed on an interview about how they choose their locations, they did send an email comment.“Starbucks is always looking for great locations to better meet the needs of our customers,” wrote Starbucks spokesperson Hannah Edelman. “And we are happy to confirm that we have opened a new location at 999 RT-36 in Atlantic Highlands, NJ on August 29, 2022. Of note, this drive-thru location will employ 25 partners (employees) and will offer all Starbucks food and beverage menu items.”
But pumpkin spice isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, and not everyone in town is on board with Starbucks coming to a region already rich with the heady mix of fresh-brewed coffee from local mom-and-pop coffee stops.
Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be an either/or situation.
At First Cup on First Avenue in Atlantic Highlands, owner Bob Hespe isn’t at all concerned about competing with Starbucks. The veteran coffee entrepreneur – Hespe formerly owned the Java Stop in Fair Haven and the upstairs coffee bar at the Dublin House in Red Bank – sees the arrival of Starbucks as an indication of the changing demographics in one of Monmouth County’s most desirable towns. With more young professionals moving into town and working from home, the lure of a laptop-friendly coffee shop became an attractive option – one that Starbucks apparently took note of.
Hespe and his wife were dining at the Thai restaurant across First Avenue in 2015 when they spotted a “For Rent” sign in the window on the other side of the street. “I think we found our next coffeehouse,” he told her.
Business at the cozy coffee shop grew steadily from the start. Hespe scheduled once-a-month open mics, comedy nights and other events. He also put out the welcome mat for kids who stop in for a hot chocolate on the way home from school or to hang out with friends in safe surroundings. “We’re a real community place,” he said.
First Cup buys its coffee from Davon Roasters in Ocean Township, with whom Hespe has had a long relationship. Coffee roaster Davon Lopez began his education in the coffee business more than 30 years ago while working at the International House of Coffee in Red Bank, a long-departed European-style café that was among the first to offer coffee roasted on-site.
From its start in 2015, First Cup benefited from the foot traffic in Atlantic Highland’s downtown. And once the darkest days of the pandemic were over, both First Cup and the rest of downtown came back strong.
“2020 was the worst year, 2021 was the best and 2022 is going to break (the record from) 2021,” Hespe said.
“I rise and fall with the town,” he continued. “One of the products of COVID was that it helped revive the town.”
The coming of Starbucks has definitely been a topic of conversation at Jersey Shore Coffee Roasters at Route 36 and Thompson Avenue in Leonardo, where owner Paul Anselmo roasts and sells beans for the wholesale market while also hosting customers who stop in for a hot or cold drink and a chat or to pick up a bag of fresh-roasted beans to grind and brew at home.
Until the pandemic, Jersey Shore Coffee Roasters also had a cozy indoor “living room” where customers could enjoy their Honey-Vanilla Iced Latte or straight-up espresso and relax, read or work on their laptops. The area is temporarily empty now, but Anselmo has plans to reestablish it after some renovations.
A Bergen County native, Anselmo was introduced to coffee culture while working in the tech industry in Silicon Valley, California. By 2002, he’d had enough, and returned east to establish his coffee roasting company with his brother Andrew. They began roasting coffee in their backyards, developing the flavor profiles that would result in their signature products.
Among them was a dark roast they designed to appeal to Starbucks coffee drinkers and a light roast for those who preferred Dunkin’.
In developing their business plan, “Our focus was retail, wholesale and internet,” Anselmo said. “We were offering our customers the freshest possible coffee roasted to order,” he said. With most industrial coffee roasters, there is a lag time of one to three months from the time the beans are roasted to when they are delivered to market. At Jersey Shore Coffee Roasters, beans are custom-roasted and ready for delivery within 48 hours.
By the time Andrew retired, just before the 2020 lockdown, the business was well established.
The pandemic took a toll on the wholesale business as restaurants, corporate accounts and private label buyers closed down or cut back. But with the worst days in the rearview mirror, the business is moving steadily forward once again.
And Anselmo is not losing any sleep about the arrival of Starbucks.
“Before we opened up, we went to some coffee seminars and one of the things the experts told us was, ‘If you can open up next door to a Starbucks, do it.’ The reason was because even their overflow will help you – and more importantly, you’ll have a better product and people will be drawn to that.”
Just steps away from the new Starbucks, Fair Mountain Coffee Roasters owner Steve Almonte is hard at work mapping the progress of his latest batch of organic Fair Trade coffee in his aromatic emporium on West Garfield Avenue.
A former process engineer for the cosmetics industry, Almonte bought the business from its former owners, Greg Lewis and Barbara DiBenedetto, last April.
Fair Mountain, which markets its coffee through the Whole Foods Network, approaches its work as both art and science in a series of steps that follow the beans from farms around the coffee-growing world to the ports of North Jersey, where Almonte picks up the U.S.D.A.-certified organic beans on pallets to be roasted in carefully curated batches in the West Garfield Avenue facility.
Almonte, who also sells individual bags of coffee to local customers, installed a small coffee bar at the front of his business where he serves espresso, macchiato and cappuccino in un-Starbucks-like sizes reminiscent of a traditional European café. He chuckles over the idea of “small, medium or large” cappuccino. Just as there is for a traditional espresso, “there is a very special measure for a cappuccino,” he said.
His customers want their coffee to taste like coffee – a natural product that, like wine, reflects the influence of sun and rain, soil, humidity and the intricate rituals of brewing. “The expectation here is very traditional,” Almonte said. “We don’t serve coffee with syrups. We don’t serve ‘coffee drinks.’ We’re catering more to a mature and refined palate.”
Pointing to the small sugar shaker on the coffee bar, Almonte notes that he has filled it only three times since April.
Because he sees what he is doing as very different, he is not concerned about doing business just steps away from the Starbucks drive-thru.
“If we were trying to compete with Starbucks, or their drinks, we would be competing with the king of those drinks,” he said.
The article originally appeared in the September 29 – October 5, 2022 print edition of The Two River Times.
