Vendor Banks on Aroma, Banter, Cloudy Skies to Bring Him Smiles

When the day is gloomy and a chill wind blows, Tim Chambers just smiles. His business will boom.

Chambers peddles coffee and Danish on a downtown street corner, not a very impressive job title unless he tacks on the title of founder and co-owner (with his wife) of the San Diego Espresso Co.

“All this job takes is a keen eye, an alert mind, a skilled hand--and a big mouth,” Chambers quipped to a waiting customer as he whipped up, practically from scratch, a cafe latte and a double cappuccino.

“Sure, we have bad days once in a while, but so what? All we lose is a day’s time,” he added. Restaurants have a payroll, utilities and rent to pay, good times and bad, he explained.

Two Carts

Chambers and his wife, Teresa, preside at the family’s two two-wheeled carts stationed at 6th Avenue and B Street and at Front Street and Broadway on weekdays--except for rainy ones when the green-striped awnings provide too little protection for the customers and the expensive espresso gear aboard the handsome oak-and-brass carts.

The 36-year-old ex-Marine helicopter pilot gained his expertise in coffee-making at his former job as a salesman of espresso machines. He didn’t want to take on the overhead of a restaurant lease and payroll, but he wanted to become his own boss. The pushcart was the perfect compromise.

“I started down here (at 6th and B) four years ago last April,” Chambers said. His

timing was perfect. The city had just passed an ordinance allowing sidewalk food stands about a month before. “I didn’t know that,” Chambers admitted. “I sure would have been in trouble if they hadn’t done that.”

From the first, his business was brisk. It was stoked both by the Yuppie craze for exotic coffee drinks and papaya-flavored bran muffins, and by the tantalizing aromas that drew customers downwind up to the stand.

Marketing a ‘Good Cup’

“I didn’t realize it when I started, but most of my customers are office workers, and most office workers can get coffee free at their workplace,” Chambers said, frowning. “I’m glad I didn’t think about it,” because, as it turned out, “almost everyone will pass up the free stuff once they taste a really good cup of coffee.” The aromatic brew that draws customers to the Chambers’ stands doesn’t get its reputation from rare brands or special coffee beans. “It’s just coffee,” he admitted. “It’s all in the making of it. Grind it fresh, one cup at a time. Brew it right. Serve it hot.”

Cafe latte and mocha are the coffee favorites with Chambers’ 200 or so regulars and also with the occasional tourist or shopper who wanders by and is hooked by the aroma. Danish pastry ranks high on the list of Chambers’ best-sellers, and blueberry muffins disappear quickly.

Although the weather affects his trade--the gloomier the day, the better the business--it doesn’t seem to affect Chambers’ mood or tone down his constant patter.

He knows most of his regulars by name or by appetite. “Here comes the double cappuccino and snickerdoodle,” he said, pointing to an approaching customer. He was right.

Each customer is dished up the same welcome pitch and most of them respond in kind. One girl dropped by for a farewell coffee break, jokingly explaining that “we’re having an audit so I’m quitting now.”

Not to be outdone, Chambers picked up the tab. “It’s on the house. Your basic severence benefit.”

Knows His Patrons

A male regular, whom Chambers predicted would grouse because the cream cheese Danish was long gone, was predictable. Then the man apologized for his rudeness and confessed that: “About 70% of my office staff is female. I have to come down here and vent my frustrations.”

Some of his customers linger to light a cigarette and chat with Chambers. “Thank God for smokers,” Chambers said. “Not all coffee drinkers smoke, but all smokers drink coffee.”

Chambers’ pride is his cart, a self-contained unit that produces its own electricity for the espresso machine, grinder, warming oven and refrigerator. It even recycles the utility water for washing and cleaning. He uses every lull in business to shine up the stainless steel counter and polish the brass decorations on the handmade vehicle.

He now has three carts, one stored away for future expansion. Maybe, when his three kids grow up, he and his wife will turn in their aprons and give up the grind, he mused. But for now, both will continue to roll out their carts by 6:30 a.m. and open promptly at 7:30.

“We try to be prompt,” he said. “Especially to dispel the here-today, gone-tomorrow image that pushcarts have.”

Chambers’ wife, Teresa, “who is my age and looks 16,” has her own faithful following at Broadway and Front. She “is a Coronado girl,” Chambers said, “who never dreamed when she married me that she’d be hawking coffee on a street corner.

“Sometimes, we switch locations. She comes over here. I go there. Gives me a chance to remind all her admirers that she’s married and the mother of three.”

Chambers once had a dream of “carpeting the whole downtown” with San Diego Espresso Co. carts, “one on every corner,” but has subsided into a more laid-back life, “doing something I like and making a pretty good living.”

His regulars believe that Chambers has found the perfect niche and can’t imagine how they coped from 9 to 5 without his espresso coffee and nonstop patter.

“The coffee’s great! And the rest of the stuff, too,” said one of Chambers’ fans. “But he’s the best. He makes my day.”

A stickler at getting in the last word, Chambers nodded approval and quipped: “Just your basic glowing endorsement.”