Klatching On Downtown : Among City Sippers, Gourmet Coffee is Gaining Grounds

In Esther Forbes’ novel, “Johnny Tremain,” young Johnny says the most enticing aromas he’d ever smelled were that of coffee and chocolate. He tried chocolate and loved it, tried coffee and loathed it.

Johnny never made it to downtown San Diego.

Merchants say he or anyone else would love the java they’re serving up.

The only problem is, Johnny would be confronted with a caffeine rush of choices--not just of places to drink coffee, but rather hot, black, steaming, flavorful, delicious, exotic, gourmet coffee, which flows as freely these days as water from a broken main.

Changing Tastes

In less than a year, downtown has been filled to the brim with places pouring or selling gourmet coffee. Merchants say they’re cashing in on the changing tastes of yuppies, who demand better-tasting coffee as well as an alcohol-free, smoke-free environment to talk shop or take in the day’s news.

Others say gourmet coffee is nothing less than a symbol of a changing San Diego--more trendy, more upscale, more cosmopolitan, more comfortable with Kona Murasaki imported from Hawaii than, say, with “Farmer Brothers--black.”

But aren’t these places worried about squeezing each other out of business?

“Well, we have to look at it realistically,” said Cherryl Fellows, co-owner of Tudor Too, situated near the intersection of C Street and 6th Avenue. “Yes, it could dent the budget a little bit. As they say, though, each to his own.”

In less than six months, Tudor Too has seen three competitors open, each less than a block away, each selling gourmet coffee, which Fellows and her sister, Judy, have sold for 2 1/2 years.

Tudor Too started out specializing in scones and pastries, which remain primary staples in this decidedly British shop. (The Fellows sisters hail from just outside London.) But now, said Cherryl, coffee--and not just coffee, but rather Swiss chocolate almond, butter pecan and strawberry kiwi decaf--has become as salable as any other item.

About the distance of a sugar spoon from Tudor Too--on 6th Avenue, near B Street--Susan Gilbert had Lil’ Miss Muffins Bakery and Cafe opened up by Labor Day. Like Tudor Too, Gilbert sells gourmet coffees by the pound or freshly brewed cup.

She said gourmet coffees conform to the “taste consciousness” of yuppies, who, in her view, demand pasta salads and bran muffins (other items from the Lil’ Miss menu) just as much.

For two years, Gilbert’s business was in the Mission Valley Shopping Center, which she said didn’t suit her tastes as much as the caffeine pace of downtown.

“In all honesty, the reason I relocated was, I prefer the downtown businessperson,” she said. “I don’t want the shopper, the housewife with her kids. I want yuppies, if you will, the upscale businessperson who demands quality in food and drink.

“Look, I’m like a lot of people who eat here. I run, work out in a gym, put in a hard day. I don’t want a doughnut and a lousy cup of coffee first thing in the morning. I wanted a good, healthy muffin and a gourmet cup of coffee. That’s one reason I started the business.”

More Night Life

Farnaz Badii was betting on something else. She believes San Diego’s growth as a big city has reached a point where it’s demanding more exotic night life. Earlier this week, she opened up the Odeum Cafe and Bar, at the corner of 7th Avenue and C Street, hard by the trolley tracks.

Her hours: 7:30 a.m. to midnight, seven days a week.

“I grew up in Iran and then lived in Boston,” she said. “Unlike Boston, San Diego didn’t have, or at least I didn’t know about, the type of gourmet coffeehouse where people could sit and talk, a place that wasn’t a bar . . . a cultural hangout, where artists could exhibit work every two months or so. I wanted that kind of place.”

Badii has competition from Java, situated on G Street, between 8th and 9th avenues. Or maybe Java has competition from her . Having been open several years, Java greets overflow crowds almost every night of the week. Badii craves a similar milieu, with artists and theatergoers sampling everything from coffee and cappuccino to cafe latte and Italian espresso.

Badii is, by profession, an architect. Heidi Agbassi is a fellow architect and one of several friends helping her mind the store. Agbassi said she had always wanted the kind of espresso she drank in her native Italy, and now, she said, she can get it--at the Odeum.

Tim Chambers might take issue with that. He runs the San Diego Espresso Co., which happens to be a cart set up in front of the Great American Bank Building on B Street. Chambers’ wife operates a cart at the other end of downtown, at the corner of Front Street and Broadway.

He said the coffee boom is simply a matter of taste. Espresso-- his espresso, he said--tastes good, so people want it.

“A good-tasting coffee sells itself,” he said. “And it isn’t just yuppies buying it either.”

“Yeah, he makes the best hot chocolate in town!” piped in Stella Kearney, 65.

Barbara Esquivel, 23, who manages the Coffee Emporium in Irvine Ranch Market at Horton Plaza, agreed with Chambers’ analysis. She said the boom has accelerated since the emporium opened two years ago.

Gay Sinclair is one of the owners of Pannikin Coffee and Tea on G Street. Pannikin sells gourmet coffee by the cup or pound. It also roasts its own coffee. Sinclair said the java renaissance touches not just San Diego but the country--and maybe even the world.

“America had been jaded toward coffee for a long time,” she said. “No matter what they say, commercial coffee just isn’t as good to the last drop, and only now are folks finding that out. Gourmet coffee is much more flavorful. People see gourmet coffee as an affordable luxury, or maybe a luxurious necessity. In that way, San Diegans are not one bit different from people anywhere.”