COFFEE TALK : The Buzz Around Here Is That Coffeehouses Are the ‘New Social Watering Holes’

There’s a renaissance taking place around here, and if you haven’t noticed it, maybe it’s time you wake up and smell the coffee.

Following the cue of Southland metropolises that got a taste of coffeehouse culture in the late ‘80s, Orange County is now home to close to 60 coffeehouses offering specialty brews, entertainment, a forum for socializing and more.

Many say cleaner living contributes to the current craze.

Janet Lowder, a restaurant industry consultant in Rancho Palos Verdes, cites more stringent laws concerning alcohol and driving and changes in lifestyle due in part to the spread of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.

“You don’t go to singles bars any more to be picked up, so maybe this is where you go,” she said.

UC Irvine sociology professor Xeromino Kirk postulates that coffeehouses represent community for the 1990s. They’re friendly, but not too friendly.

“If the ‘70s were ‘Take off all your clothes and meet anyone you can,’ and the ‘80s were about not wanting to meet anyone you didn’t already know, we may have the happy medium” in the ‘90s, Kirk said.

Ted Lingle, executive director of the Specialty Coffee Assn. of America, agrees. “What the coffeehouse phenomenon is really saying,” he said, “is that people have found new social watering holes.”

Cigarette and alcohol use have declined over the past decade, county agencies confirm, but some observers see another reason for the coffeehouse boom: They say coffeehouses serve as a prescription for economic hard times.

“It’s like treating yourself,” said Christian Glasgow, owner of Bagelmania Coffeehouse in Huntington Beach. “Everyone’s stressed from the economy, and they spend $3 and feel like they’re pampering themselves a little.”

For the price of a cappuccino, “you can listen to music for three hours,” said Ed Najjarine, owner of the Coffee Shack in Placentia.

All but a handful of the county’s coffeehouses have opened in the past three years, perhaps spurred by the large number that have opened in Los Angeles and by the success of those already established here. Diedrich’s Coffee, one of the forerunners of the coffeehouse boom in the county, now has four locations, each with long lines every morning.

Like those in L.A. and other major cities, many Orange County java joints are serving a combination of culture and coffee, showcasing art, poetry and live music and offering reading materials and games for their patrons. Here, however, they tend to be less trendy than their neighbors to the north. Rather than concerning themselves with finding the hottest new haunt at which to strike a pose with a latte in hand and an eye on the door, Orange Countians take their coffeehouses for granted, viewing them more as neighborhood clubhouses.

The O.C. crowd is more casual and the locations, which tend to be in mini-malls, are more accessible. Most close by midnight, just about the time when L.A. joints get jumping. There also seems to be more of an obsession to brew the perfect cup of coffee here than in La-La Land, where the hang up seems to be on creating the perfect setting.

In contrast to the coffee shop of American freeway landscapes, coffeehouses don’t just serve your ordinary cup of Joe. Menus list cappuccinos, espressos, frappas and mochas made with “specialty” or Arabica beans for anywhere from 75 cents to around $5.

These beans, grown in tropical areas in altitudes from 2,000 to 7,000 feet, have more flavor and fragrance and half the caffeine of robusta beans, which are cheaper to produce, yield greater amounts and are grown in lower regions. Most coffee sold in grocery stores and for mass commercial use is the cheaper and lower grade robusta bean, although the demand for specialty coffees is bringing better quality beans to some markets.

A good percentage of coffeehouse business comes from sales of beans by the pound. Several stores offer as many as 60 varieties of beans from around the world, including special and rare blends. Revenue also comes from sales of pastries, cookies and, in some cases, a limited list of meals.

CUPS RUNNETH OVER

Lowder, the restaurant industry consultant, notes that coffee is the No. 1 selling beverage in the nation--surpassing even alcohol.

The Long Beach-based Specialty Coffee Assn. of America provides information and education about the industry to its 900-strong international membership, which ranges from people in coffee-producing countries such as Brazil to small retail businesses in locations as far away as the North Pole.

Specialty coffee retail sales doubled during the ‘80s to a $1.5-billion industry, according to a recent 50-page report released by the association. Part of that increase is attributed to coffeehouses, which have introduced gourmet beans and coffee drinks to communities on a daily basis. The specialty coffee market is expected to account for nearly a third of all U.S. coffee sales by 1994 and may approach $5 billion in the next decade.

According to the National Coffee Assn. in New York, coffee consumption has decreased from its peak in the 1960s, when Americans threw back an average of three cups a day. Today’s coffee drinkers sip less than two cups a day. However, they have become increasingly sophisticated in their choices.

Indeed, Tiffany Haugen, director of UC Irvine’s Excellerate Technology Small Business Development Center, which helps small businesses grow, says the coffeehouse trend has to do with “fussier” culinary tastes. That is a factor that ensures this is more than a fad, but part of a trend that “will probably be here for a while,” she said.

“If you look in grocery stores, for example, you see more and more gourmet-type foods,” Haugen said. “People are becoming much more sensitive to finer things, shall we say, and willing to pay more for those things, and the coffeehouse phenomenon is probably a part of that.”

Coffeehouses do appear to be cashing in on consumers’ changing tastes. But most owners said their motives go beyond making a fast buck.

“Nobody needs to come into a store like this,” said Mike Shelbreake, owner of Caffe Gourmet in Anaheim, which he opened in late 1990, and Polly’s Gourmet Coffee in Long Beach. Since opening the Long Beach location 17 years ago, Shelbreake has witnessed the boom in specialty coffee businesses. He says that once customers are exposed to quality coffee, they’re hooked.

TOP BEAN COUNTER

The acknowledged leader of the modern coffeehouse scene in Orange County has been Martin Diedrich, president and partner of Diedrich’s Coffee, with stores in Costa Mesa, Tustin, Newport Beach and Mission Viejo. Although Diedrich plays down his role, coffeehouse owners throughout the county point to his success as their inspiration.

Diedrich was raised in Antigua, Guatemala, on a coffee plantation, and is part of the third generation of his family to work in the industry. His brother, Steve, manufactures roasting machinery in Costa Mesa that is sold internationally.

The first Diedrich’s was opened 21 years ago in Newport Beach by Martin and Steve’s father, Carl Diedrich. In 1984, years after the original Newport Beach store had closed, Martin opened the Costa Mesa location, which soon developed a loyal following. Diedrich’s now roasts close to 500 pounds of coffee daily, the largest by any coffeehouse in the county, for its four shops and others that carry the brand.

Martin Diedrich sees the recent explosion in coffeehouses as a long overdue coming of age for Southern California.

“Coffee’s been around for hundreds of years, and it’s really become crucial, almost essential, to the heart of our culture, of Western civilization,” he said. “It’s the coffeehouses in Europe that make the great cosmopolitan cities what they are. Some very momentous cultural events in our civilization have been rooted in the coffeehouse--new governments, politics, new ways of thought, and businesses have gotten established.”

COMMON GROUNDS

Artists too have found solace, camaraderie and inspiration in coffeehouses over the years. Although most people associate the ‘50s beat generation with the coffeehouse heyday, it actually predates that era, said Gerald Nicosia, author of “Memory Babe,” a biography of beat icon Jack Kerouac.

“There was a true bohemian scene in Paris in the 19th Century,” he said, citing artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and writer Charles Baudelaire among its denizens. Greenwich Village during the 1920s carried on the custom.

Today’s activity “all comes out of that same counter-cultural energy, the feeling that the individual can make a difference, follow his own beat and his own genius,” Nicosia said.

“If you have a society that’s rejecting your individuality, to be gay or whatever, you can go to the coffeehouse, you can be among your friends, speak your text aloud to your friends, and writing can be a way of sharing your own private needs and private delights.”

For Sid Soffer, today’s coffeehouses don’t come close to the scene he helped nurture in Orange County during the late 1950s.

“Now its sort of a plastic, yuppie, bologna thing,” said Soffer, current owner of Sid’s, a restaurant in Costa Mesa. Soffer co-owned Cafe Frankenstein, a coffeehouse in Laguna Beach in 1958 and ’59. The joint featured people such as hipster comedian Lord Buckley.

“The coffeehouses of the ‘50s and ‘60s were very individualistic, the people there were more intellectual than they are now,” he continued. “The entertainers were better then, too--and well known. The kids now are probably not planning on overthrowing anyone any more.”

Laguna’s police chief at the time kept after Soffer, unable to understand how he stayed in business selling coffee when every other place in town gave it away. Soffer recalled how the chief would tell him, “I know you’re up to something. I just don’t know what it is yet.”

In 1959 Soffer opened the Blue Beet in Laguna Beach, which he subsequently moved to its current location in Newport Beach. That legendary coffeehouse-nightclub has featured such blues greats as Bukka White, folk singer and future Monkee Peter Tork and a young comic by the name of Steve Martin.

Soffer recalled other hot coffeehouses in the county during the ‘60s, such as the Prison of Socrates on the Balboa Peninsula, Rouge et Noir in Seal Beach and the Golden Bear in Huntington Beach, all owned by the Nikos brothers. There was also Ochams Razor in Santa Ana and Cafe Europa in South Laguna.

One item from yesteryear that Soffer misses is the contraption used to make espresso and other coffee drinks.

“The espresso machines everyone uses now are small and shiny. Back then we used a steam boiler designed to use in dry-cleaning plants. It was four feet tall and 18 inches in diameter. If it didn’t come in black, we’d paint it. We used to coil copper tubing around it and it would make this tremendous noise and steam when you’d release boiling water from it.

“It was a whole different era. There’s no sophistication to it now.”

SPECIALTY BREWS

What can be found in Orange County coffeehouses these days is individuality.

There are those who have taken their cue from java houses in L.A. or San Francisco, catering to a hip, youthful crowd whose taste buds for the aromatic tonic are still in the developing stages.

On any given night, several Harley Davidsons and Vespas can be spotted in front of Rock-N-Java in Costa Mesa. With its experimental wall art (which changes monthly), rock and blues blaring from the sound system and antique furniture, this coffeehouse borrows generously from the popular java hangouts in cosmopolitan hubs.

The place has become a welcome alternative for many who are too young or too jaded to visit local discos and nightclubs. Besides playing paddle ball or reading foreign and underground magazines, patrons come to enjoy bands playing alternative, folk rock or blues music nightly on a recently constructed stage.

The Zoo in Orange attracts an eclectic blend of artist types who enjoy the equally eclectic interior of oversized stuffed animals, Mardi Gras-like items such as a pink mannequin glamorously dressed in feathers and a headdress and an extensive collection of vintage chrome coffeepots. On the traffic circle in Old Town Orange, the Zoo tends to become a resting spot for collectors who frequent the area’s many antique and secondhand stores. It also gets a mix from nearby Chapman University and various ethnic eateries in the area.

Being cool doesn’t have to mean being snobby, said Scott Cochran, co-owner of Java Jungle in downtown Huntington Beach. “Some coffeehouses are stuffy and yuppie-ish, but this is comfortable. People can just kick back and hang out.”

Once a haunt for surf and skate rats who congregated to get hyped on caffeine and shoot pool, Java Jungle has become a hot spot for “kids and college students to come on dates with their girlfriends,” Cochran said. Fledgling poets and acoustic musicians show up at different times to entertain anyone who’ll listen.

This comfy dive boasts hours closer to Norms than any other place in the county--22 hours during weeknights, 24 hours on Friday and Saturday.

Because of its proximity to the beach, the coffeehouse caters to surfers and skateboarders--especially with its menu of peanut butter sandwiches and bowls of cereal. “Good, cheap items that a lot of us live on,” Cochran said.

You think coffeehouses only come to life at night? Wake up an hour earlier and smell the Sumatra. Mornings are all a-perk, and not just with carry-out commuters.

The die-hard regulars at Natale’s in Huntington Beach settle in by 7 a.m., as the sun begins to stream through lace curtains in this cheery, mini-mall cafe. Sales representative Phil Burton should pay rent. He serves himself, meets with clients, camps out for hours, seven days a week and even showed up on Thanksgiving.

“They haven’t thrown me out yet,” quipped Burton, who often joins Glenn (Bud) Rambo’s daily coffee klatch. Camaraderie, as well as fresh brew, is the attraction, as the group chats indoors or sits outside. “We solve all the world’s problems right here. It’s fun,” said Rambo, who owns a nearby skate shop.

Neighborhood teens--as well as police, postal and city workers--make morning stops at Natale’s, where they guzzle espresso, smoke and discuss “politics, religion, the fall of America,” said Shanna Mitchell, a 10th-grader at Ocean View High School who wears black, ‘60s style eyeliner and maxi-skirts.

How times have changed. Baby boomers may have done drugs at this age, but didn’t most wait longer to try caffeine? “I started at 5,” Shanna said. “I used to drink my grandmother’s coffee.”

For some coffeehouses, specialization extends beyond the types of beans they brew. Claiming a growing stronghold in the local coffeehouse market, at least five outlets have developed Christian followings.

The recent 200-plus Sunday night crowd at Cafe Concerto spilled out onto the patio, as Christafari, a Christian reggae band, sang about brotherly love while servers supplied cafe au lait beneath a framed image of Jesus. Cafe Concerto books emerging and well-known Christian and secular rock, jazz or gospel musicians nightly.

It’s the absence of cigarette smoke and alcohol that attracts many.

Mike Nicosia, 18, likes Regency Coffee Roast in Brea. “You can come and drink coffee and just talk about what’s on your mind without being tempted to do things you don’t want to do,” Nicosia said.

Ben Ashley, Regency co-owner, said he vigilantly promotes family values. The coffeehouse sometimes presents Christian musicians, but poetry was stopped, he said, because readers sometimes made offensive “off-color remarks or off-color innuendoes.”

“We do not allow any profanity by any of the staff,” he said. “We encourage polite interaction with customers, and young children are treated very special. They get a free glass of milk, or we warm bottles for infants.”

CALIFORNIA BLENDS

The $12.95 Super Hand Wash at Cafe Autospa includes a whitewall tire scrub, air freshener and, what else? Cappuccino. Drive up and debark, enter the Spanish-style lobby to pay and pick up your bean juice, then proceed to the sunny patio to watch your car swabbed as you sit and imbibe at this Tustin car wash cum coffee bar.

The place was abuzz on a recent Saturday morning, as attorney Tom Posey waited for his Mercury Sable while downing a croissant, his coffee and orange juice. “And it’s fresh squeezed,” he said approvingly.

Not surprisingly, other unusual java joints involve car culture. Think Fotomat and you get the idea behind Team Caffeine Inc. (a.k.a. Cappuccino-to-Go-Go) in Huntington Beach. Its owners enlarged one of those free-standing film outlets into a drive-through espresso shop, serving the seat-belted (plus walk-ups and cyclers) from two windows.

“It’s not trendy,” said Matt Lillywhite, straddling his 10-speed. “You don’t have the people hanging out listening to poetry.”

Bagelmania Coffeehouse, also in Huntington Beach, is a busy drive-through too, only its additional lure is bagels, baked on the premises. Customers can sit down, too, inside and out. Karin Shy likes it because she doesn’t have to hustle her three young children in and out of the Volvo for a cup of coffee. “I never went to coffeehouses before I came here, and now I come once a week,” Shy said.

Another trend is the in-house coffee bar. The Blue Wolf Bookstore in Fullerton and Fahrenheit 451 in Laguna Beach offer literary libations to their patrons.

“Customers at the old store wanted someplace they could sit down, read books and have a cup of coffee and feel at home,” said Fahrenheit 451 owner Dotti Ibsen. “This has increased book business too.”

STAYING HOT

Bagelmania’s Glasgow says outlets that offer more than mere coffee will have the edge, and that quality is a must, what with growing coffee savvy. “Five years ago, customers didn’t know French Roast from Kona,” she said.

With formidable competition from giant chains such as Starbucks, the mom-and-pop coffeehouse has to offer atmosphere, said Coffee Shack’s Najjarine, and create the kind of homey, welcoming aura people like to return to. “The difference between them and us is the personal touch,” Najjarine said.

As for outliving the competition, Haugen, of UCI’s Excellerate Technology Small Business Development Center, said location is key. As long as demand is high, coffeehouses can be situated side by side--as McDonald’s, Burger King and Kentucky Fried Chicken are--assuming they’re in commercial districts that remain busy throughout the day, she said.

“I’ve noticed some starting up in totally inappropriate areas, such as a shopping center surrounded by homes where probably 70% of the people are out working and the mothers are busy with their kids,” she said.

Patty Spooner doesn’t foresee this trend burning out any time soon.

Spooner, who opened Alta Coffee Warehouse & Roasting Co. in Newport Beach seven years ago, will be takink her version of a cozy place “to relax, see art and enjoy a cup of coffee” to the new Triangle Square in Costa Mesa next month.

“There’s room for whatever anyone wants to do,” she said. “Besides, people will always drink coffee.”

What’s in That Cup of Joe A glossary of some of the more popular drinks in coffeehouses: * Espresso: The darkest of all roasts, this is the basis of most coffee drinks; usually served in a demitasse--which is French for “half cup.” * Espresso con panna: A basic espresso with a dollop of whipped cream. * Granita: Espresso that has been frozen and crushed. * Caffe latte: A single shot of espresso with eight to 10 ounces of milk. Lattes are frequently flavored with Italian syrups; nut flavors are the most popular. Traditionally served in a clear glass. * Cafe au lait: Dark roast coffee served with a separate pitcher of heated (not frothed) milk, the two are mixed by the customer depending on personal strength desired. Traditionally served in a bowl, convenient for dunking brioche or croissants. * Cafe con leche: Dark roast mixed with sugar and heated milk. * Cafe mocha: A single shot of espresso mixed to taste with chocolate syrup or powder and five ounces of steamed milk. Topped with whipped cream if desired. * Cappuccino: The recipe is of much debate, but purists contend it’s one-third espresso poured over one-third steamed milk and one-third frothed milk spooned on top. Whipped cream is not an option for a real cappuccino. * Iced cappuccino: One shot of freshly brewed espresso poured over ice, with three ounces of cold milk added. Using prepared espresso or adding the ice into the drink will not get the same effect. * Macchiato (which means “stain” in Italian): A single serving of espresso “stained” with a dollop of frothed milk.

Source: Specialty Coffee Assn. of America; researched by ROSE APODACA / For The Times

The Last Drops

* Losing Sleep--Jim Washburn and friends embark on a coffee crawl. 4

* Where the Lattes Are--A list of local coffeehouses and what they offer. 4

* Grounds for Comparison--Sampling the brew at five java joints. 5

* COFFEEHOUSES, Page 32

Times staff writer Zan Dubin also contributed to this story.