Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer

Good Coffee: Juan Aquino puts some sugar in his coffee at the Willow Glen Coffee Roasting Company on Lincoln Avenue.




Coffee Roasting offers variety to customers

By Jim Aquino

Lincoln Avenue coffee aficionados who are seeking an alternative from Starbucks should look no further than across the street.

The Willow Glen Coffee Roasting Company at 1383 Lincoln Ave. is a downtown coffeehouse with a low-key, old-fashioned and 1930s-style ambiance that's so enticing it has even attracted former Vice President Al Gore and San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales.

The two politicians passed up Starbucks and chose its independently run rival across the street as the location for Gonzales' public endorsement of Gore during the ex-VP's presidential campaign back in February 2000.

"Al Gore likes French Roasts," says Roasting Company co-owner Chris Carris, a former high-tech manufacturing engineer who has run the coffee shop with his stepson Jae Kim since they bought the business in 1998.

The Roasting Company is popular with local politicians. Carris lists Councilman Ken Yeager, Congressman Mike Honda and former San Jose Mayor Susan Hammer as other prominent names who have dropped by and sipped cups of joe at his coffeehouse.

"Former mayor Tom McEnery was here the other night," Carris says, as the store's stereo blasts a jazzy cover of "What Child Is This?"

The stereo music plays virtually nonstop at the Roasting Company, and then on Saturday nights from 8 to 10 p.m., the coffeehouse presents live bands that range from light-rock groups to jazz acts.

"We tried poetry in the past, but it wasn't successful for us, so we decided to stop having that," Carris says. "Willow Glen doesn't seem to be a poetry-type place. But they do like their jazz."

As for coffees, customers are usually most enthusiastic about Alpine Mochas, Carris says. He adds that during the holiday season, they tend to prefer Eggnog Lattes.

Carris' business is also found online, at www.coffeewillowglen.com. The Roasting Company's website sells coffee beans exclusively to wholesalers.

The beans for popular store blends like the Lincoln Avenue Light (a mix of Colombian and Kenyan beans) and the Willow Glen Blend (a mix of dark New Guinea and light-roasted Kenyan beans) are available.

The Roasting Company has held its own against its across-the-street competition, Starbucks. Carris says he's aware of how tough chains can be as competition for independent businesses in San Jose and that to developers, longtime Willow Glen buildings like the one the Roasting Company occupies (the building itself has been erect for more than 85 years) are just "a bunch of old buildings that are in their way." Yet chains like Starbucks don't faze Carris, who doesn't mind saying that the Roasting Company's product is superior to Starbucks'. "I compete with one store, not the entire corporation," Carris says.

Lately, Carris has been pleased to see customers returning to the Roasting Company after a brief post-Sept. 11 drop in business. "That was very hard on us all. But the economy for coffee hasn't changed very much," says Carris, describing the eternal popularity of java. "Coffee is a commodity you can afford in good or bad times."

---

Willow Glen Coffee Roasting Company, 1383 Lincoln Ave. Open Monday- Thursday, 6 a.m.-10 p.m., Friday, 6 a.m.-11 p.m., Saturday 7 a.m.-11 p.m. and Sunday 7 a.m.- 8 p.m. For more information, call 408.297.9077 or visit www.coffeewillowglen.com.

---

Local Notebook

Carl Heintze: Do people really need copies of themselves?

Sports Briefs

High school sports