Day 75 - Coffee Story

Coffee Story

Matthew Ryan Fischer

The ‘1821 Steepeasy,’ a coffee shop fashioned after a speakeasy, was founded by coffee lover Edwin Culliver Andrews.  He called in a steepeasy wanting to capitalize on a trend of coffee connoisseurs who were willing to pay top dollar for a top coffee drinking experience.  And so the 1821 Steepeasy was born, its name paying tribute to the 18^th and 21^st amendments of the constitution, as if coffee ever would have been banned.

Edwin knew there was no real connection between prohibition and a coffee bar, but the marketing potential of the idea had struck the owner as something unique.  He had been to a bar the night before that had no name and no sign.  All it was, was a lone door down a dimly lit alleyway on a side street in a trendy neighborhood.  If you didn’t know what you were looking for you wouldn’t find it. There were even different passwords used each day of the week that customers would have to track down online or through friends of friends in order to get in.  That was the trick.  That was the draw.  Exclusivity and word of mouth.  And what did the customer get for being in on something special?  The opportunity to purchase incredible expensive drinks.  Seemed like a perfect way to turn off customers and end up out of business.  But instead, the trendy and the hip liked the idea of being part of something.  What they thought they were a part of was hard to define, but to Edwin it sure seemed like what they were really part of was being ripped off.  And Edwin was a smart business man.  If something was making money, he wanted to take note.  The way he saw it, the one main thing the speakeasy concept had going for it was that it gave wealthy people that wanted to drink sans crowds the chance to do it.  And if they wanted the opportunity to pay inflated prices to get that privacy, so be it.  Even if the average person learned of it, learned the password and went, they weren’t going to go all that often.  Not with prices as high as they were.

Edwin had loved the idea, but he loved coffee, not alcohol.  Edwin also enjoyed trends and the ever changing sense of what would be cool and what wasn’t.  Edwin thought speakeasies were cool, so he thought a steepeasy would be cool as well.  At least for a long enough period of time for him to make some money.

Naturals, free trades, flavored, hand picked, organically grown – they advertised every type of coffee imaginable.  There were beans and brews for any occasion and famous blends for those that wanted their taste buds to travel the world without having to leave home – chicory like you could get in New Orleans, Kopi Luwak for novelty sake.  The 1821 made claim to specialty blends and brews and compared itself to microbrew bars and winetasting vineyards.  They brewed limited amounts and changed their menu options often, just so there was always a sense of ‘newness.’  They gave patrons a chance to grind and brew their own, all for a ‘steep’ price.  Some might question what the Steepeasy was really offering other than a chance to do what could have been done in the privacy of their own home. The 1821 told their patrons they were the best and their patrons believed them.

They were not the best.  Edwin loved his coffee, but he could drink at a diner or a truck stop and be happy.  Edwin just understood marketing and knew how to build a buzz.

Under proper analysis it could have easily been determined that most every coffee sold at the 1821 was basically the same thing; thankfully, belief is a powerful thing and taste buds can’t always tell the difference.