HARBOUR COFFEE story

Written in the third person

Harbour Coffee began in mid August 2001. John's job took him weekly to Manhattan and New Jersey. After an initial conversation about leaving his job of 5 years, John's manager set a meeting for the following Tuesday, 9/11 at 9am in the WTC. Normally John would travel the night before his business trips, and avoid the rush hour traffic, but this time was different. They both woke up early, at about 4am, when Barb asked John, "How many meetings did you have with folks at work in the last 5 years where they did not attend?" "Too many" John said. "I don't think you should go to this meeting today" was her reply.

John's thoughts were not about whether anyone else would be there but that He should be there, as usual. But this time, this day, John said, "You may be right".

At 8am John was watching the news. There wasn't much time to wonder about whether his meeting was actually attended by anyone as we all now know. He called Barb in to see the towers being hit. To make a 9am meeting John would have been somewhere in the subway under the Hudson river, or in the buildings when they were hit and then fell.

HARBOUR COFFEE was born in principle soon thereafter. They visited more than 1/2 of the top 10 top rated coffee houses in America, to see what excellence was. From Madison WI to Burlington VT and places in between the varying facets of community as shown in local coffeehouses was seen. They began the process of finding a location. Hershey, PA or south central PA was the area of interest in their minds, Hershey being the most likely.   After about 6 months, a property was purchased renovated and HARBOUR COFFEE opened in April of 2003.

Six months before opening they travelled to a coffee provider for training. It was a coffee company that John was familiar with when flying the shuttle between NYC and Boston. It was a natural fit. They learned quite a bit and chose a certain coffee for their espresso. "This coffee for espresso?" a representative of the company said? " "Well, yes you could use it, it is a coffee that we now label as our own but was originally made by a roasting company that we purchased...they provided this coffee to a coffeehouse at the base of the World Trade Center".

Well of course they did ! It was the very coffee house John would use to meet his customers and fellow workers. Of course they loved it. It would have it no other way !

A month prior to opening, a friend of the Stein's said that a friend roasted coffee locally and would we consider using him? John said "We have chosen our coffee supplier, but if he can MATCH the espresso roast that we loved, we would consider him." Within a week He did and after discussing the matter with their new friends at the original coffee company, they opened HARBOUR using this local roaster. Soon after opening, this local roaster said that he was having significant trouble with his new business partner and that John should consider roasting because his company would soon be in trouble. He began the process of teaching John the craft of roasting fine coffee. Within a month his warnings were made true and he announced that He was leaving his roasting business behind. Since John had learned how to make HARBOUR BLEND the coffee itself was safe, but they lacked roasting equipment or facilities to actually roast coffee. Without equipment a recipe is of little good.

When discussing this with a friend in the front room of the HARBOUR, their carpet installer told John that his friend had opened a roasting facility 6 months ago a few towns to the west and was failing. His friend shared with him that they had just decided to sell it but didn't know how or how long it would take. They met with them and purchased their assets in 30 days and now HARBOUR COFFEE had a full fledged roasting facility and short list of customers to roast commercially.

HARBOUR has always been a place of EXCELLENCE in its product. It is a traditional espresso bar with modifications for the local market. Its "Coffee with a Purpose" business tenet directs its day to day operations from product selection, green policy, employees relationships and even vendor selection.

An excellent business has met an excellent purpose. It consults help others open their own visionary coffee businesses. Harbour is a place of excellence and it is a fine wholesale partner because of its craft level roasted product and its focus on excellence.