Stepping Out
Why community events can be good for you
By Steven Krolak

Great doughnuts, lousy coffee. That pretty much sums up many people's experience with refreshments at special events.

Yet how many of us take the next step and suggest to the organizers that they can, and should, be serving a better brew? Perhaps it seems trivial, when attending a benefit to raise money for a new hospital wing, to draw attention to the inadequacy of the coffee. Whatever the reason, we generally accept the lesson handed down over generations that a fundraiser or farmer's market or vernissage is going to offer artful, creative, perhaps even outstanding edibles paired with coffee that isn't fit to spit.

Of course, it doesn't have to be that way. And the word is getting around. Crafty caterers are bringing espresso machines to weddings. Mobile latte rigs are hitting the flea-market circuit. And at least one major roaster is partnering with local arts organizations in a duet of culture and cappuccino. It's all part of a movement to get specialty coffee out there where it belongs: among the people. And like any movement, it pays dividends for those who know how to put their best cup forward.

ANY TIME, ANY PLACE
Bringing specialty coffee out of the café involves a small but meaningful mental adjustment. You have to accept a new set of parameters. The first commandment is simple: Wherever there are people, there can be specialty coffee. Office coffee suppliers have known this for a very long time. Equipment manufacturers showed an interest by ushering in the "airpot revolution" of the last decade, greatly expanding the theoretical reach of good coffee. And lately, many convenience stores have begun to shift from diner sludge to brews more likely to lure commuters on the go. Meanwhile, the growing popularity of drive-thrus demonstrates a determination to caffeinate Americans where they live: in their cars. For their part, super-sized, insulated travel mugs and moka pots for backpackers suggest that, even on extended expeditions, those who appreciate good coffee increasingly refuse to leave it at home.

That said, there are still plenty of uncharted territories on the coffee map. Gary Gunkel of Lewiston, Idaho-based Pony Espresso—and author of "How To Compete With The Big Guys"—knows many of them. Since getting into the business in 1989, he and his wife have worked everything from dog shows and college football games to farmer's markets and rodeos. Ironically, their success at local special events began with their dissatisfaction over the returns from conventional advertising. When TV and radio spots failed to generate a regular clientele for their café, they took espresso to the people.

With little more than an espresso machine and a truck, they hit the big time ... well, not quite. There was a lot of planning. First, the machine. "We set up an espresso machine that operated by either 110 volts AC or by propane on the espresso cart," Gunkel remembers. "This worked very well since it enabled us to go to events where no electricity was available or there was no available 220 volts AC." Soon, another problem arose: success. "There was a problem with speed when there were large numbers of people, since the espresso machine did not have the power to allow us to make lots of drinks quickly," Gunkel says. The solution was a super-automatic that set him back about $15,000. The next step was a professional corporate identity, including signage and uniforms. At the core was the quality of the final product: the coffee.

At some point, word got around, and PonyEspresso began looking for venues with more traffic. Eventually, that was not necessary. "As soon as the public knows that you travel, your calendar will fill up," Gunkel says. That calendar eventually included 28 dates each year. Some are for profit, some are for building community spirit. Events such as car shows, home and garden expos, and craft sales are a good opportunity for making money, says Gunkel. Concessions at any event are limited, so you are guaranteed a monopoly for coffee and espresso. Some gigs, such as college football games or, in Gunkel's case, the annual Fourth of July fireworks show in Lewiston, can put your product in front of 40,000 people or more at one time, depending on media coverage.

For all the benefits, there are also challenges. At for-profit events such as rodeos and county fairs, concession fees are charged, and they can be quite steep. To work one open-air summer concert, for example, Gunkel spent $1,500 on the concession fee alone, and more on setup. If you are planning on laying out this kind of money, you had better be sure of your target audience. Gunkel did not sell a single espresso at his first event, a tractor pull. "It was a good thing we had the soda pop and popcorn because they had a minimum fee of $50 for setting up," he recounts.

On the whole, though, Gunkel's experience was positive. "Special events are ... our only form of advertising," he says. "Using this direct approach to advertising is far more effective. It puts money in the bank without the major expenses and equips us to better compete with Starbucks and other large chains."

HAVE GROUPHEAD, WILL TRAVEL
We live in an age of blurred boundaries and limitless possibilities. The Northwest Passage is ice-free, Japanese scientists have cloned a glow-in-the-dark cat—so who's to say that you shouldn't be able to get espresso at a wake? In fact, coffee is diversifying at the speed of light. Coffee people are moving from cafes to catering, using events to start up their own cafes or just filling the next available niche. It is an increasingly competitive sector, favoring those who can offer something unique.

Eurobar Espresso Service, a San Diego-based company, is the brainstorm of Brock Thorpe and Melissa Darisay. The company features commercial services including sales and service of Nuova Simonelli espresso machines, but the catering department also brings espresso to corporate functions, weddings, fundraisers, golf tournaments, bar and bat mitzvahs, open houses, and other formal events. The presentation, as the name implies, is sophisticated without being stuffy. This identity, seemingly effortless, is the product of hard work and experience. To reproduce it—day in and day out, and in changing venues—is both challenging and rewarding.

But it was certainly not an overnight sensation. Thorpe and Darisay came from coffee backgrounds, working their way from family-owned coffeehouses through sales, service, equipment and management to consulting. It was here that Eurobar really began, in 1996, in response to a request from a client. Now most business arrives via client referrals and word of mouth, according to Darisay. The Web site is also a powerful inducement.

To succeed in catering, Eurobar has had to shed the laid-back mentality of specialty coffee and understand the more buttoned-down protocols of corporate culture. "The attitude in the coffee business has always been so casual, but in the events industry it is very business-like and professional," says Darisay. "From the beginning, we understood the importance of meshing these two worlds." The key lay in a dedication to quality, both in product (Caffe D'arte espresso and Harney & Sons tea) and in service.

Eurobar's experience highlights the centrality of knowledge—about coffee, presentation, identity—in presenting a professional package to the public, regardless of the event. "Educating yourself on providing a professional service is important, as is networking and marketing," says Darisay. "Understanding the technical aspects of commercial coffee equipment and the realities of on-site conditions—as they are rarely ideal for a typical espresso machine operation—can make or break you in this business."

A NIGHT AT THE COFFEEHOUSE
Specialty coffee roasters are natural partners for nonprofit community event sponsors. They are almost synonymous with the "buy local" movement, and their cafes are natural gathering places for poets, musicians and other grassroots purveyors of culture. Yet they appear to have been slow to get into events on a systematic basis, preferring to respond to requests for involvement on a case-by-case basis. To see how a more dedicated approach could work to a roaster's advantage, one need only look to Alterra Coffee Roasters in Milwaukee and its relationships with local organizations.

Beginning in the early 1990s, Alterra, a roaster with nine retail stores in the Milwaukee area, has donated brewed coffee to many events that benefit community organizations. These have included Briggs & Al's Run to benefit Children's Hospital of Wisconsin, the Komen Race for the Cure and the Miller Lite Ride for the Arts to benefit the United Performing Arts Fund. Nonprofit groups regularly receive gift boxes or whole-bean coffee donations for use as auction or raffle items. Alterra also donates coffee to the administrative offices of partners such as the Milwaukee Repertory Theater, Pabst and Riverside Theaters, Urban Ecology Center, and others. "This, in addition to our fundraising program, gives us a fair amount of exposure to customers we wouldn't necessarily reach or who might not be familiar with our brand," says Ramie Camarena, Alterra's projects and communications coordinator.

In a metropolitan area, with many requests for partnership, choosing an appropriate event can be difficult. According to Camarena, Alterra considers how much exposure the event will provide in exchange for the amount of work that goes into facilitation, the availability of staff and the ability to accommodate the volume of coffee needed. The company also must balance promotion of the performing arts with support for health and social advocacy, its two major priorities.

The espresso machine is not exactly revered for its musicality. Yet it has helped forge enduring bonds between Alterra and two musical institutions, the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra (MSO) and the Florentine Opera. These bonds find expression in free public concerts at Alterra at the Lake (the flagship café large enough to welcome musical ensembles and a significant number of listeners) and other, more intimate Alterra cafés. Members of the Milwaukee Symphony shuttle between the venues, bringing classical music to customers in miniature concerts.

Sarah Maio, director of marketing of the MSO, describes the joint brainstorming that has come to mark the relationship: "Our first go at a partnership was five Monday nights in October 2006 in collaboration with the MSO's Mozart Festival. We called them Mozart Mondays. By the third Mozart Monday at Alterra, people were bringing their own chairs and fighting for a space. We knew we had something special, so we sat down with the terrific Alterra staff earlier this summer and thought about how we could reach out to more patrons around the entire metro Milwaukee area." The result is Beethoven on Brew, a series of concerts staged at Alterra as a pendant to the Symphony's 2007-08 presentation of the complete Beethoven symphonies.

Financing is mutual, like the benefits. "The expenses for each ensemble come out of my MSO budget, and Alterra runs spots on the local public radio station the week before each event," Maio explains. "Plus we co-promote the events via posters in each café and articles in our newsletters and online."

The same synergy is at work in the roaster's relationship with the Florentine Opera. Six years ago, Alterra's director of culture and communications approached the Florentine to initiate some form of collaboration. Since that time, Alterra has welcomed singers from the company into its various stores. Today, singers perform at Alterra at the Lake during the summer months, and at Christmas they perform a holiday-themed concert called Carols by the Lake. The logistics are simple: Florentine Opera contracts with the singers to rehearse and sing, while Alterra handles all the promotional costs. According to Elizabeth Gardner, director of education and outreach of Florentine Opera, it's a win-win situation for the two sponsors, as well as for the people of Milwaukee. "Presenting opera in nontraditional venues like Alterra Coffee Roasters is exactly the type of outreach that we want to offer to our communities," she says. "It's fresh, exciting and cultivates new audiences."

Camarena sees the collaboration as key to Alterra's position. "Our recent growth and overall success are directly related to the support the community has given us through their patronage," she says. "Our community outreach allows us to create a stronger presence in Milwaukee, build brand awareness and connect with the community. Our participation in these events helps us to emphasize that our company is locally based." As an added benefit, she notes that such participation also helps to build a sense of community within the company. "We encourage staff to participate in these events either directly or by helping to serve coffee," she says.

THE KARMA OF THE COMMUNITY
It seems clear that small, highly mobile guerilla coffee operations are best suited to make bank by selling coffee at special events. Low overhead and streamlined communications make it possible to carve out a local niche in a small market. A touch of showmanship will make it easier to attract the attention of people who are not expecting to find an espresso machine at, say, a Renaissance fair.

High-end event catering built around specialty coffee and espresso requires a more substantial background in hospitality. The clients are more demanding, the events more structured, the requirements and advance planning more extensive. In some ways, this can be more work than running a cafe. It certainly requires a degree of professionalism that may be unattainable or unappealing to those with a more rogue-CIA-agent approach to the business.

By contrast, the financial rewards for a roaster of any size may be slightly underwhelming. Assigning salaried personnel to give away coffee may seem unjustifiable. But as Alterra's experience shows, the rewards have more to do with marketing than with what goes into the till. Maintaining a visible and reliable presence at community events enhances name recognition, and it also may add to the cachet of your brand. Links formed through cooperating with event sponsors and organizers become new and valuable partnerships.

Gardner of Florentine Opera sees such arrangements as a natural outgrowth of coffee's mission. "A major component of the coffee culture is bringing people together to share stories and experiences," she says. "You just never know who is going to be out there drinking coffee in their lawn chair and listening. You never know how you might impact someone's day. And that makes opportunities like this all the more meaningful for everyone involved."

The MSO's Maio would agree. When asked for advice to other roasters seeking a cultural partnership, she says, "Find something that makes your city special and get creative on how to make it work for everyone involved. These types of partnerships are the things that make your brand part of the fabric of neighborhoods—and makes that community a great place to live."

 

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