“Starbucks is the McDonald’s of coffee,” Trotter said. “A lot of our customers are looking to give their customers an alternative.”įor students like Trotter, an alternative to Starbucks is a welcome change. “Everyone defines specialty coffee by Starbucks,” Kastros said. In the coffee industry, Java City has emerged as a national player, Bennett said. Java City caters caffeine to the Bank of New York, Goldman Sachs, Salomon Smith Barney, and various hospitals along the East Coast. What began as a relatively unknown retail store in 1985 in Sacramento has turned into a corporation that now boasts 700-800 locations around the nation - and not just on college campuses. Other patrons could not tell the difference between the two companies’ brews.īrian Marete, a patron who had never heard of Java City before he saw it at Barnes and Noble, said he had no complaints with the switch. “The folks who preferred a milder coffee initially were taken aback by the fact that we were selling a heartier brew,” Bennett said. Compared to the Starbucks cafe, the new Java City cafe offers more options of flavors and brews, Harvey said.Ĭhuck Bennett, purchasing agent for Durfee’s, said he found this wide variety helpful in catering to a broad base of students, although the coffees’ first introduction to campus received mixed reviews. Java City’s reputation as a smaller and more flexible coffee distributor is one of the reasons that Barnes and Noble is one of its wholesale customers, Kastros said. Plus, Trotter thinks Java City has better coffee, anyway. “Java City seems a bit more hands-on - because it is competing with such a major institution - Starbucks.” “It is trying to win a fan base with a better quality product and a better trained staff,” Trotter said. He commended the Java City workers for their ability to promote and defend their coffee to customers who are only familiar with Starbucks products. Henry Trotter GRD ’08 said he prefers Java City for just that reason. Sancia Harvey, who sells coffee at the bookstore, said during the transition from Starbucks to Java City, the latter sent representatives to train the workers in a four-day workshop. “We don’t really have that ‘corporate’ identity,” she said.Ĭompared to coffee chains such as Starbucks, Java City is considerably smaller in size, a fact that allows the company to react to the needs of their customers, Kastros said. The coffee chain is a perfect fit for the college atmosphere, where the idea of the big corporation has a lot of stigma, said Kristi Kastros, the company’s sales operation manager. Java City is an approved vendor of Aramark, the distributor that provides Yale and many other universities with its food services. The wholesale coffee chain can also be found at Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, and New York University. Yale students were first introduced to Java City’s specialty coffee two years ago with its emergence at Durfee’s, the School of Management, and the Divinity School.īut Yale is not the first campus to host the smaller coffee manufacturer, whose prices are comparable to its competition. Java City, which recently replaced the former Starbucks cafe at Barnes and Noble, has headquarters in Sacramento, Calif., and distributes wholesale coffee products around the United States. With the emergence of Java City cafes and counters around campus, the daily fix now comes in more varieties. A zip around town with its mushrooming coffee bars shows clearly that owners are not shy to spend good amounts on interior decor.Caffeine is the drug of choice for most college students. "We believe in the age-old formula for success - good food, good service, good ambience," says Madnani alluding to the taste-fully done interiors and the American, European and Indian snacks on the counter. There are three Java City cafes in the city. Each cup is priced between Rs 25 and Rs 40 and has at least 10 gms of pure coffee in it making sure these coffees are the strongest in the city. We achieved it by blending the European cafe culture with the feel of American Espresso bars."Īimed at the 20-40 age group, Java City offers nearly 80 different types of coffees. Says Raj Madnani, the MD of Java City, "After staying for 20 years in the US, I wanted to have a place with an international ambience. Art sales, literary events and more bring in the savvy people, while the strong aroma of coffee and choice snacks makes sure they succumb to temptation. Java City keeps itself in the news with frequent activities luring citizens into the cafe. Magazine - Hotel and Foodservice - VOL 16 NO 6
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