Everything Old is New Again

One of my news feeds sent me a blurb the other day saying that Barnie’s coffee chain was repurchased by its founder, Barney “Phil” Jones. Jones founded the chain with one store in 1980, and sold it to Sara Lee (of cheap-wheat bread fame) in 1996, who in turn sold it to a banking group in 2001. So this is the second high profile coffee chain founder “second coming” in the past couple months, the first being the high profile return of Howard Shultz to Starbucks. There was also a C-level shakeup at Caribou recently with the two top executives departing for parts unknown.

So what’s going on? The infamous “leaked” memo from Starbucks said essentially that the company had lost its way, becoming just another chain. Well, yeah. My only experience with Barney’s was at a now-defunct location in a local mall, where I was underwhelmed with their performance (though I must admit admiring their 2-group Pavoni Pub). I think people are just tired of paying a lot for mediocrity. The question is whether they will pay a lot even if the coffee is great.

If Barney’s and Starbucks’ customers are shopping at the same $3.19 per gallon gas stations and watching their other expenses climb as I am, I think the answer is no. I’m betting that people are becoming clued in to the fact that the best coffee they can drink can come from their home. The National Coffee Association data seems to support me on this, with statistics that 75% of coffee consumed is consumed at home.

Let’s look at the math. For a standard coffee, e.g., drip or press pot, a pound of coffee will make about 45 6-ounce cups of coffee, depending on your preference for how strong that coffee is. Let’s say you drink three 6-ounce cups a day, then that pound is good for about 15 days. So you need two pounds per month, roughly. Let’s say you buy $11 per pound specialty coffee two pounds at a time, and have it shipped at about $7 once per month. That’s $29 per month. So on a per cup basis, your cost is $0.32 per cup. If you’re in our local delivery area and get our Local Coffee of the Week, your cost is going down to $18 per month, or $0.20 cents per cup. Yes, twenty cents. I don’t care if you get your to-go coffee at McDonalds, you’re not going to get it for twenty, or even thirty two cents. And there is NO WAY you will get the quality and variety you can get at home.

But you’re an espresso drinker, you say. I can’t get espresso at home for that kind of money. Yes you can! Follow along.

So you need an espresso machine and a good grinder. Let’s agree that decent hardware will run you about $800 total. Let say that for that kind of durable equipment you can reasonably expect five years of use (it’s really longer if you take care of it, but let’s use five years). So now you’re out $160 a year, or $13.33 per month. Lock that number in memory.

So whatever espresso drink you like, let’s say you consume 4 shots per day. And 6 per day on weekends, who are we kidding? That’s thirty two shots per week, roughly 128 per month. Each shot uses about 7 grams of coffee, so that’s 224 grams per week. Half a pound. Same as the drip crowd. Now to be fair, most decent espresso blends cost more than drip coffees, with good reason. Let’s say you need to spend $14 a pound to get the good stuff, and have it shipped in two pound packages once a month for $7. Your coffee bill is $35. That translates to about $0.27 per shot. Espresso making is a little more wasteful of coffee, so add about 20% for “tuning” your shots. You’re up to $0.32 per shot. But we have to add your machine costs now; remember it was $13.33 per month? Divide that by the 128 shots it’ll make for you, and you get to $0.10 per shot. Add that to coffee costs, and you’re at about $0.42 cents per shot. I’m going to conservatively estimate that’s about a 75% savings over your typical coffee shop. If you have two coffee drinkers in the house, you get to share the machine cost, so the incremental is only $0.05 per shot, or $0.37 total.

But I like to take my coffee to work, or have it once I’m there. Out of luck, right? Probably not completely. If you have access to hot water you can have excellent standard coffee from a little press pot. Grind some coffee in the morning and take it along in a ziplock bag or gladlock container. Use a 12-ounce press pot (available everywhere for about $10) to make excellent coffee and impress your friends.

Or if you’re really feeling retro, find that old thermos in the attic, brew before you leave and take it along. Mine is an ugly green Stanley circa 1982. Works great. Everything old is new again.