Take Two
Opening a second location
by Chris Ryan
photos by Nicole Maas

The Albina Press opened in Portland, Ore., in 2005, and soon established a reputation for making the best coffee around. "The Press," as it's called, is now also known for its barista-focused identity, including two who have become staples in the final rounds of regional and national competitions in the last four years.

When co-owners Kevin Fuller and Billy Wilson decided to open a second location, Fresh Cup grabbed a tape recorder and a camera and documented the process, starting in October when dust from the recent demolition was still hanging in the air, and continuing to its March opening and first days of business.

Coffee and tea retailers operate every day with varying degrees of success, and many dream of opening a second location. But what leads an owner to act on the impulse? And what adventures and headaches await when the right space is found, the lease is signed and the build out begins? Is it possible to capture the aesthetic of your flagship location in this new entity?

TOUCHING THE CEILING

Located near the revitalized Mississippi Avenue in North Portland, the first Albina Press entered the world as just one more coffeehouse in Portland's thriving café culture. Business was rough at first, with $30 in sales on some days. Having made the initial investment to open the shop, owner Kevin Fuller hired five employees and took a spot behind the bar himself. He and lead barista Billy Wilson anchored the operation in its early months, trading off morning and evening shifts. "The labor component is that one real, major part of your cost structure that you control," Fuller says. "I worked seven days a week for months."

Eventually more customers found them, and Albina became busy enough that Fuller could hire extra help, as the shop established itself as one of Portland's most popular coffeehouses.

Nowadays, the original location is crowded virtually all day, populated by a diverse crowd including parents with young children, 20-something hipster types, students and professionals, many working on laptops and sampling drinks from the simple menu, executed skillfully by practiced baristas.

But with all its success, the original Albina Press was, after all, Fuller's first foray into coffeehouse ownership, and its design is not flawless. "We really didn't understand the concepts as much as we do now," he says. "It's not that the North Portland shop is built incorrectly. There are some things that we wish we would have done differently." Namely, the area behind the bar is relatively cramped, accommodating three people comfortably and four snugly. And with only a three-group espresso machine, the machinery limits what the staff can do. During busy morning hours, one barista does nothing but pull shots, while another prepares milk and pours latte art. "There's only so much coffee we can make out of that place, based on the design, the size, the space and whatnot," Fuller says.

In short, The Albina Press' first location hit a ceiling. There was a steady stream of patrons, but the shop was only equipped to serve them at a certain rate. "We're at a place right now over there where we can do X amount of money per hour, and to do any more than that, it's about me doing major remodeling." But with the coffeehouse doing solid business and regular customers coming in every day, would the remodel be worth it? Fuller decided it wouldn't be. "I don't want to make changes to it. Just maintain what we're doing. It's a good problem to have."

The solution to the "good problem" became a second location—one with a higher ceiling, so to speak.

DESTINATION: THE PERFECT SPOT

Once the second-shop seed was planted, Fuller and Wilson (whom Fuller made co-owner in The Albina Press' second year of business) began looking for the right location. They searched for months before coming upon a 2,000-square-foot, 100-year-old building in the Mt. Tabor neighborhood of SE Hawthorne Street, a bohemian avenue across the city from the first location. Much of Hawthorne Street is adorned with small businesses, but the proposed location was farther down, almost off the beaten path. "A few blocks down it's very, very busy, but back here we're kind of in the middle of a neighborhood," Fuller says.

Fuller and Wilson loved the location, but they weren't sure about the building. The space was divided between an office, a barbershop and a storage space, and they were convinced it would take more money than they had to convert the units into a coffeehouse. "It seemed like it would have a good shape, but it was just a little bit too much work," Fuller recalls.

Fortunately, Paul Niedergang, the owner of the property, is a coffee veteran. He also owns the building that houses Stumptown Coffee Roasters' Annex and one of its retail locations. After researching The Albina Press, Niedergang thought the shop would be a welcome addition to the neighborhood. "We were not only impressed with the quality of their product É but also with the way the [first] shop functioned," he says. "There were mothers with children hanging out in one part, there were people working on their laptops in another part, there were people hanging out with friends and chatting in another corner. It looked like it would fulfill our vision for our building. ... At that point, you just need to figure out how to make it work."

Niedergang decided to assist in the demolition and initial build out, which took place in the summer and fall of 2007. He paid for the deconstruction—removing the wall that once separated the barbershop from the office—as well as new walls, raising the ceiling, new HVAC and a full storefront facelift. He also gave Fuller and Wilson three months of rent-free build-out time. "He was super, super helpful in making this happen," Fuller says. Before, "it was difficult for us to walk into the space and visualize what this thing would look like once the wall went down."

Fuller had a picture of the finished coffeehouse in his mind, but he needed some help to see if it was feasible. He enlisted Stem Architecture's Ben King, a veteran coffeehouse designer and also a regular customer at the first Albina Press, to draw up plans so they could visualize the shop's design. Fuller says King was vital not only in drawing plans, but also in helping cut through some of the red tape in getting started. "[City officials] want to see that you have somebody who understands all the ADA laws, all the health code issues and all the things the city wants to see," Fuller says. "You need a professional architect to do that. It's definitely something I see a lot of people leave out of their budgets when they envision opening a coffee shop."

SETTING IT IN STONE

Once the blueprints were filed and the space had been cleared, it was time to execute the plans. Fuller says that with coffeehouses that have multiple shops, he often finds his favorite location is the one the owners built first. "There's something about building a coffee shop on a budget that really isn't big enough to build a coffee shop that does something to the space that the customers can feel," he says. "Like an extra love that went into it, or just your blood and sweat. People can tell you had to make things work."

Albina had a bigger budget for the new shop, but Fuller hoped to avoid the sophomore slump by taking a radical approach with a design he had never seen in a coffeehouse. Having already established its identity as a business focused on the barista, Fuller and Wilson built their shop around the bar, making the baristas as visible as possible.

And that's just what patrons now see as they enter: A free-standing bar "floats" four-and-a-half inches above the rest of the floor, where the barista and the espresso machine are seemingly on stage. "When you walk in, there are two baristas staring right at you," Fuller says. "They're trained on the front door." A macchiato bar also sits in front of the espresso machine, where customers can stand and talk to the barista while enjoying small espresso drinks. "We put it right here for those people who really enjoy the two-sip drink and want to talk to the baristas about it," Fuller says. "It's purposefully set up a little bit higher so there's a nice line of sight where they can sit and chat people up."

But the barista experience doesn't end there, as the floating bar forms a circle around them. "I've never actually seen a design where you can walk all the way around and see the baristas from whatever angle you're interested in," Fuller says. "We just went way out of our way to avoid hiding anything that's happening back here."

The Hawthorne location's unique design is also crafted differently. Fuller enlisted builder Garth Klippert of G. Steel Design Build, immediately briefing him on his vision. "The first thing he said to me was, 'The most important thing is to not make this a corporate-looking shop,'" Klippert says. Rather than a shiny-and-new coffeehouse, Fuller wanted a comfortable space that looked like it had already absorbed a lifetime of experience. To execute that vision, they turned to inexpensive and unusual materials. For the countertops, Klippert went to The ReBuilding Center, a material reuse nonprofit, and purchased the wood they needed for $150—much less than the $3,500 Klippert says it would have cost new. For the supports for the free-standing bar, Klippert used blue pine, a rare wood he found in Scappoose, Ore., that some mills throw away because of discoloration that makes it appear rotten. The effect is actually called spalting, giving it a rare coloration of blacks and purples, which Klippert put in the high-traffic area to attract customers' attention. "I put it there for the presentation of it," Klippert says. "I used a lot of super weird pieces. It's like rainbow wood." Klippert's improvisational skills helped bring a one-of-a-kind feel to the space. "It came out perfect and weird," he says. "It's fun to be challenged that way. This is the alchemy of carpentry: turning sh*t to gold."

Fuller made sure the second shop was designed much differently from the first one, and also ensured it would be an improvement. To start, the area behind the new bar is much bigger, allowing six baristas to work comfortably. And though its 2,000 square feet are not much bigger than the original shop's 1,600, Fuller designed the café to be more profitable. "I really feel like we can do three times the business we can do at the other shop, and the space isn't three times the size," he says.

MADE TO ORDER

Another key to the new shop's profitability lies in its espresso machine, a custom-made, four-group La Marzocco Linea, on which two baristas can work simultaneously, unlike the original location's three-group. Having two baristas on the machine provides the potential for twice the volume, and each has a dedicated grinder and refrigerator. "We'll be able to clear a line quicker, we're able to make drinks faster," Fuller says. "It's almost like I've got two espresso machines up there." And with more room behind the bar, the baristas can use the space as they choose while using the machine. "You've got all the room in the world on each side of the machine to set up drinks or do whatever you need to do," Wilson says.

The Marzocco's modifications were done by Seattle's Franke Coffee Systems North America. The result is a one-of-a-kind espresso machine decked out with highly-functional features: no fancy paint job or sexy curves, but custom group head caps, Teflon-coated steam wands and LED lights that allow baristas to better view their shots. But it's the machine's modifications in water pressure and thermal stability that set it apart.

The Linea has two water intakes—one for the group heads and one for the steam wands. An espresso machine's water pressure normally drops when it's filling with water, affecting the shot. With the new machine, shots aren't affected when the boilers fill because the water lines are separate. "We went ahead and separated those lines," Wilson says. "So that the back boiler just gets filled by the line pressure, and then the pump just fills up the front two boilers."

The machine's thermal stability is provided by two PID controllers, allowing two groups to run at one temperature while the other two groups run at another. Cold water entering the boiler affects group-head temperature on a typical espresso machine, but it has no effect on this one.

The result is a machine truly designed to produce the same shot every time. "Almost all the modifications we had were to help achieve consistency from shot to shot," Wilson says. Adds Fuller, "It's the most stable espresso machine, pressure-wise and temperature-wise, that I've ever seen."

OPENING DAY, FINALLY

The initial opening date was projected for late 2007, but delays were inevitable, Fuller says, to get everything right. "It took a lot longer than we expected, but I don't think you ever talk to somebody that's building a coffee shop who says, 'I couldn't believe it, we finished up two months before we thought we'd do it!' It just doesn't happen."

On March 25, The Albina Press' Hawthorne location officially opened its doors, providing the community gathering spot that property owner Niedergang thought had been missing. Though it's not on Albina Avenue, Fuller kept the name for its familiarity. "Coffee industry people know us as The Albina Press. They don't pay attention to the neighborhood, they tie us to our name."

The new neighborhood has been welcoming so far, with more customers finding the shop each day. In Fuller's mind, though, there is still a long to-do list. "It's funny when you build a coffee shop, especially as you start getting closer to opening," he says. "You start to recognize, I've got 300 things to do, but 10 of them need to happen right now. And the other 290 of them—you wish they could happen right now, but they don't need to."

Among those 290 things are an exterior sign; for now, The Press is relying on reputation and word of mouth to bring people in. Fuller also wants to add five or six outdoor picnic tables by summer. But the biggest addition in the works is a room behind the shop that will function as an office, employee break room, storage area, and most importantly, a training facility with espresso machines designated for baristas to pull shots and improve their craft. The room will be one of the last finishing touches before they settle into a routine at the new location. "It'll be a couple of months before I really feel like, OK, I think we're done here, let's just make coffee out of the shop now," Fuller says.

With the staff at the first location eventually growing to 12 baristas, Fuller and Wilson were able to pull from that workforce for the new shop, while also adding five new hires to the team. With the Albina empire expanding, the staff is growing in more than just numbers. "When you go from one shop to two shops, it creates a hierarchy of managers and people who have responsibilities," Fuller says. "People who have been just baristas are now baristas that do the payroll and make sure that the banking part of it is taken care of. It's cool to see what it's doing: It's creating opportunities for these kids that have been working for me for a long time, and all they've been doing is pulling shots. Now they have some opportunities to make some more money, to get more involved in the business aspect, which is what they all really want."

With the second Albina Press now open for business, the building transformed from a hole full of rubble to a chic, stylish space, those who brought it to life tend to reflect. "It's just unbelievable to be sitting here and experiencing this space this way," builder Klippert says of the finished product. "Because really, there was no indication that it would ever be this way." Fuller is satisfied, too, though he is looking forward to customers peeling away some of the newness. "I'm definitely excited for this space to get broken in a little bit," he says. "Right now I look at it and I see clean, straight lines. It just needs a couple of months of abuse."

As it grows up and fills out, the shop's destiny lies not in being a second location, but rather an extension of the first Albina Press. "I want very much to have the same energy and character and soul and depth that the other shop has," Fuller says. And however close he comes to catching lightning in a bottle a second time, he's already happy with version two. "I am thrilled at the way that it came out. I think it's beautiful. I love it."

 

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