May 15, 2003
'Because of Our Cup'
I'm placing this under Livability because the fact that I live three blocks away from the Stumptown Coffee Roasters cafe on Division is a significant part of my own personal day-to-day livability.
So I claim nothing even closely resembling impartiality on this matter.
Today's Oregonian Business section included a rather glowing front page profile of Stumptown:
When Duane Sorenson opened his coffeehouse on a quiet stretch of Southeast Division Street, Stumptown Coffee Roasters was a modest storefront cafe with one other employee.
Since that November day in 1999, Sorenson has opened two other Portland cafes and a coffee-bean distribution center, and he has signed prestigious restaurants as wholesale clients. Gross revenues have soared from $150,000 in 2000, the first full year of operation, to $1.25 million last year. He now has 55 employees.
(A bit of a personal parenthetical: Oddly enough, November 1999 is precisely when I got out of the cafe business because I didn't know what the Hell I was doing.)
Comments in the article on the reasons for Stumptown's success range from the "taste of the coffees," to " social consciousness," to "its stripped-down Bohemian style."
What boggles me the most is how firmly word-of-mouth their growth has been.