Throughout February, Java Jazz --a little drive-through espresso stand at West McGraw Street and 33rd Avenue West in Magnolia--ceased serving lattes, macchiatos and Americanos to the drivers lined up outside its window. Instead, Java Jazz's owners, Sue Reynolds and Cherie Mueller, offered basic drip coffee to their customers, along with a map to two nearby drive-through locations, in Interbay and Ballard. Sending away customers seems like a strange business plan, but there was a method to the two women's madness.
The month before, the espresso stand's landlords--new owners of Magnolia's Union 76 station, which the stand is attached to--tried to more than quintuple Java Jazz's monthly rent, from $400 to $2,500, when Reynolds and Mueller's original three-year lease for the small, 100-square-foot space was almost up.
The women tried to negotiate. "We offered them more than double our rent, and they refused it," Reynolds says, sitting with Mueller in a sunny Ballard coffee shop (those initial lease negotiations were originally detailed in the February 17 Magnolia News). The landlord's steep increase, she says, smacked of an attempt to simply drive out the successful Java Jazz--an award-winning shop with loyal customers, who've been lining up for the drinks adorned with chocolate-covered espresso beans since 2000--so the gas station's owners could open their own espresso shop and "steal" the business.
Reynolds and Mueller decided to finish out their lease and then call it quits at the Union 76 station. But instead of leaving quietly, they instigated their astute business plan. Worried their customers would simply patronize the gas station owners' replacement java joint after they left, Reynolds and Mueller "retrained" their customers to go elsewhere, namely the aforementioned spots in Interbay and Ballard, which the duo also own. "We gained that business and you don't get to have them for free," Reynolds says indignantly. Things got so discordant between the gas station owners and the women that Reynolds called the police in twice to mediate disagreements.
Now that Java Jazz is out of the Union 76 location, the landlords--Karlou Dalir, who works behind the counter most days, and Morteza Mirzai-Tehrani, plus their buddy Ken Khourami--have opened their own espresso shop. Dalir, at the station, declined to comment on the situation, saying, "It's already a done deal." Khourami explained the landlords' side: "It was a business decision," he said of the proposed rent increase. "We didn't kick them out." The women had "struck gold" with the previous $400 lease, he says, and the rent increase was meant to bring the rate up to market standards. (Reynolds, however, points out that she and Mueller looked for a new Magnolia space, and found that neighborhood commercial rents averaged $15 to $30 per square foot, while Union 76's offer was more than $250 per square foot.)
But Mueller and Reynolds have shaken off the lease squabble, and are moving on. Now, they're about to launch phase two of their business plan: They bought a retro green box van, outfitted with a sliding glass window and espresso-brewing equipment, and are prepping it to serve as a mobile Magnolia Java Jazz drive-through. And they plan to park it half a block away from the gas station. Khorami and Dalir weren't fazed when they heard the news. "I won't have a heart attack over it," Khorami says. "They can do what they want."
