Java Dave's grows with changes
Journal Record, The (Oklahoma City), by Ray Dozier The Journal Record
Earl Neighbors has seen many changes during his 55+ years in the coffee industry. What has not changed is the friendliness of his customers.
"Everybody's friendly when they come into a coffeehouse," said the 73-year-old Neighbors, owner of Java Dave's Coffee House.
The downtown Oklahoma City fixture has relocated into an old, renovated building just east of its previous location at 10 NE 10th St. The grand opening of the 7,000-square-foot store with its new European decor was held Thursday.
Though it was a mess during construction, Neighbors said customers continued to come to the area.
"The last year they've been walking through the construction materials and we apologized to them and they'd say, `Don't worry about it.'"
Neighbors established Neighbors Coffee Service in 1972 with his four sons -- Steve, Fred, David and Stanley -- selling coffee to local businesses. Earl remains as chairman of the board of the company, Neighco. Steve and Fred decided they wanted out of the retail aspect and began selling the coffee wholesale nationwide. Today the company has grown from "zero in 1972" to $20 million in sales.
"They just didn't have time to devote to the retail stores," Neighbors said. "So they sold the stores to the two younger brothers, and they named it Java Dave's, which is headquartered in Tulsa. They have a coffee service operation just like the one here and they operate in Tulsa and Arkansas. They finally wound up putting in a roasting plant and started marketing as Java Dave's."
The company began by purchasing coffee from vendors, but in 1982 it started roasting its own products "due to the fact that we could not buy the quality coffee that we wanted from the roasters. So a few people like us wanted good coffee and we couldn't get it, so we started roasting."
In 1990, the Neighborses created a new flavor called "Snickerdoodle" which won first place in the NASFT (National Association for the Specialty Food Trade) Fancy Food Show in Chicago.
"It was called the Battle of the Beans," Neighbors said. "We were a little Oklahoma company and we went up there and entered our Snickerdoodle and our Frangelico Cream."
After the first prize was awarded to the Neighbors, it was quickly revoked since the Neighbors would not reveal Snickerdoodle's "secret" ingredients. But their Frangelico Cream, which was awarded second place, took over the top honor.
"We didn't think it was fair," Neighbors said. "They said we had to tell the people what was in it, and we didn't want to reveal our secret; we had a good thing going. We didn't like it, but we didn't cause a lot of problems either."
Neighbors said the contest rules were changed by NASFT the following year, so the Neighbors re-entered the Snickerdoodle again and captured the first-place honor.
"The first year, what happened, they gave you little slips of paper and let the customers vote," he explained. "We were very aggressive, being a small bunch of Oklahoma boys up in Chicago, and we were offering samples to everybody and telling them to vote for us, but they (NASFT) said it was unfair to campaign.
"But there weren't any rules against it and that's the way we always sold. The next year, they changed the rules and had 12 tasting experts as judges. We won the second year, so that pretty much settled it.
"That was the last year they ever had the Battle of the Beans," Neighbors laughed.
In 1995, the Neighbors built a roasting facility in Tulsa "from the ground up" and now provide more than 110 different varieties of coffees, 30 specialty teas and a complete line of gourmet cocoa and cappuccino. The Neighbors' roasting facility is located at 11 NE 11th St., north of the downtown Java Dave's.
Snickerdoodle continues to be the company's best seller for the 14 Java Dave's franchise stores in Oklahoma. The new store is the flagship for the company and is one of those most successful locations for the company.
"When I started thinking about expanding for the year 2000, the 10th Street store was my natural selection," he said. "Located close to Bricktown, this is one of the company's most successful locations."
The downtown store provides a full line of gourmet Java Dave's coffees, teas, cocoas and cappuccinos, a drive-thru window, Island Dave's Smoothies, ice cream drinks and desserts, a full-service deli for breakfast and lunch, gifts and computers with Internet access. Patrons also may buy Schwab meats.
The store will add seating in the patio area within the next two months that, combined with the indoor facility, will accommodate up to 250 customers. Another old warehouse behind the store is being renovated into a banquet facility for additional meeting space for businesses and organizations. Beverage and light catering will be available for the banquet facility and off-premises meetings. A professional baker is employed to supervise the catering service. Neighbors said specialty cakes can be purchased through the catering service.
Future plans call for leasing the second floor of the two-story building, which has 7,000 square feet available for office space. Other plans are to open four more stores this year -- two more in Tulsa, one in Owasso and another in Shawnee -- with more on the drawing board in the next three to four years.
"We hope to have 50 stores in the next three to four years in Oklahoma and the bordering states," Neighbors said. "We hope to have six to eight stores in this area in the next two years."
"We've always had gift items in our stores," Neighbors said. "We're going to try to push them through the Internet everybody's doing that these days."
That marks yet another change in Earl Neighbors' coffee experience.
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