Island Brew
What do you get when you combine a photographer with a fanatical coffee hobby, a semi-retired advertising exec, a ferryboat captain and a Starbucks manager?
Plop them all down on Kelleys Island, and you get Erie Island Coffee Company, a coffee shop startup that’s creating buzz by bringing world-class coffee to an island they lovingly call “a Maxwell House paradise.”
The story starts in 2007 with video producer Alan Glazen and photographer Martin Reuben, who’d known each other professionally in the Cleveland advertising community for decades. “I would go to his photography studio, and he’s got this bright-red coffee roaster and grinder with an exhaust pipe going up through the ceiling,” recalls Glazen. “He was like the mad scientist of coffee. I said, ‘What the hell is all this?’ ”
Reuben’s passion for roasting and preparing coffee — “it was a hobby that got totally out of control,” he says — was infectious. It wasn’t long before Glazen was hooked, too.
Glazen was gradually retiring and spending more time in his Kelleys Island home. “With absolutely nothing to do there, I was always hanging around this little coffee shop,” he says. The owner was struggling to keep it afloat; even some Kelleys Island residents didn’t know the place existed.
But when the frustrated owner asked Glazen to take the place off her hands, he saw potential. “I said, ‘Hey, Martin, wanna own a coffee shop with me on Kelleys Island?’ ”
Reuben’s response was equally casual. “I took the ferry over, checked it out and said, ‘Hey, why not?’ ” With that, Erie Island Coffee Company was born.
Glazen recruited his friend Scott Stevenson, a ferryboat captain and year-round Kelleys resident, to join the ownership team. His daughter-in-law Annalie Glazen, a former Starbucks manager, was brought on for day-to-day management.
During the winter of 2008, the group gutted the tiny 300-square-foot shop and put their marketing chops to work creating a hip space heavily influenced by its Lake Erie home, from the name and sailboat-adorned logo to the artwork by Kelleys native Charles Herndon.
With a desire to specialize in espresso, the team invested in high-end equipment while coffee czar Reuben obsessed over perfecting the temperatures, the blends and the grind. They insisted that every specialty coffee be prepared with delicate latte art, a swirled design in the foamed top, requiring staff training beyond the normal pour, serve and smile.
“We never thought it would amount to anything; it was just for fun,” Glazen says. Yet when Erie Island Coffee Company opened on April 1, 2008, it became a hit. “We were flabbergasted by the whole thing,” says Glazen.
They sold 25,000 cups of coffee in the first three months alone. Locals gave Erie Island a courtesy try and became quick converts, spreading the word among vacationers about a local shop serving coffee that would put to shame the stuff they drank back home.
What had begun as a whim was officially a win, and Glazen and Reuben began re-creating their successful formula in a second Erie Island location in downtown Cleveland, which opened in February 2009 on trendy East Fourth Street alongside some of the city’s best restaurants.
The crowd there is more young professionals with laptops than vacationers with flip-flops, but the Erie Island vibe still keeps this 1,800-square-foot coffee shop feeling welcoming and laid back among the bustle.
Even with rave reviews and growing name recognition, Glazen and Reuben aren’t rushing into a massive regional rollout of Erie Island shops, and Glazen’s not abandoning his semi-retired life on Kelleys Island.
“I spend about two to three days a week there [during the season], and I intend on continuing that,” he says. “I love the island and the peace that it brings me.”
So for now, just one additional spot in Rocky River, Ohio, is being planned. Erie Island Coffee Company’s expansion will proceed slowly, with quality as its founders’ guide.
“We’ve always envisioned expanding around Lake Erie, from Toledo to Buffalo and even into Canada,” Glazen says. “But we only want to do it when we can do it well.”
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Courtesy Erie Island Coffee Company