Elephantine vision proves lucrative for Caffé Florian
By Suzanne Cristallo
One night in 1994, Glenn Stanley had a dream. He saw someone painting a grand elephant on the wall of his son's and daughter's coffeehouse. The whimsical vision stuck with him, and he nagged his children to do what he dreamed--to paint an elephant on the wall. "He bugged us for three weeks," recalls Trish Stanley, "then he died."
Trish and her brother, Mike, co-owners of Caffé Florian in Los Gatos, later granted their father's wish. The big elephant painted on the wall above the counter honors his memory and inspired their slogan, "You'll never forget our coffee."
The siblings--she the working partner and he an employee trainer at Apple Computer--have owned the coffeehouse in Downing Center on Union Avenue for five years. Part of a tightly knit family, the pair also honored their mother, who died a year and a half after their father, with the creation of a special coffee they call Mama's Blend.
"Our house coffee, along with Mama's Blend and our espresso, are made exclusively for us," states Trish, warming to her subject. She recalls how she and her brother "once had a good cup of coffee" in Palo Alto that stuck in their memory. They were determined to find it again, because nothing after that cup tasted good anymore. "So we decided to get into the business and make our own."
For two years, they researched and tasted, at last finding a young roasting company in San Rafael--Equator Estate Coffee--that provides organic beans grown by environmentally sensitive growers. It had the taste they wanted. Trish, 43, gave up the hair styling business in which she had worked for 21 years and entered the coffee world, passionate about her product.
"I really have to believe in what I'm selling," she says, "and I couldn't have opened without a good coffee."
She has followers who make Caffé Florian--named after an 18th-century Italian cafe still operating today--a weekly meeting place. "Twenty or 30 of us get together here every Wednesday evening just to drink coffee," she says.
Others make the shop their first stop of the day. "I have to be here by 4 a.m. because the regulars start sneaking in at 5. We don't open until 6 most days, but I don't mind. I let them in," Trish says.
They come for espressos or double lattes and the pastries from Mama's Bakery, the bagels from Noah's or the cakes from Gourmet Express. But customers won't find flavored coffees here, like the vanillas or mochas so popular in some other coffeehouses.
"Some shops use beans that are old," she claims, explaining that the flavoring hides the quality of the bean and can be a good way to use up aging stock. "I won't keep beans longer than a week," she notes, describing how she dumps every remaining bean from its container before refilling it with a fresh stock of Arabica beans.
Freezing beans is not an answer, she adds, as the beans tend to dry out. The best solution is to buy what beans will be used in the space of a week, storing them in a dark, air-tight container.
"I try to educate customers to what coffee should taste like, how to store it and how to brew it," Trish says with a smile.
She loves her business and her customers, relishing the freedom that ownership provides and enjoying the opportunity for local artists to display their work on her walls. Now showing: colored-pencil drawings by her friend, wildlife artist Paige Nelson, and the European travel photographs of Linda Milton.
Caffé Florian, 15567 Union Ave., Los Gatos. Open Mon.-Sat., 6 a.m.-9 p.m., and Sun., 7 a.m.-8 p.m. 408.377.1631.
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Los Gatos, California Since 1881
