By ROBERT STRUCKMAN of the Missoulian
"Good morning. What can I do for you?" asked Noel Landkammer, leaning to the drive-through window of the Silver Bullet Espresso hut. The 19-year-old college student works mornings as a barista in the parking lot of a convenience store on South Reserve Street.
"Would you like straws?" asked Landkammer. A moment later the driver paid for his drinks, dropped some change in the tip jar and pulled away through the rain-slick parking lot.
Missoula's decade-old drive-through coffee industry is flourishing, say business owners in town. In 2003, there were 23 espresso huts licensed with the city. This month, there are 31.
In operation for about six months, the Silver Bullet is a good example of the home-grown competition. But outsiders have entered the latte and frappe scene as well. Not two city blocks from Silver Bullet, Missoula's second Starbucks coffee shop with a drive-through window is under construction.
Some owners of coffee huts find the hint of national competition to be more than a little unsettling.
"I think they want to take over," said Angela Moser, who owns the Copper Cup coffee hut.
Coffee analysts suggest that Moser may well be right, and Starbucks isn't the only giant with an eye to this quirky portion of the specialty coffee retail trade.
It turns out that the low-cost huts are very popular with today's convenience-obsessed, coffee-consuming public, said Alex Fisenko, an independent coffee consultant with Espresso Business. Startup costs depend on the location and local business laws n some cities, including Missoula, require the huts to be either entirely mobile or hooked up to sewer and water lines. The average cost is about $150,000, he said.
Even with the strictest of business requirements, drive-through coffee huts can be extremely lucrative. In a high-traffic location, a coffee hut can easily earn more than $500,000 per year, Fisenko said.
Fisenko has recently consulted with a Florida chain of coffee huts whose owner intends to expand nationally. At least a dozen chains and franchisers have similar intentions, he said, including Billings-based Mountain Mudd.
Like much of modern coffee culture, drive-through coffee huts originated in the Seattle area about 20 years ago, Fisenko said. As the coffee craze spread outward from the West Coast, the coffee huts were a natural part of that growth, he said.
Yet as advanced as the drive-through coffee trend has become in some parts of the United States, it has not yet appeared in others. The nonprofit National Coffee Association, which represents companies from bean producers to roasters to retailers, does not ask about commuters' coffee habits or drive-through coffee huts in its yearly survey.
"We don't ask about that category," said Steven Wolfe, marketing director at the New York-based NCA.
The drive-through coffee segment is growing, Wolfe said. Two years ago the organization began offering a how-to book on starting a drive-through coffee business.
In places like Montana, coffee huts made a lot of sense, said Brenda Burkhartsmeier, who co-owns Mountain Mudd with her husband, Randy.
Starting a coffee hut was pretty easy for a novice, Burkhartsmeier said. She opened her first hut in 1994.
Compared to opening a bricks-and-mortar coffee shop, it was cheap. Rent was typically several hundred dollars rather than several thousand. One dedicated individual n at most two or three n could staff the hut. And the inventory list could fit on a sheet of paper.
Moser said she opened the Copper Cup six years ago because, being a single-mother, she wanted the independence of owning her own business.
"It used to be cheap. Now it's not," Moser said, referring to regulations that required her huts be connected to city utilities in 2003.
"I heard the reason we had to do that was Starbucks was coming and they were trying to weed out people," Moser said.
Laura Knight, who owns the Silver Bullet, had heard the same rumor, which was debunked by Shannon Therriault, environmental health supervisor for the city of Missoula.
"No. That was a Health Department decision," Therriault said.
Nevertheless, Knight is a bit worried about being so close to the Starbucks under construction. Yet she's sanguine.
"Nobody likes it, but you can't stop it. It's free enterprise," she said.
And the coffee giant won't cause her to change her basic business strategy, she said. She will still offer specialty drinks and personalized service at competitive prices, she said.
"I don't really think it will hurt my business," she added.
As for Landkammer, she likes the rushes of the early morning hours and the slower, quieter and more thoughtful hours after the workday begins. At college, she plans to study physical therapy. She also plays the guitar and writes her own songs.
"You know, coffee house stuff," she said with a laugh.
Then another car drove up to the window.
"Good morning," she said. "What can I get for you?"
Reporter Robert Struckman can be reached at 523-5262 or rstruckman@missoulian.com.
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