Published in the January 18 – January 31, 2017 issue of Morgan Hill Life

By Mark Fenichel

Mark Fenichel

Coffee Guys co-owners ERic Hagedorn and Chris Williams in front of their new shop Photo by Marty Cheek

Last week I had the opportunity to meet with two entrepreneurs that have opened a new retail coffee shop at the foot of the Third Street parking garage. Eric Hagedorn and Chris Williams have officially opened their doors after a couple of soft openings. They say this will be the first of many Coffee Guys shops in the Bay Area. I had the pleasure of getting a free coffee from their “soft opening” training session designed to teach their crew ways to perfect their service and coffee preparation.

Their story of how they got together to create this business seemed quite interesting.

The two first met working seasonally at the Belagio Hotel in Las Vegas several years ago. “The summer ended, we didn’t have anything to do so we thought about starting a business,” Hagedorn said. “We racked our brains, and what we came up with was breakfast delivery.”

The two moved to California and stayed with Hagedorn’s parents at their home in the Santa Cruz Mountains. They went to bakeries throughout Silicon Valley that did not offer local delivery and negotiated with them getting wholesale pricing, allowing them to go business to business offering pastries for customers with room to make a small profit. “We built a website where people can order online, and we submitted the orders to the bakers and they would box them up and we would deliver them,” Hagedorn said. A viable concept with low overhead featuring good quality product and service.

In five years following the start of their delivery service, they opened a brick and mortar shop called Bagel Guys Bakery in San Jose’s Willow Glen area. They started baking tasty treats and became a popular stop. Their location is right next door to a Starbucks which helped with instant built-in potential customer traffic. They also started selling Verge Coffee, which led to them to a new venture starting Coffee Guys in Morgan Hill. Customers can now enjoy a fresh-brewed cup of coffee and a pastry fresh-baked daily delivered from the San Jose store. The new Morgan Hill site is perfect for customers who want to use the Wi-Fi in the courtyard under the oak tree, Williams said.

But what really got me excited was our discussion of having live local music outside under the tree when the weather warms up. They saw me performing out there during Moveable Feast’s six-week run and thought it would be a really nice benefit to the community and to their customers to have locals out there playing acoustic music. So I hope to apply my musical expertise and connections by assisting them with scheduling and talent in the courtyard in the near future.

It will be nice to have another venue for music in downtown Morgan Hill. I will keep you all informed as we get closer to providing music in the courtyard. Best of luck in your enterprise, Coffee Guys!

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On another note, looks like the folks at Guglielmo Winery have been working on their line-up for their very successful June through August Wednesday night Vines & Vibes music series. This year they have added a country band for the first time which will be a welcome addition to the mix of classic rock bands and horn bands they typically put into their blend. It makes sense to have country music in a town like Morgan Hill, and it will be good for all the folks that line dance to the classic rock and R&B music to now have honest to goodness country music for their line dancing pleasure. The Mushroom Mardi Gras organization is also in the process of lining up their music with a new stage on Fourth Street and the main music stage at the Downtown Amphitheater. Once everything is finalized I will be announcing a sneak peek and more details of the entire line-up for both events. The Mushroom Mardi Gras will run Saturday and Sunday May 27 and 28.

Got a music tip? Email [email protected].