Dan's Papers - March 14, 2008

Dear Dan,
As co-owner of the Hampton Coffee Company Espresso Bars & Cafes in Water Mill and Westhampton Beach with my wife Theresa, I was particularly interested in last week's article about Starbucks' Tuesday night closing for "retraining."
While anyone in the specialty coffee business today must appreciate that it was Starbucks that almost single-handedly introduced America (and now the world) to the idea of specialty coffee, I hope Starbucks' local customers who encountered locked doors on Tuesday took that opportunity to try-out a new place for their specialty coffee or cappuccino fix, like our locally-owned and operated Hampton Coffee Company. Our Water Mill one is just a few miles down the street from you and the Bridgehampton Starbucks. If they didn't give us a try, I hope those turned away by Starbucks at least tried one of our LOCAL competitors.
Since 1994, Hampton Coffee Company has prided itself on presenting a welcoming atmosphere coupled with the highest quality hand roasted estate grown coffees that we roast ourselves and expertly-crafted espresso beverages. We have since become Long Island's largest independent roaster-retailer thanks to our dedicated retail and wholesale customers.
We don't need to close our shops for retraining because our staff is properly trained from the start. Ensuring that our customers have a perfect experience at one of our cafes every time is much more important to us than any shareholder dividend. We would never increase our prices twice in one year! In fact, our coffee prices have only increased ONCE in our entire fourteen-year history.
Maybe more important than any of this is that Hampton Coffee Company - me, my wife, and our staff- are all tremendously proud to live and work full-time in our communities along with our customers. We all know that Starbucks' Howard is not a local. What's important to our customers is important to us. That's why you Dan can personally attest to the fact that every other weekend all summer for more than a dozen years now you've see our coffee booth at one charity event after another or one of our tremendous gift baskets at a charity auction. And at all those events, you'll see Theresa or I and volunteers from our staff that donated their time to pitch-in at the event. We've never once had to pay a staff member to participate in a charity event. We've always gotten plenty of volunteers! When summer is over, we're still going strong, still donating to our customers' favorite causes, serving on the WHBHS Business Advisory Board, and helping out at Water Mill Community Club events.
Well, Starbucks is back open again. Hopefully the temporary closing has given you and some of your readers a chance to re-consider the options. You don't have to go back, you know.

Sincerely yours,
Jason Belkin
Hampton Coffee Company
Water Mill & Westhampton Beach
Via e-mail

P.S. - As you know, Hampton Coffee Company is also very proud to prominently feature Dan's Papers at both of our locations. Since 1994, when we first opened, we figure we've helped you distribute more than 100,000 copies. There's no asking "Corporate" here. It was our pleasure.

I often stop there too. I drink a lot of decaf coffee. - DR

Dear Dan,
"When In Manhattan" by Sabrina C. Mashburn on February 29 was a great trip down memory lane for those of us who recently celebrated the 50th anniversary of Jack Kerouac's book On The Road.
There are still many avid readers of Kerouac's various works including me who still continue on our own journeys. Sadly, as we get older with more responsibilities and less free time, there are fewer adventures.
May the thoughts and memories of Kerouac continue living on for those of us still on our own quests.

Dear Dan,
Dear David,
Great article! It takes a solid sense of self and balls to write that. I know you are probably getting a lot of emails so I'll try to be brief.
I'd like to suggest a few interesting resources for you that I came across when I found myself in a similar situation. I initially stopped eating pork after reading an article in Rolling Stone magazine, which is still up if you go to the website and search "Smithfield."
Check out The Witness, a short documentary about a Bronx dude who never thought he'd find himself going veg'n. I've seen a lot of documentaries and it's definitely in my top five. Then I saw the movie Earthlings. That movie is heavy and I can say with no qualms that after watching it I will never eat dead things again.
In any case, after the first week I found that it was really easy to be vegetarian and tried and liked a lot of new foods - that was back in August. This January I decided to go vegan. It seemed like going too far before but honestly it hasn't been a big deal at all and I feel awesome. I'm definitely in the best shape I've ever been in. Check out this page too www.veganbodybuilding.com. I've been doing Tae Kwon Do for a long time, but going vegan definitely put me in the best shape and I can eat cookies all the time guilt free.
Well, anyway there are so many online resources, it's dizzying. In your article you say you wish you had stayed ignorant of what is really going on. I hope you check out some of the other info out there before making a decision. When people ask me why I'm vegan now I say it's because I can't think of a good enough reason not to be. I'm doing good by the environment, my health and animals.
Oh yeah also check out http://submedia.tv. It's more politically related than veg'n but awesome! Most entertaining news show there is.
Be sure to send out a mass blind-copied email to everyone who has written and let us know what you end up doing. Feel free to write with any questions. I held back on a lot of other info that I'd gladly pass on.