Caffeine Alert: One Cup Joe Store Grand Opening Saturday

As more people realize the ease and convenience of the one cup coffee machines, they are also encountering some of the machines' drawbacks.

Sure, the ability to pop in a small container of ground coffee and enjoy a single cup is an undeniable game-changer in the coffee industry. Families continue to replace the big coffee pots with the single cup brewers like the Keurig or the Tassimo.

Instead of having a big pot with six or seven servings of a roast that only one person in the family likes, each drinker can have their own individual caffeine fix. 

However, if you want a real variety of flavors, multiple 12 or 24 count boxes of the little pods need to be purchased to build up a respectable inventory. And what happens if you buy a box of a certain roast, try one out and hate it? Now, you're stuck with 23 cups that will sit in your cabinet until the end of time.

Jeremy Zevin and Bob Takakjy think they can provide some relief from the expensive and frustrating task by opening One Cup Joe, a retail store located in the Bensalem Plaza Shopping Center on Street Road. Customers can grab a tray and start picking out flavors from a wall filled with individual cups and build their own, personalized 24-count box.

"We wanted to create a store where people can mix and match the cups," said Zevin. "People are hesitant to try new flavors because they don't want to be stuck with a whole box of that cup."

Zevin and Takakjy have been friends since they were 16-years-old, graduating from Bensalem High School together in 1992. It wasn't until five years ago, however, that the pair combined their individual careers, Takakjy in the coffee business and Zevin in the web design and marketing industry, and began working together. They created and sold-off a few online startups, including coffeerocket.com, but this is their first attempt in the brick and mortar world of retail.

One Cup Joe held a soft opening this week, with the official grand opening scheduled for Saturday, beginning at 9 a.m. There will be raffle drawings every half-hour between 2 and 6 p.m.

Takakjy says the timing is perfect for a unique store like One Cup Joe since Keurig's parent company, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, lost its patent for the K-Cup style cups last year. As a result, third party vendors could create and market individual cups that are compatible with the Keurig machine.

"There's a much better variety available now," said Takakjy as he highlighted several out of the more than 200 different flavors that populate One Cup Joe's shelves. "We have Peet's Coffee, which is sold primarily on the West Coast. Authentic Donut Shop is another popular blend. Our most expensive is Jamaica Blue Mountain, at $35.99 for a 24-count box."

If you go:
The grand opening of One Cup Joe, 2090 Street Rd., Bensalem, is Saturday, Sept. 28, between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. Call (267) 253-3542 for more information.