Back in June, Cuppy’s signed a lease for one of the first retail spaces at Carriage City Plaza. At the time, its Web site touted locations “coming soon” to East Brunswick, Phillipsburg and Whippany. Earlier this week, when I checked their Web site, they were down to zero locations “coming soon” in New Jersey. Last night, they were just down. Trying to get to the site, I was greeted with a “Page Load Error.” Not sure if that’s temporary but fear not, the Cuppy’s MySpace page is still active (although he hasn’t logged in since September).
A quick Web search reveals quite a bit of info about Cuppy’s, some of it dating back well over a year. And not much of it good, if it’s accurate, especially if you consider the Web sites are called Ripoff Report and Unhappy Franchisee. Here’s some franchise info, which indicates required liquid capital of $100,000 and net worth of $50,000. The complaints pre-date a change in ownership this past May.
It’s not all bad news though. Apparently, Cuppy’s can make it in South Africa, Mechanicsburg, Pa. and Wilmington, N.C., among others.
Rats…the quest to get a decent cup of coffee in downtown Rahway drags on even longer.
He has 86 friends though…
Here are my 3 steps to a better than decent cup of coffee where I live downtown:1 – http://www.freshcoffeenow.com (or get a sack of beans at BJ’s/Sam’s Club, etc)2 – Decent burr or blade grinder3 – http://tinyurl.com/3psupgThis will get you better coffee than any of these shops can provide, sans the ambiance.People seem to be taking a more DIY approach on everything now; maybe a place that does their own roasting and sells specialty coffees would be the smarter business venture. No comparison to the crap in the plastic hoppers that you see in the supermarkets that has been sitting in those things, exposed to the air for weeks or months.Or do I recall a similar business to this in the downtown area some years ago (before my time here) and didn’t last?
I couldn’t agree with you more, Larry. Starbucks is closing stores after years of runaway growth. Even if the franchise was a legit one, now is not the time to open up a business that depends on people forking over $4 a day for something they can make at home for minimal cost after the initial expense for a coffee maker and grinder. The frugal / DIY trend may stick for a while – gasoline’s nosedive hasn’t sent hordes of soccer moms running back to Hummer dealers. A bulk coffee business (Empire Coffee in Hoboken comes to mind) would make sense – $10 for a pound of premium beans for coffee at home makes more sense than $4 for a latte in a paper cup with a logo on it. Problem is, the foot traffic needs to be there….
OK, so we don’t NEED a sit down coffee place with cool, *hip* (someone’s idea of hip, anyway) and modern fluff. But we’d like one. It’s a social place sans booze. It’s a no brainer for commuters. Those people are spending it in the city, why not here? I’m not broken up about the loss of Cuppy’s, or the fact that Starbucks can’t afford to be a part of Rahway, but it would be nice, seeing as we want to be a pedestrian friendly area these days, if we could get a business to commit on the most socially elemental of levels.sigh
Don’t you mean, Rahway can’t afford to be a part of Starbucks?
I think it’s more of a no-brainer for commuters at the destination side of the commute. For that purpose, a coffee cart on wheels would serve us just fine at the train station (preferably the side that has functional stairs). Unless you work at Insight Research Group USA, however. Now there’s a place I can work for; one block from home and great hours based on the fact that I never see a person in there at the times I walk past the office. Lunch options are kind of a bummer for them, though.No one who is commuting is going to kill 20 minutes hanging out on the sofas of a coffee joint until their scheduled (ha) train arrives. Once you’re in the city however, then you can kill a few minutes and relax with your $4 latte and the laptop cracked open.
The Park Square rentals, and anything else that will bring more people downtown, will increase the need for a coffee shop in Rahway.One way or another, Rahway needs to get people into Park Square and Skyview to generate foot traffic and help downtown businesses survive (and hopefully bring in some new ones).I think once there is a threshold of people living downtown, there will be enough demand to support a coffee shop above and beyond a Cuppy’s/Dunkin Donuts type place.