A Latte Without Leaving Your Car--Life Is Good

At first, there was the proverbial cuppa joe. Hot, steaming, black.

Then came the Styrofoam cup. And the drive-thru window.

And now, in a bow to the inexorable march of progress and the confluence of the car and coffee cultures, comes the inevitable, an indisputable cultural watershed: a drive-through Starbucks.

In an otherwise unremarkable strip mall in Hermosa Beach, the first drive-through Starbucks in Southern California--opening without fanfare a week ago today--is already doing a gee-whiz kind of business.

The formal grand opening is still a couple of weeks away. There hasn’t been a lick of advertising. Yet the line of cars during rush hour one day late last week proved unrelenting.

“I’m too lazy to park my car, take the keys out of the ignition and walk inside,” Peter Wadhams, 40, of Hermosa Beach said as he clutched a hot espresso and a cookie, then threw his red sports car into gear and zipped off to his job in Lakewood.

This, as they say in business development circles, is a no-brainer. “It will increase our business at least 25%,” said Terry Freeman, manager of the store, located at the corner of Pacific Coast Highway and Aviation Boulevard.

The wonder, of course, is that it took Starbucks this long to open a drive-through in Southern California--long enough that some other upscale coffee houses are already in the drive-through game.

“They copied us,” said Kathy Lami, 45, general manager of La Caffita, a mile south on PCH, where business last week--despite the Starbucks opening--was “fantastic.”

In recent years, the Seattle-based Starbucks had opened drive-throughs in Las Vegas and in such Northern and Central California outposts as Pinole, in the Bay Area, and Clovis, near Fresno.

So with all of Southern California to choose from, why Hermosa Beach?

The simple answer: demographics. And traffic.

Hermosa, once a sleepy town known for beach bums and parking hassles, recently renovated its downtown by the pier and has suddenly become an “in” spot.

No less an authority than Sunset magazine recently gave the downtown renovation a favorable review.

The corner of PCH and Aviation is one of the busiest in the South Bay. Roger Bacon, who owns the shopping center in which the store sits, said 51,000 cars go by a day on PCH, an additional 43,000 on Aviation.

“When the opportunity presented itself, we thought, ‘This is a perfect match.’ It’s terrific,” said Jon Greenawalt, 42, Starbucks’ director of marketing for California, Arizona and Nevada.

No other Southern California drive-throughs are planned, Greenawalt said. But that’s not to say others couldn’t open.

“We look at the community, at lifestyles, attitudes, demographics,” Greenawalt said. “If the opportunity presents itself to have a drive-through and it makes sense, then by all means, there will be more.”

The Hermosa site already had been the busiest Starbucks in the South Bay, according to Freeman, serving some 1,100 customers per day.

The first day it was open, about 35 cars ventured into the drive-through lane--which is open only from 6 to 10 in the morning. By Wednesday, the number was up to 50. On Thursday and Friday, it was up to 100. At times, the line of cars was seven deep.

The grand opening, meanwhile, is still a few weeks away. Bacon, a former car dealer and something of a celebrity in Hermosa--he hosts a show on cable access during intermission of the City Council meetings--said he’s weighing how to appropriately welcome the first drive-through Starbucks to Southern California.

His current plan, he said, is to rent an elephant and ride it up from the pier to the store. Maybe bring a tiger too. “A tiger in your tank, I like that,” he said, musing about “something special” he could do.

In the meantime, there’s hot coffee. Or, if you prefer, a vanilla-flavored latte and a bagel with the works. To go.

“It’s just so much more convenient,” said Randy Bauer, 28, a Hermosa Beach photographer, reaching toward the drive-through window for his steaming mocha. “I’m on the phone a lot. I don’t want to get out of the car. I can just do that much more business while I’m in line.

“Hey, it’s Southern California,” he said. “Everyone needs an edge.”