COFFEE CONFLICT.

Byline: Winston Ross The Register-Guard

CORRECTION (ran 1/06/05): Jeannie Foglio and Paul Barnett run the Market Bin's espresso stand in Florence, which has a business license. City of Florence officials say there is a deed restriction preventing buildings from occupying the lot. A story on Page B1 Monday incorrectly characterized these facts.

FLORENCE - Maybe they'll look back on this as the Great Espresso War of Florence.

OK, espresso wars don't usually get their own names. But there sure are a lot of gourmet coffee stands popping up in this coastal community lately. And if that's not grounds for a battle, how about two espresso stands not 15 yards from each other, practically in the same parking lot.

First, it was just Ruth and Wence Dibala's "Back to the Best Espresso Bar," at the corner of Sixth Street and U.S. Highway 101, enjoying a steady stream of caffeine-craving travelers. Now, there's "The Market Bin Express-O" where The Best used to be, and The Best has inched just across the property line to the Sears parking lot.

"There's no way two businesses are going to make it right there," Wence Dibala says. "It's become an embarrassment for Florence."

Even without this battle of the java juggernauts, there's a case to be made that the Florence espresso market is a bit steeped. There are at least 10 stands, shops and restaurants that offer specialty coffee, making the resident-to-shop rate about 770 to 1. The national average is one gourmet coffee outlet for every 18,380 people, according to the Specialty Coffee Association of America, based in Long Beach, Calif. That means there are 10 times too many gourmet coffee joints in this town.

But let's not rush to judgment. Most coffee-stand owners and employees say they're roasting along just fine, thank you. Last month, the town even got a Dutch Bros., a Grants Pass franchise that would seem to know something about how to make money on espresso beans - with dozens of stands in California and Oregon. Florence owner Tanner Borgnino is well aware that he's got a bundle of competition. But he swears that that's a good thing.

"I was surprised at how many coffee stands were here for little Florence," he said. "But we like competition. If we're better, we're better. If not, so be it."

That attitude isn't so pervasive south of Highway 126, however, where a small soap opera is brewing.

In this corner are the Dibalas, who have occupied the same spot for about four years. In that corner are Paul and Jeanne Foglio, who own the Market Bin furniture and accessory store, which opened its doors in September.

The Foglios wanted to set up their own espresso stand, so they raised the Dibalas' rent - to $1,200 from $350.

"If the lady wanted to stay there, that's what she was going to pay," Paul Foglio said. "If she didn't want to, she could move anywhere she wanted."

So Dibala moved 30 feet away.

"That's kind of rude," said Marla McGregor of the back-to-back situation on Sixth Street, above the hiss of a steamer at Old Town Coffee Roasters.

Both warring coffee stands are in hot water with the city of Florence. The Dibalas are dumping coffee-making wastes into the city's stormwater system, assistant planner Wendy Farley said; the Dibalas say that's because the city mistakenly told them to hook up in the wrong place. The city is demanding that they hook up to the sewage system. But the line is all the way over by Seventh Street, which makes for a spendy infrastructure investment.

"It's stinky, from what I hear," Farley said of the influx of coffee waste into the storm system. "Public works has had to go and blow it out once."

Meanwhile, the caboose-style stand owned by the Foglios doesn't have its business license, although it's been selling coffee for several weeks now, Farley said. And a deed restriction from the former owner, Chuck McKay, forbids businesses on the lot. That apparently applied to the Dibalas but no one bothered to enforce it. Now the Dibalas have hired an attorney and are trying to get the Foglios booted.

"It's espresso hell," Farley said. "Ruth is holding out, thinking whatever magic she's working with her attorney will mean the caboose has to shut down. The caboose thinks they can beat it because it's not a permanent building. Neither one of them is meeting the conditions of their approval."

Espresso hell?

"I think you've got a genuine story there," said barista Blaise Khufu, peddling lattes at Teresa's Sunrise Espresso, at 17th Street and Highway 101. "People keep asking me the same questions: Why are there so many espresso stands here? I was here a couple of years ago and now all of a sudden it's coffee, coffee, coffee everywhere."

Khufu guesses it's because Florence is bubbling with tourists, at least during the summer months. Coffee is a pretty lucrative business - a single cup costs about 24 cents to make, even using high quality beans, according to the Specialty Coffee Association. Sixteen percent of U.S. adults drink a cup a day, and more than half of Americans drink coffee away from home. Coffee is second only to oil in terms of dollars traded worldwide. The U.S. specialty coffee market reached nearly $9 billion in 2003, up from $7.53 billion just four years earlier.

So there are plenty of profits to go around.

"The day Dutch Bros. opened up, our business actually started increasing," Khufu said.

That's because Dutch Bros. has gotten so big that it's inspired some consumers to be rebellious and buy local. Even though each of the Oregon-based company's stands are independently owned, "A lot of people think this is a big corporation, like Starbucks," Borgnino said.

Can this town sustain so many coffee places? Eric Edmondson, who's been around longer than most, isn't worried about survival. He runs Siuslaw River Coffee Roasters, which roasts its own coffee in an idyllic location on the Siuslaw River in Old Town. Edmondson's profits stay out of the coffee wars because he's one of a couple of places where people can get out of their cars for a cup.

"I'm a roaster, a wholesaler, a sit-down-and-meet-your-friend-type place," Edmonson said.

Two of his customers stopped by on a day trip from Roseburg last week. They came because they know the coffee's good, Jeff Morago said.

Plus, he added, "It's addicting."

Winston Ross can be reached at [phone] or [e-mail].

CAPTION(S):

Jennifer Marsh makes a coffee at Back to the Best Espresso Bar on Highway 101 in Florence. Back to the Best has been in business five years. Teresa Heidt owns Teresa's Sunrise Espresso on Highway 101. She opened in June after working for another coffee drive-thru. The Market Bin Express-O, on a popular stretch of Highway 101, is one of two stands within a few yards of each other. Kevin Clark / The Register-Guard Dutch Bros. recently opened a drive-thru espresso stand on Highway 101 in Florence, expanding the town's coffee war.