By Deborah Reinhardt
It’s a good bet that most—if not all—of the urbanites sipping lattes at MoKaBe’s Coffeehouse in St. Louis can’t name the patriarch behind Chauvin Coffee, the local business that supplies the shop with its roasted beans. But when asked, many could name a member of the beer family who gave them Bud Light. St. Louis is known as a beer and baseball town, but coffee has played as big a role in shaping the city’s culture. Yet, few people know the men who helped to make St. Louis the “coffee capital of the United States” in the 1920s. These kings of coffee were risk-takers, visionaries, and hard workers. Some were immigrants. Most have faded deep into the city’s culinary history. So, pour yourself a mug of java and let’s meet some of the coffee kings of St. Louis.
The first to roast
Since its beginnings as a French fur-trading post, coffee has been present in St. Louis. When steamboats opened the riverways to trade, coffee became less expensive and plentiful. And with a robust grocery trade in place, coffee became a common household item. In 1845, St. Louis had more than 50 coffeehouses. It’s believed that grocer David Nicholson was, in 1853, the first to roast coffee commercially in St. Louis. Less than a year later, Nicolson sold his business to fellow grocer James H. Forbes, the city’s first coffee king.
No more burned beans
James Forbes, a Scottish immigrant, ran a successful grocery business at 11th and Morgan Streets. When he bought Nicholson’s Franklin Tea & Coffee, he believed the idea of commercially roasted coffee could be a success, although he knew it would be a challenge convincing the consumer.
In 1853, green coffee cost 12 cents per pound, but at-home roasting methods often resulted in burned beans and bitter coffee. Forbes marketed his bags of 25-cent, professionally roasted coffee as a product that would save housewives money and time. He also roasted coffee for wholesalers at a penny a pound.
According to a company history published in 1953, Among Ourselves, those early days were a struggle for Forbes, but after a few years, the coffee-roasting business became profitable.
At the time of James’s death in 1890, his sons were running the company, and in 1901, it was incorporated as the James H. Forbes Tea and Coffee Company.
One of the brands Forbes sold in the early 1900s was Martha Washington Coffee, “a coffee worthy of the name,” as noted in an early advertisement.
Over the years, Forbes Coffee grew and moved to larger locations, including Locust Street and Clark Avenue. A side business was providing roasted peanuts to the St. Louis Cardinals and St. Louis Browns. In 1956, the company was sold to a Chicago firm, and only a few months later, it was sold to Woolson Spice Company of Ohio.
The old judge
As a young man from South Wales, David G. Evans worked in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for W. & J. G. Flint Company coffee roasters in the mid-19th century. The company opened a plant in St. Louis in 1858, with Evans as an employee who would soon rise through the ranks to a partnership. The firm’s name was changed to Flint-Evans Company, which sold teas and spices as well as roasted coffee.
In those early days, Evans visited the St. Louis riverfront to bid on the coffee coming into the city. He blended and stored his coffee in warehouses. Salesmen in horsedrawn wagons visited grocers and other wholesale customers to sell the roasted beans.
Evans’s company gave St. Louis the iconic Old Judge brand. When Evans died in 1916, his son, Gwynne, became president and the company name was changed to David G. Evans Coffee Company. In December 1917, a f ire destroyed the company’s building on North Second Street, but in just a few months, Evans Coffee Company was operating in a new location on the same street.
Like other coffee companies of the time, Evans Coffee Company sponsored radio shows that advertised their product. Early television ads featured Don Lawton as the “Old Judge Magician,” who shared sleight-of-hand tricks on the air before pitching coffee to viewers.
After nearly 100 years in business, the company—by then known as Old Judge Food Corporation—was sold to New York-based Shaffer Stores and R. C. Williams and Company, although Old Judge continued to be headquartered in St. Louis. In 1964, another New York firm, Chock Full o’Nuts Corporation, bought the Old Judge brand and sold coffee under that brand through the 1980s.
Second Crack: Today, the Old Judge building at 710 North Second Street holds offices and is home to The Lou Eats & Drinks, a casual eatery on Laclede’s Landing.
Cutting the mustard
William Schotten was among thousands who left Germany to seek their fortunes in St. Louis in the mid-19th century. Born in 1820 in Duesseldorf, Schotten built a reputation for making outstanding mustard. Joining the early wave of German immigrants in the mid-1830s and 1840s, Schotten relocated his mustard business to St. Louis.
At first, Schotten sold his hand-ground mustard from a stand in Center Market House at Spruce and Poplar Streets. Soon, he could afford to purchase a horse and wagon, and he sold his product across the city.
By 1847, he was able to open a small factory on South Third Street. He also operated a gristmill on North Market Street, although that facility would later be destroyed by fire.
By 1860, Schotten’s brother, Christian, had joined him as partner, and the company became known as William Schotten and Company.
The Schottens started roasting coffee in 1862. After Christian died, Schotten took on Henry Vesborg as partner in 1867. By its 50th anniversary in 1897, the company had moved into a new building on Broadway and Clark, where it roasted its three coffee blends (Sinbad, Golden Days, and Queen’s Table) and manufactured baking powder, culinary herbs, ketchup, sauces, and tea.
When William died in 1875, sons Hubertus and Julius entered the family business. Hubertus died in 1898 leaving Julius Schotten—a graduate of St. Louis University who was described as an intelligent businessman with great integrity—as the sole proprietor. Julius was one of the founding members of the National Coffee Roasters Traffic and Pure Food Association, which eventually became the National Coffee Association, a trade organization that still serves the industry.
In 1919, Julius Schotten was hit by a car and died. Control of the company his father founded passed to Julius’s two children, Zoe and Jerome. Jerome bought out his sister in 1925. Julius’s widow, Pauline, was named vice-president, a notable appointment as the first female executive in St. Louis’s coffee industry.
Jerome was president until he retired in 1947, and because there was no son to succeed him, the business was voluntarily dissolved. He died in 1958.
The workday pioneer
Irish immigrant William J. Kinsella was a civic leader and a progressive businessman. Born in Carlow, Ireland, in 1846, he attended school in Ireland and started his career with a Dublin wholesaler. At the age of 19, Kinsella crossed the Atlantic to seek his fortune in New York and Baltimore before settling down in Cleveland in 1870 to start a grocery business.
Kinsella moved to St. Louis in 1874, and worked for two companies before being hired in 1879 by the Thompson-Taylor Spice Company of Chicago to start its St. Louis operation. He purchased the business two years later and reorganized under the banner William J. Kinsella & Company. Over time, the business was renamed Hanley & Kinsella Coffee & Spice Company and operated two factories on Spruce Street.
Kinsella’s business in the early 1900s also sold the H&K Coffee Maker, a predecessor to today’s pour-over V60 coffee pots. Inside three-pound cans of H&K Coffee were packets of paper filters and coupons entitling the bearer to purchase this “expensive French coffee making machine” for 50 cents.
The most notable contribution, however, came in 1913 when Kinsella’s company introduced an eight-hour workday for its employees while maintaining pay grades. Previously, female employees worked nine hours a day; male employees worked ten hours.
When his father died in 1918, William J. Kinsella Jr. assumed the president’s chair and operations were moved to Choteau Avenue. The company moved again in 1933 to a three-story building on the corner of Tower Grove and Vandeventer Avenues.
In 1939, the company was sued by Chicago-based Swanson Brothers, who alleged that Hanley & Kinsella owed it more than $8,000 for green coffee and that the company had incurred “indebtedness more than the value of its tangible property.”
In a statement to the newspaper, William Kinsella Jr. said he was surprised at the filing and that the company “is getting along all right,” adding that the suit would be resisted. Hanley & Kinsella was sold in 1940, and the company was dissolved a year later.
On top of the globe
Of all the coffee kings in St. Louis, perhaps there was no bigger powerhouse than Cyrus F. Blanke. He was a savvy entrepreneur who understood the importance of diversifying. Blanke was a masterful marketer who recognized the right moments to position his brand and gave it his all. Blanke was also a civic visionary.
Born in October 1862, in Marine, Illinois—30 miles northeast of St. Louis—Blanke attended business school and worked as a clerk. By the time he turned 20, he was working for the Steinwender-Stoffregen Coffee Company in St. Louis. He moved into sales, married Eugenia Frowein in 1889, and left the company in 1890 to start his own coffee and tea business.
His premiere brand was Faust coffee, and before the turn of the century, it was the coffee served at Tony Faust’s celebrated St. Louis restaurant and on the Wabash Railroad. He’d later spin off other companies including St. Louis Tin and Sheet Metal, which enabled him to make coffee cans for his company.
When it was time for the Louisiana Purchase Expedition, better known as the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis, Blanke had positioned his company to make a big splash.
Blanke joined fellow coffee kings William J. Kinsella and Julius Schotten on the fair’s board of directors. Now his company was in the spotlight. His Faust coffee brand was served at the biggest restaurant on the Pike, Luchow-Faust World’s Fair Restaurant, which had capacity for 3,000 guests at a time. But Blanke was just warming up.
He had a talent for folding civic pride into his marketing plans. In 1903, he bought the historic log cabin known as Hardscrabble—built in 1856 by Ulysses S. Grant—from another St. Louis businessman for $8,000. Blanke moved the cabin to the Forest Park fairgrounds near the Palace of Fine Arts and opened it for tours (ticket price: 10 cents), knowing tourists would have lunch or coffee inside the pavilion next to the cabin.
Blanke’s Thoroughbred horse, Village Boy, was used in various public relations campaigns, including appearing with Frederick Dent Grant, President Grant’s son, in the fair’s dedication parade. Blanke also commissioned a 45-passenger vehicle, an innovation for the time, to transport fairgoers from his factory to the fairgrounds, where they would find as many as 10 concessions, not to mention an elaborate display in the Palace of Agriculture.
But his greatest idea wasn’t realized. In 1901, Blanke formed a company to build a 700-foot aerial globe attraction on a 5.65-acre tract between Clayton and Oakland Avenues. This all-steel structure—taller than today’s Gateway Arch—would have accommodated up to 30,000 people at a time. Plans for the tiered attraction included spaces for gardens, a music hall, coliseum, and cafe. Although the city approved the plan and granted the permits, Blanke couldn’t raise the public funds. “Blanke’s Folly” would remain a grand idea in the coffee king’s head.
Blanke Tea and Coffee Company was in business for 52 years, closing in 1942 after its founder’s death.
Second Crack: Snap a photo of the C.F. Blanke Building, 1310 Papin Street, the former Blanke Tea and Coffee Company headquarters. The building today offers leased office space. Grant’s cabin is now part of the popular Grant’s Farm family attraction; beer baron August Busch Sr. bought the cabin from Blanke in 1907, and he relocated it to his family estate in south St. Louis County.
A name spelled backward
Brothers John P. and James J. O’Connor probably didn’t go to the St. Louis World’s Fair looking for a new business idea, but that’s what they found. After watching a demonstration of a gas-powered coffee roaster, they soon set up Ronnoco Coffee Company. The company’s name is O’Connor spelled backward because, according to legend, the roastery was in the Italian section of St. Louis and they didn’t think anyone would buy coffee from Irish boys.
James left in 1910 to start O’Connor Coffee Company. John sold Ronnoco Coffee in 1919 to Frank Guyol Sr., whose family operated the company for about 90 years.
In the 1950s, O’Connor Coffee showcased St. Louis hotels in a series of television ads. Brief histories of the properties were shared while cutting in shots of dining rooms or coffee shops within the hotel where O’Connor coffee was served. In the 1960s, O’Connor Coffee bought out smaller coffee businesses like Pontiac Tea and Coffee and Hicks-Jensen Coffee.
James retired in 1961 and died in 1968. James O’Connor Jr. was owner and president from the mid-1950s until he sold the company in 1969. He died in 1991.
Ronnoco still operates in St. Louis under the management of Detroit-based Huron Capital Partners, which purchased the company in 2012 from the Guyol family. The roastery is on South Boyle Avenue.
First laundry, then coffee
Meanwhile, back at MoKaBe’s Coffeehouse, that patriarch behind Chauvin Coffee was Isaac Rose. Owner of a laundry business, Rose offered brewed coffee to customers along his route but eventually left laundry to start Rose Coffee Company in the 1920s. Stepson Joe Charleville worked at the plant during summers, and after graduating, went into sales and collections for his family’s business. Joe’s sons, Dave and Tom Charleville, also worked in the coffee industry.
In 1977, Joe sold Rose Coffee to Ronnoco. But coffee was in his blood, and in 1984, he and wife, Marge, and her son, Jim Brickey, opened Chauvin Coffee. Chauvin supplies beans, syrups, and accessories to coffee shops.
Joe died in 2011, preceded in death by son Dave. However, Tom, now in his 70s, is the owner of Clipper Coffee Company. The coffee is roasted at the Chauvin Coffee plant in Kirkwood by Tom’s nephew, Mike.
The Charleville family illustrates how deep coffee’s roots run in St. Louis. Like the Mississippi River, coffee continues to flow in St. Louis, making it one of the country’s best-kept coffee secrets.
Suitable St. Louis sips for National Coffee Day
September 29 is National Coffee Day, an opportune time to visit a locally owned coffee house. St. Louis has dozens of great coffee spots; here are just a few examples for you to consider:
- One of the newest coffee stops, Quarrelsome Coffee, experiments with yeast fermentation as part of its production process. Visit this Central West End shop, which opened in April 2023, and try one of the single-origin coffees from the brew bar. 33 N. Sarah Street, Quarrelsome.coffee
- Those who appreciate coffee’s intricacies will enjoy a visit to Sump Coffee. A leader in the city’s coffee scene, Sump—which opened in 2011—specializes in lightly roasted single origin coffee that allows for nuanced flavors to come through. Because owner Scott Carey showcases the finest of coffees from around the world, there’s a diverse selection from their bar. Advice for newbies: ask for the Roaster’s Choice coffee featured that month; it’s a good gateway into the world of Sump. 3700 S. Jefferson Avenue, SumpCoffee.com
- Coffee’s story began in Africa, a fact not lost on Jason Wilson, owner of Northwest Coffee in the Central West End. “To me, they [African coffees] don’t get the love they deserve,” says Wilson, who bought Northwest in 2012. Coffees at Northwest are roasted at lower temperatures for longer periods of time, which allows sweeter notes to come from the beans. Look for coffee from Ethiopia, Rwanda, or Tanzania on the bar or take a bag home to enjoy. 4251 Laclede Avenue, NorthwestCoffee.com
Deborah Reinhardt is author of St. Louis Coffee: A Stimulating History (Arcadia Publishing, 2022). She lives in St. Louis where she works on her award-winning food blog, ThreeWomenInTheKitchen.com.
To read more about other influential coffee kings, click here.
This article was originally published in the September 2023 issue of Missouri Life.
