It is an independent coffee house as diverse as the people that keep coming back day after day, year after year

This is a coffee shop that casually shrugs off "corporate creep" with a confident belief that whatever the "big guys" may do, The Nautical Bean does better.

Long before the caffeine craze hit the United States with dizzying speed, Nautical Bean Coffee Company owner John Alvarez had discovered that the secret to staying one step ahead of encroaching, big-business competition was to provide an educational environment for everyone.

By attending trade and food shows, traveling to The world-class Greenwell Estate in Kona, Hawaii and The La Minita Estate in Costa Rica, and providing informational pamphlets on almost all of his thirty in-house, whole-bean coffees, John has acquired the knowledge needed to sustain The Bean’s reputation as a coffee house that guarantees its customers will not leave without first understanding why they have chosen the globe’s finest roasts.

You have to ask yourself, where else but The Bean?

It isn’t just John serving up a lesson or two.

John's employees are also given ample opportunity to take part in extra-curricular adventures of the coffee business. Whether they are at coffee plantations or trade shows, John only asks of his employees that they first embrace the freedom and enjoyment of travel, then secondly, learn all that they can about keeping The Bean ahead of the competition.

It comes as no surprise that regular college kids who once couldn’t tell the difference between gas station coffee and Blue Mountain, quickly become addicted aficionados of a good cup or pour, and knowledgeable authorities in the field of specialty coffee and espresso.

To John, not including his team in traveling and education would be doing his business a disservice. “If it’s just me that gets all the information, my mission is worthless,” John says. “I need to know that even when I’m away, The Bean is still providing an expert environment that a devoted coffee house should have.”