With a catchy name and an international flare, happycoffee is hoping to become the watering hole of choice for Bedford-area residents.
Whether craving coffee, specialty drinks, fruit smoothies, Italian sodas, Hershey’s ice cream and Italian ice, or soup, paninis and fresh salads, happycoffee is the place for you. The shop offers a relaxing, unique environment that welcomes customers to relax and stay awhile.
“We have a really bright and happy environment,” said John Varca, co-founder/owner. “We have a really cool hangout style environment where we have a mini-library, we have board games, and we encourage people of all ages to just hang out. We’re not … focused on heavy turn-over and getting people out of the door.”
“One of the things that sets happycoffee apart from other coffee shops is our awesome attitude toward customer service,” Varca said. “We usually go really above and beyond.”
The idea of happycoffee originally began while Varca was living in El Salvador and met Jimmy Sandoval, his now business partner.
“He (Sandoval) always wanted to start his own shop, and I really liked coffee as well,” Varca said. “We partnered up, and we decided we were going to offer really awesome coffee.” As they began formulating their business plan, they started brainstorming everything that makes coffee good.
“We realized that with coffee comes great responsibility,” Varca said. “Coffee is only as good as the environment that you’re drinking it in. Only as good as the person who served it to you. Only as good as the attitude of the employees.”
After asking themselves “what makes coffee really great,” they came to the conclusion that “coffee brings happiness,” which inspired the name happycoffee. Now, operating out of their new Bedford location, the owners are brewing an organic, fair trade house coffee imported from El Salvador.
“We decided that our theme was going to be focusing on happiness from every cup of coffee, all the way up from employee happiness, down to our customers,” Varca said. In 2013, their vision became reality, and they opened their first store in El Salvador; that was the first of what is now seven. The Bedford shop, located at 104 North Bridge Street, Bedford, is their eighth, but first in America. They are planning to open in mid-May.
“We actually really just like people to enjoy their time at the shop,” Varca said.
By Megan L. House
