Brewing the Experience – Jack Mazzola

Jack Mazzola is always moving. If his hands aren’t dotting a staccato-like rhythm of emphasis over his head, then he’s shifting his weight, gliding one long Balmain-encased leg over the next.

Now he’s leaning forward, his long frame almost halfway across the room. Any minute now, he’ll jump up and take one liberated step across his 14×14 coffee bunk, the office space residing under Jack’s Coffee, and begin drawing on the whiteboard. He’ll do this after saying, “I’m all about analogies.” And suddenly, you’ll feel a tingle of the caffeinated thrill that Jack’s daily existence hinges upon. Here’s one of Jack’s analogies. “Imagine coffee being a character and you and I are actors. We have to give our interpretation of what coffee is. And you have to do it in a physical way. I don’t care how much research you do, how much picture taking you do; it’s going to be different. Jack’s my interpretation of coffee. Jack’s is my interpretation of The Experience.”

At a first glance, The Experience feels, well, familiar. Here is the aged wooden plank now doubling as a coffee bar. There is the exposed brick lined with the smudged black chalkboard hawking the usual assortment of cappuccinos and mochas, along with Jack’s signature drink, stir brew coffee. A salvaged military jacket, now sporting its own scarlet letter, only in this case one that readily admits an addiction to coffee, harkens all believers into its musky-smelling fold. But a second glance reveals something more. On the opposite wall, the eyes of coffee-drinking saints benevolently peer out from a collage of black and white photographs. Many of these are locals, some departed, some still with this world. Their presence seems to tacitly acknowledge a truth about the exchange between old and new New York. Businesses come and go. But some, a select few, are worth keeping.

Jack is keenly aware of this tension. After all, he is part of old New Jersey himself. The byproduct of auto grease and a sprawling Italian family in the ‘burbs, Jack grew up working at the family business, his dad’s auto body shop in Lodi. His specialty was painting. His dad’s specialty was customer service. Now customer service — client services, customer services, relationship marketing, call it what you will — may not mean much in the days of around-the-clock 1-800 lines, but for Jack the term is real. Customer service at an auto body shop means you are splayed out under the underbelly of a car. One day Robert Sean Leonard’s manager, a frequent customer, asked Jack if he’d be interested in acting in commercials. Jack took him up on his suggestion and was soon commuting into the city twice a week to HB studios. At age 16, he left home. “Back in Lodi there was no drama class,” Jack deadpans. “The only drama was on the streets.” When Jack joined the AFTRA acting union, they gave him the opportunity to meet with the director of his choice. He chose Jimmy Bohr, the casting assistant on “Guiding Light.” Jimmy took a liking to him and gave him a gig on the show. Jack’s famous first words were, “What does a guy have to do around here to get a cup of coffee?”

After “grinding it out” in LA — this too is another “Jack-ism” — at local coffee shops, restaurants and even a 19th century antique store while trying to propel his acting career forward, the prodigal son came home. In 2003 he opened his first Jack’s Coffee in the West Village. On opening day the line spilled over onto the street. Even the neighbors showed up, always a good sign given New York’s precarious balancing act between businesses and neighborhoods. Jack was ecstatic. “When I first opened up my store, I thought, “God, I have a job. I can enlist all of my actor friends.”” Even back then, The Experience was paramount. This meant that Jack developed his own coffee making technique, a patented stir brew method to enhance the flavor of the coffee. It also meant he sourced his beans from a fair trade coffee farm in the Dominican Republic and purchased his milk from a local dairy in the Hudson Valley, all good things now rendered banal by the pastoral iconography conjured in our grocery stores. But here’s the key thing to remember about 2003. In 2003, bell-bottoms were in fashion. Destiny’s Child was still together. And the words “organic,” “fair trade” and “sustainable” might have not meant much unless you were a die-hard foodie, and this before “foodie” was even a part of our vocabulary.

In 2005 Jack opened his second location at the South Street Seaport. The others, competing siblings though all beloved by Jack, rolled out a couple years after that. The Amagansett cafe, elbowed in between East Hampton and Montauk, is the beachy child, all whitewashed interiors and exposed beams. The 6th Avenue store is the most kitchen savvy. In fact, it is the first to contain its own fully-staffed bakery led by the pastry chef Camillo Sabela of Plaza Hotel fame. It’s a interesting to observe, this success we are all obsessed with attaining. If only Jack could bottle it and place it inside the counter cooler alongside the yogurts and pressed juices. “It really is the true, American entrepreneurial story,” he candidly admits. Rightfully so. It is ripe with contradiction and hopeful with possibility, both of these bound together by a certain urgency of time. How does a man declared “too green” for film launch a business and brand with no real connections or pedigree? Maybe it’s his charisma, smooth and bold like his coffee. Or his vast background in the service industry, now polished to a sheen like his counters. Or maybe, just maybe, it’s the sum of all these parts: The Experience.

Q – Jack’s has always been a bit ahead of the curve. Quite ahead of the curve, in fact, given that you hatched your business before all these concept coffee shops and unique brewing methods came into being, before the crop-to-cup movement was a buzzword. Where do you think your interest in innovation came from?
A – If I could coin that, that would be something, right?