History of Safari Coffee


The History of Safari Coffee Safari Coffee has been serving fresh roasted coffee to the North County San Diego region since October of 1990. The founder and master roaster, Marc Jennett, was introduced to the coffee business as a young boy. "Back in the early sixties, my father delivered and sold coffee to restaurants for Blue Ribbon Coffee of San Francisco. I remember climbing into his blue and yellow Chevy van, which was loaded with dozens of bags of freshly ground coffee on their way to the city restaurants which yielded a wonderfully incredible aroma because of the confined space".
"A customer can sample a little of this when they place a bag of fresh ground coffee in their car on a warm day." In the late seventies, while attending college, Marc learned to roast coffee himself on an old fashioned gas-fired Jabez Burns roaster while working for United Coffee of San Francisco. During this period, gourmet shops selling exotic beans from all over the world were starting to flourish and United Coffee was pioneering the market on the West Coast. Several years later, Marc and his college roommate left the Bay Area to venture off to San Diego, which was just starting to develop a gourmet coffee industry. "We located a retail gourmet shop that was going to close in Escondido and felt it could be turned around with a coffee focus. After a short time, we invested in a 12-kilo Diedrich gas-fired roaster so we could control our quality and reduce the cost of goods. This would allow us to provide much lower prices while having more flexibility in blending and flavoring. This would enable customers to find a larger variety of quality beans, not just the standard dozen or so that most retailers handle." The first several years naturally were touchy. The shop opened in October of 1990, about the time of the Gulf War, in the midst of a recession. "There was no money for employees, so hours were long, and we made our share of mistakes along the way." However, their popularity grew, and in 1995, Safari won two roasting awards in a local "cupping" in San Diego. In 1996 Marc assumed full control as the business continued to chug along but with every increasing competition as coffee became very trendy in San Diego and the country. This competition forced them to re-evaluate the retail focus and instead move over to mail order internet sales where anyone could experience what up to then had been available just to the locals. Since then, Safari Coffee has served close to a million customers and sold over a hundred thousand pounds of award winning coffee beans to the retail public. Please visit soon & experience the aroma of fresh roasted coffee. Safari Coffee is located at 1012 West El Norte Pkwy, Escondido, CA 92026.