Looking for a Local Cup of Joe?

Despite a traditional preference for tea sweet enough to put a person into a diabetic coma, Charelston is slowly but surely becoming a coffee town, and West Ashley boasts a bevy of choices when it comes to places to get a caffine fix.

Going up against national players like , , and , several locally owned coffee shops are also striving to differentiate themselves from the crowd and bring a more local flavor to lattes, cappicinos and plain old drip coffee.

"I feel like we're in a great location because of all the neighbors," owner Janie Mallard said. "I think this town is getting to be more and more of a coffee town."

"Business is booming," said the owner of Local Market and Coffee Bar, Chase, who goes by a single name.

But the current economic malaise is taking its toll.

"It's been a long slow slog," owner Walter Daszy said. "It has slowly, steadily grown, but it's been like pushing a boulder up a mountain."

Mallard chose the Avondale Point Business District for her coffee shop three and a half years ago because it was an up and coming area with lots of young families and young adults moving into the surrounding neighborhoods.

"Unfortunately," she said, "those are the people most affected by the economy. They're the ones who are having to pinch pennies, and when you have to pinch pennies one of the first things to go is that latte every morning."

Each of the local shops has had find ways to set themselves apart. They all try to foster a sense of community among their customers and within their neighborhoods.

"People seem to like the changes we've made and word has spread," Chase said.

A lot of his business comes from word-of-mouth recomendations of customers. The business also has a mascot, Ida Claire, the blue mannequine on Ashley River Road. She has her own Facebook page too.

"The mannequine gets people's attention," Chase said. "She earns her keep. If I tell people it's the place with the mannequine in front, everybody knows it."

He took over the location at 1331 Ashley River Road in April from another coffee shop and changed the name and added a fenced-in, dog friendly back patio.

"Dogs are always welcome, people are tolerated," he joked.

Chase said he and his staff of six employees are trying to make the spot a sort of local clubhouse for area residents. Several groups regularly host meetings at Local and a large bulletin board covered in tacked up business cards and flyers contribute to the community atmosphere inside.

"One of our major priorities is being a local hub of information about local happenings and pointing people in the direction of shopping locally," he said.

As implied by the name sourcing the food and bevrages at the business as locally a possible is important to Chase. The baked goods in the coffee bar come from a downtown bakery, the soups, salads and sandwiches are made on site with local ingredients and the coffee beans come from less than 400 miles away. Local also features a small market stocked with products from local producers.

He also feels its important to give back to the community, so Chase donates a portion of Local's profits to an area charity each month.

Despite the economy, Local's business is doing well enough that Chase plans to launch a Local Coffee food truck by December that will travel all over the Charelston area.

Sojourn Coffee, at 1664 Old Towne Road, also seeks to create a sense of community among its customers, Daszy said.

Since opening 4 years ago, Daszy and his wife Carmen have poured 80 hours a week or more into the business. It's the first time the couple has run their own business, something they had always wanted to do. After a 24-year career in the Air Force, Daszy said he wasn't ready to retire, so they rented a car and drove down the eastern seaboard from Wilmington, N.C. to Florida, and eventually decided to settle in Charleston.

"If we were going to start a business, now was the time," he said. "Once you start another career, forget it, you'll never have enough time to start your own business."

During his time in the Air Force, in addition to working on aircraft, Daszy also learned worked in a few coffee shops and became a barista.

"A coffee shop is just what I always wanted to do," he said. "I didn't think it would be as stressful as working on aircraft. I don't know how upset someone can get over a cup of coffee."

Creating a place where people feel comfortable congregating has been a long, drawn-out process, but it is paying off. Charleston County Councilwoman Colleen Condon began holding weekly meetings with constituents there on Thursday mornings, and after a while Charleston City Councilman Aubry Alexander joined her. Now several groups hold community meetings at the shop and flyers announcing community events are taped up on the windows and glass doors at the shop.

"That's what we wanted," Daszy said, "a place where people can come and relax. We lived all over the world while I was in the service and what we really liked about European pubs is it's a place where the whole village comes together, they are social places."

But it hasn't been easy.

"When we first started I was doing 90 hours a week, now I think I'm down to about 70," he said.

After four years the couple is just now beginning to consider paying themselves. Initially they had to take money out of savings to pay some of the bills. Eventually Sojourn was able to sustain itself, and Walter and Carmen have been able to hire a few employees. Now instead of just barely covering expenses the business is "comfortably covering the bills."

Located at 11 Magnolia Road, Alchemy Coffee owner Mallard said covering the bills, especially the rent is the biggest challenge, not only for her business, but for most small businesses in Charleston.

"The economy is horrible, but we have landlords that refuse to deal with that," she said. "When you have a tiny business trying to make it, you should try to help them out."

Mallard said it has been a struggle for the three-and-a-half years she's been running Alchemy to keep the doors open. Her shop isn't in the most accessible location for people heading into downtown for work in the mornings on Savannah Highway to pull in for a quick cup of coffee, so Mallard relies on people that live and work nearby.

"Since I opened there's so much more of a community here," she said. "It's not just people going to the bars at night there are actually people around all day now."

She thinks the West Ashley market is pretty well saturated when it comes to places to get coffee, so to set herself apart, Alchemy has concentrated on offering a variety of food including baked goods, hot and cold sandwiches and salads.

"If I was starting a business right now, I would never open a coffee shop," she said. "We stay alive on our food."

Mallard has one employee at the moment, and recently had to let another person go because she couldn't afford to keep her on staff.

"This is a really tough business," Mallard said. "But it's a nice business, you meet a lot of nice people."

Alchemy is her first venture as a business owner. She spent most of her career as a marketing consultant working on photo styling for catalogues and staging for show rooms, but she had always wanted to run a coffee shop.

"I love coffee shops, I always have," Mallard said. "When I traveled I always looked up local coffee shops online, I love the fuzzy, warm, local feel they give off."

She saw the potential to establish that kind of atmosphere in the Avondale Point Business District. With a variety of seating options inside including comfy couches and chairs and tables small and large, lots of people now use the shop to meet and network.

Mallard has also hosted monthly art openings for the past three years. She usually does them on the last Friday of each month, however instead of the last Friday in October, she moved her next opening to the first Friday of November. Those events bring more people into the shop in the evenings. The changing art on the walls of the shop also keeps the inside interesting for regular customers.