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TwitThisFor the Love of Coffee
Jason Araghi gripped his seat belt as the C-130 violently pitched and rolled high above Afghanistan. He'd hitched a ride on a U.S. military flight to deliver a machine part to the café he operated at the American base in Kandahar. But the Taliban was on the attack, and now the C-130 was dodging fire. Araghi wondered if he'd ever see his wife and kids again. All this, he thought, for coffee?In the 11 years since its founding, Araghi's Green Beans Coffee Worldcafé company has overcome daunting obstacles -- hijackers, snipers, suicide bombers -- just so it can offer lattes and mochas to U.S. soldiers serving in the Middle East and central Asia. "Our customers are very picky," says Araghi. "Soldiers don't make that much money. So the product is obviously something that gets them to sit back and say, Ah, this takes me back home."
The son of Iranian immigrants, Araghi grew up in Los Gatos, California, and began his career as a chiropractor. After he'd set up a clinic in Saudi Arabia, one of his patients, a Saudi princess, offered him an intriguing opportunity: Would he open an American-style coffee café in a furniture showroom she owned?
Enlisting the help of his brother, Jon, Araghi started selling coffee to Riyadh locals. Soon U.S. military personnel were flocking in. Within months, their commander asked the Araghis to build a coffeehouse right on the base.
As American troops moved into Kuwait and Qatar, the Araghis followed, opening 15 Green Beans cafés in the region by 2001. Because of shifting troop deployments, they've had to be mobile -- and innovative. "We took shipping containers that were 40 feet long and 8 feet wide and converted them into fully furnished cafés with wood cabinets and marble counters," Araghi says. "Then we put them on the back of a truck and transported them."
It soon became apparent that the cafés made a difference in the overall quality of life of the soldiers. "Everyone was on edge, under pressure," says Araghi. "Our shops were 15 minutes of tranquillity, a chance to listen to music, play some board games, hang out with friends." And enjoy familiar fare: an espresso and muffin, a smoothie, or a panini.
Then came 9/11. American troop deployments to Afghanistan and later Iraq meant that Green Beans would be serving coffee in war zones. "It was risky, dangerous," says Araghi. "But we couldn't say, We'll go to the safe places, but not where it's dangerous."
The logistics of shipping supplies into a war zone were nightmarish, not to mention costly. Containers often arrived riddled with bullet holes, if they arrived at all. Hijackers nabbed two containers, each carrying merchandise worth up to $110,000. "There's no insurance out there," says Araghi.
There were personal dangers too. Kidnappings of Americans unsettled Araghi and his staff. Some took to wearing body armor and helmets -- "our business casual," Araghi calls it -- as they served coffee.
These days, Jason spends most of his time at headquarters in Larkspur, California, while Jon manages overseas operations from London. What started with a $20,000 investment and a single café has become a thriving $20.8 million business with 68 shops, all on or near military bases. The Araghis have opened four Green Beans cafés in California, Kentucky, and Oklahoma, and plan to open eight more in the U.S. by the end of the year.
For Jason Araghi, Green Beans Coffee has become more than just a business venture. Wherever he goes, soldiers stand at the coffee bars, M16s slung over their shoulders as they show him photos of their kids and talk wistfully about their hometowns.
"That's when it hits home that they're just guys like me. They have kids; they're just doing their job," he says. "They want their kids to have the same freedom as they did when they were growing up. When you see soldiers just off a 12-hour patrol, smelly, dirty -- the first thing they want is a cup of coffee to unwind. To me, it's priceless. And it puts what I do, with all the personal and financial risks, back into perspective."
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