J.L. Hufford transformed its popular coffee counter into a thriving gourmet goods enterprise with global reach.
BY KAT BRAZ | PHOTOS BY CHRISTINE PETKOV
When Joe Hufford started J.L. Hufford Coffee and Tea Co. in 1991, Lafayette didn’t have a single espresso machine in sight.
“I remember visiting every coffee shop between Chicago and Indianapolis,” Hufford says. “There wasn’t a place around here to get an espresso or cappuccino. Maybe something on campus, but that was about it.”
So, in his mid-20s, he took a leap. With no deep love for coffee but a lifelong itch to run his own business, Hufford opened a small coffee shop inside the Tippecanoe Mall. “I wish I had some romantic story about sipping espresso on the Seine and thinking I should bring this back to Lafayette,” he says. “But it was purely a business decision. Coffee’s the second-most-drunk beverage in the world. That sounded like good math to me.”
Hufford signed a six-month lease — just long enough to see if the idea could work. It did. This year marks the business’s 35th anniversary.
Learning the craft
When J.L. Hufford first opened, most customers didn’t even know what an espresso was. “People would come in and say, ‘I want one of them expressos,’” Hufford recalls. “We’d pour out this ounce-and-a-half shot and charge $3, and they’d look at us like we were crazy.”
Education became part of the sale. “We’d explain what an espresso was or turn it into a cappuccino so it looked like something worth three bucks,” he says. “It was a lot of trial and error.”
In those early years, J.L. Hufford was more gift shop than coffee counter, with shelves of mugs, teapots and coffee makers. Over time, the small counter in the back that sold drinks began generating the bulk of the revenue. “Eighty percent of our space
was devoted to stuff that made 20% of our sales,” he said. “That little coffee counter was doing 80% of the business.”
When the store moved to a new location in the mall, Hufford redesigned it around what customers actually wanted: convenience. “We realized people weren’t looking for a place to sit and linger,” he says. “It was more of a grab-and-go crowd — get a drink, head back to shopping.”
The top-selling drink today isn’t even brewed coffee. “Our No. 1 seller is what we call a Glacier,” Hufford says. “It’s a coffee smoothie — our version of a Frappuccino. Funny thing is, we didn’t even have a blender when we opened.”
Expanding online
While the coffee business thrived, Hufford noticed another shift happening — this time online. Long before e-commerce was mainstream, he saw potential in selling coffee beans to Purdue alumni and former customers who had moved away. But that first online experiment flopped. “We tried selling coffee online, thinking people would want to reorder once they left town,” he says. “That failed miserably. Too much competition.”
What didn’t fail was a niche he stumbled into by accident: high-end home espresso machines. “At the time, these were $1,000 to $2,500 coffee makers,” Hufford says. “They’re fully
automatic — push a button, and it grinds, brews and froths your cappuccino for you.”
He started with Jura, a Swiss brand, and quickly added others. Demand exploded. Within a few years, J.L. Hufford became one of the top three online retailers for premium home coffee makers in the United States.
That success opened new doors. “We realized if someone’s willing to spend $2,500 on a coffee maker, they might also buy a $300 chef’s knife or a $500 Dutch oven,” Hufford says. “So we brought in Wüsthof knives, Le Creuset cookware, Vitamix blenders — all the big gourmet brands.”
Today, J.L. Hufford has grown far beyond its mall roots. The company operates out of a 45,000-square-foot warehouse across from the mall — once an RV dealership, now stacked floor to ceiling with kitchenware. “We have several million dollars’ worth of inventory,” Hufford says. “We ship about 100,000 packages a year through Amazon alone.”
Most customers have no idea one of North America’s largest gourmet kitchenware distributors operates quietly in Lafayette. “We’re a bit of a best-kept secret,” Hufford says. “We don’t sell retail anymore, so people don’t realize what’s happening just down the road.”
Change is constant
J.L. Hufford’s next chapter is already underway — the company has begun manufacturing cookware in its own facility. The company also has expanded into logistics, helping other businesses get their products into the U.S. market.
“We do the shipping, warehousing, even warranty repairs for other companies,” he says. “If you’re not adapting, you’re falling behind.”
It’s a philosophy that’s guided Hufford since his first espresso shot.
“I always say I’m a pirate, not a pioneer,” he says. “My best ideas are ones I steal from other successful people, from other industries. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel, just look for ways to make it roll better.”
For a business that began with a six-month lease and a small coffee counter at the back of the store, J.L. Hufford’s reach today is remarkable. From Lafayette, the company ships gourmet cookware and coffee equipment around the globe.
Still, Hufford insists his success rests not on products but on people. “I’ve got really good employees,” he says. “I take good care of them, and they take good care of me. Most of them treat the business like it’s their own. That’s what makes it work.”
And while J.L. Hufford’s product line has evolved from mugs to gourmet kitchen tools and cookware, the spirit behind it hasn’t changed. It’s still the story of an entrepreneur who saw opportunity where others didn’t — and kept adapting to meet it.
“The only thing constant is change,” Hufford says. “If I didn’t believe that, we’d still just be selling cups of coffee.” ★
