Restaurateurs plan free coffee

Chris and Ellen Bollenbacher want to open a 32-seat breakfast restaurant in a structure next to their current eatery, The Landing.

By: Linda Seida
   NEW HOPE — Free coffee is coming to town.
   That’s a bottomless cup of joe, in a sit-down restaurant, whether you buy food or not.
   Not only that, the bathrooms will be accessible to everyone, paying customer or not.
   Customers will have to pour their own cups and fetch their own refills, but the man behind the plan for a new breakfast restaurant doesn’t think his customers will mind one bit.
   He and his wife want to make their customers’ morning meal feel more like a comfortable gathering of friends or family rather than a highfalutin dining experience. For themselves, Chris and Ellen Bollenbacher said, they want more fun.
   And if anyone feels a bit guilty about taking coffee for free, they’ll be invited to toss a donation into a bucket that will be earmarked for the New Hope Eagle Fire Company.
   The Bollenbachers said they believe they’ll achieve both objectives by opening their new breakfast restaurant, which has yet to be named, next to their current restaurant, The Landing, which they’ve operated for 28 years.
   The Landing sits on the borough’s main drag, the appropriately named Main Street, along the bank of the Delaware River amid an award-winning, English-style garden. The restaurant serves lunch, dinner and cocktails by a fireside and in the lovely terraced garden.
   The Bollenbachers have yet to go through a formal application process with the town’s Zoning Board or the Borough Council. But judging by the enthusiastic response they received from council members earlier this month as they informally presented their idea, it doesn’t look like there will be many obstacles.
   "I think it’s great," council President Richard Hirschfield said of the restaurant concept and its free coffee.
   "I think it’s fabulous," Councilman Randy Flager said. "The bathrooms are great."
   The building that would house the proposed restaurant is a cinderblock structure on The Landing’s property where Mr. Bollenbacher’s father operated a woodworking shop.
   "He enjoyed it for many years," Mr. Bollenbacher said. "He made beautiful things for friends and family and never sold a thing."
   Son and father purchased the property in 1976 and set about to create The Landing. The senior Mr. Bollenbacher died in July, and the cinderblock building has gone unused since then.
   At one time, Mr. Bollenbacher had planned to construct townhouses on the site, but those plans fell through.
   After "taking the temperature" of the council in regard to his new plan, his restaurant idea looks more positive than the townhouse plan did, provided he and his wife obtain the necessary approval from town officials, he said.
   "Every day I’m cooking eggs is a day I’m not seeking to build townhouses," he wrote to the council before his presentation.
   If all goes as hoped, he and his architect will begin to discuss the project. If the Zoning Board gives him the go-ahead, he said he hopes to start renovating the building into a restaurant and have it ready to open by October.
   Coffee is a surefire moneymaker at breakfast. Why offer it for free?
   "Coffee is the thing that will keep you the busiest in the restaurant business," Mr. Bollenbacher said.
   Having to hire wait staff to handle all the pouring and refilling would defeat his original purpose. He and his wife want to run the breakfast restaurant themselves and have time to enjoy their customers while they do it.
   Right now, Mrs. Bollenbacher purchases food for The Landing and oversees the office. The couple oversees chefs, a manager and a wait staff.
   They’re hoping to have a 32-seat breakfast restaurant where diners sit in a large rectangle around a center cooking space where the grill would be housed. There won’t be any menus; customers will choose their selections from the offerings written on a large chalkboard.
   For the restaurant’s name, Mr. Bollenbacher said they hope to choose something that sounds "friendly, easy, comfortable and inexpensive" like the restaurant itself will be. He plans to make it "accessible and fun and casual and priced the same way."
   He envisions charging between $2.50 for pancakes to $4.50 or $5 for eggs, bacon and potatoes. Fruit might cost $1.
   The venture will be "a labor of love," Mr. Bollenbacher said.
   "It’s a lot of fun. I really like the people who are on the road at 6 o’clock in the morning," he said, noting those customers could include locals, road crews and municipal workers.