SOUTH BRUNSWICK – There will soon be new place for township residents to grab a cup of coffee. A new Rockn’ Joe Coffeehouse and Bistro will open in Kendall Park this spring on Route 27.
Kevin Brennan, the CEO of the franchise, started the business in 1993.
“I had wanted to do a business for a pretty long time,” Brennan said. “I always had a lot of ideas running around in my head. I knew I needed to do something on my own.”
He came up with idea for a coffeehouse when he was in California.
“There was a great little coffee shop there right by the beach,” Brennan said. “I thought, ‘Why isn’t anyone doing this on the East Coast?’ It doesn’t look like it’s too expensive to start, although I was kind of wrong about that.”
Brennan realized in 1992, because of the surging popularity of Starbucks and other coffee shops, he had better get started soon. So, by 1993, he had opened up a store in Cranford.
“It was a pretty big success right from the start,” he said. “We opened for a packed house. We’re experiencing it all over again in Caldwell [a new location.] It’s unbelievable. The mayor called the franchisee and said, ‘I think you guys are going to need police outside.’”
One thing that separated Rockn’ Joe from other coffee shops was the music theme, which he came up with while at Club Benet in Sayreville.
“I didn’t want to go head-to-head with the bigger chains once they moved into the area,” Brennan said. “They would get bands that were kind of big, but were definitely on the downside of their career.”
After seeing Asia, he lamented to his friends about not being able to do this more often.
“I said, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if there was a place to listen to music, drink some coffee and get dessert,’” he said.
That’s when the light bulb went off in his head.
Brennan said he modeled the store after the Hard Rock Café, but said it is more personal than seeing something from Gene Simmons.
“There’s some real connection to it, because I have a real connection to it,” he said. “People will see a concert ticket and say, ‘Yeah, I was at that show.’”
Brennan also has an autographed guitar from Peter Frampton, the artist who inspired him to start playing guitar.
Live music was also a big part of Rockn’ Joe at first; they would have bands playing almost every night.
Now that they are reintroducing live music, Brennan said they would only have a band play about once a week.
“I had always had in mind something bigger,” he said. “In the late 90s, I finally got a good handle on the business. I really started to understand the business and what made it work.
He had gotten interest from customers who said this would make a great franchise. In 2003, he hired Francorp to help him become a franchise, which took two years. Westfield became the location for the first franchise.
In the last year, Brennan has signed up six more franchises. They are mostly in New Jersey, but there will also be a location in Orlando, where he said there is a huge interest in the coffee shop.
He wants each franchisee to add their own ideas to the store. For instance, if they are big Beatles fans, they should include a lot of Beatles memorabilia.
Brennan said it is the variety and the atmosphere of Rockn’ Joe that makes it a unique place.
“It’s very city-like,” he said. “It’s definitely very edgy for a suburb but in a good way.”
Kin Lee will be the franchisee for the Kendall Park location.
“He had a really good attitude,” Brennan said. “He will put his heart and soul into it to make it work.”
As for the Kendall Park location, he sees it as a great fit.
“We look at a lot of the demographics and we liked what we saw in that area,” Brennan said. “It had all the ingredients we were looking for when looking for a location.”
Brennan said the goal is to open the Kendall Park location in about two- and- a- half months.