Haroldson's Coffee World

When I was 17 years old, I got a job at a store called Haroldson's Coffee World, at the City Shopping Center in Orange, California. It wasn't my first job, but it was the first job I liked. I did an internet search for Haroldson's this morning, and nothing came up, so I decided that if the memory of the place was going to be preserved, it was my job to do it.

Haroldson's was owned by Harold Bregman, and his son, whose name I don't remember. Harold was a short, round, mustachioed Jewish man from New York, probably in his late 60s or early 70s at the time, which was 1987. I remember his bald head and his imprinted apron and the restless way he moved his hands. He had been a cab driver in New York, and his manner was very brash, which probably made sense doing that kind of work. He hired me right after I graduated from high school, when I was looking for a summer job. I stayed on and worked there for a couple of years, by which point he sold the store to an Italian family from Canada. They were okay, but Harold was an amazing boss.

Harold was the kind of guy who would yell at customers if they got on his nerves. He'd yell at the (mostly) girls he employed too, but he was also extremely generous and trusting and warm. You'd be scared of Harold if you didn't know him and caught him in the wrong mood, but when Christmas season came around, he made sure his employees all got a share of the sales they made. He was funny and kind, and although I can't remember his wife's name (it started with a Z), he loved her very much. I think she was a concentration camp survivor and he was very protective of her.

The store, pre-Starbucks (at least in Southern California), sold coffee beans of 20-25 different flavors, including a hazelnut with real hazelnut slivers. I learned to drink coffee while working there, and to be able to describe the difference between Sumatra Blue Lintong and Jamaica Blue Mountain. We ground coffee beans, sold the whole beans, and sold chocolate-covered espresso beans. We made capuccinos and espressos. I learned to foam milk. We also sold coffee cups and mugs, tea sets, loose teas, bagged teas, jelly beans, cookies, and coffee makers of a wide variety of types, from drip filters to percolators to French presses and more. I loved describing the flavors to customers, learning what our regular customers enjoyed, and teaching them how to use a stove-top espresso maker. For a future anthropology professor, it was good training for teaching, explaining, and learning a bit about the coffee-growing societies of the world.

The next door over was a men's clothing store run by a Persian family. The husband (Abraham? Ibrahim?) would frequently come over for coffee, but he didn't like to wait in line and sometimes he'd pour himself a cup without waiting. This happened too often and eventually Harold kicked him out of the store! I can remember Abraham standing, amused, in the mall just outside the entrance, buying cups of coffee without actually coming in. Eventually Harold's temper would subside and things would go back to normal, but there was an ebb and flow to it all. Customers would sometimes tell us employees that it must be a challenge to work for him, but if you stuck around and got to be friends with him, he was very loyal and reasonable and funny. Still, the Muslim-Jewish tension that resulted from the mall layout was a fascinating subcurrent in an otherwise calm work situation.

One day, I think soon after Christmas, he said he had an announcement. I was hoping to become assistant manager and really thought that might be it. But no, he was selling the store. And the era of Harold and Haroldson's came to an end. Haroldson's continued for a while without him, and the new family actually opened another store, but eventually the City Shopping Center shut down, was razed, and replaced by The Block. I miss Harold and completely lost touch with him. But working for him was the first time I had a job I looked forward to going to.