Gloria Jean-the lady with the coffee beans.
The very name conjures up an image of a matronly grandmother type inviting you into her kitchen for a steaming cup of coffee and sweet rolls fresh from the oven. A bit plump, probably, her gray hair pushed back in a loose bun, her apron tied around a wholesome housedress.
With those thoughts percolating in your head, you`re not quite prepared for the real Gloria Jean Kvetko when you meet her.
Tall and slim in high heels, her dark hair neatly styled, she`s turned out in a stylish deep purple business suit. The word ”stunning” comes to mind as she strides up to shake your hand.
It`s only after you`ve talked to her for a while that you realize the original image wasn`t totally off. Today, she`s the owner of Gloria Jean`s Coffee Beans Corp., the nation`s largest gourmet coffee store operation, with 100 retail outlets in 85 cities across the country. But 20 years ago she was a Prospect Heights housewife, her hands full with two young sons, a load of wallpapering and a freshly minted Wife of the Year award from the local Jaycees.
In fact, the unassuming pose of wife and mother still fits her far more aptly than that of corporate kingpin. This is one company founder who`d rather talk about her husband, her sons or her sisters than just about anything else. ”I`ve always been proud of my role as a mother and a housewife,” she said. ”The family has always come first. But this company is like an extension of my family. There`s a real family feel here, and I think that`s one of the big reasons we`ve been so successful.”
It was back in 1979 that she and her husband, seeking an escape from the stresses of their jobs, bought a little gourmet coffee shop in Long Grove.
”We went into it totally as a hobby,” said Ed Kvetko. ”The existing store was losing money, and the employees were sitting around with their feet up on the counter, watching TV. We figured it would continue to lose money, but we`d have fun running it.”
The previous owners had focused on selling mugs and other coffee-related accessories. The Kvetkos reorganized the store, putting the spotlight on coffee beans and moving the other products into the background. Much to their surprise, the store became a success.
The following year, Woodfield and Northbrook Court beckoned. Almost before they knew it, the Kvetkos had 11 stores in Illinois and Wisconsin. Franchising and expansion to 26 states followed.
In those first heady years, Gloria Jean said, ”days were 15 hours long and weeks were never shorter than seven days.” A less-enterprising and less- energetic woman might not have seen a fledgling company through the growing pains, but energy has never been a problem for Gloria Jean Kvetko.
The youngest of three sisters, she grew up in the neighborhood around Irving Park and Kimball on Chicago`s Northwest Side.
”As a youngster, she was always ahead of herself,” remembered her oldest sister, Carlene Janusek, who today, with her husband, Bob, owns a Gloria Jean`s franchise in Chicago`s New Town. ”She spoke faster than she could think. Always on the move, that girl.”
And not always in the right direction. There was the night when, at age 6, little Gloria accompanied her family to a student theater production at the local high school. ”She got bored after a couple of minutes, started wiggling around and got her head caught in the armrest of the seat,” Carlene recalled. ”While the show continued, a maintenance man had to come out and dismantle the chair to free her.”
It`s fair to wonder if some of that energy didn`t come from her early fondness for coffee. After school, the sisters would be treated by their grandmother to a hot concoction that was half coffee and half milk.
”I was raised on coffee,” Gloria Jean said. ”Coffee was part of socializing at my house. You celebrated over coffee, you discussed problems over coffee.” She still can recall her father pointing out that even during the Depression, a man always had enough money for two small pleasures: a cup of coffee and a newspaper.
Although friends from her girlhood can`t remember any early signs foretelling her later accomplishment, they do recall a fierce determination.
”She was a stick-to-it type of person,” said Pat Topczewski, whose friendship with Gloria Jean has endured since their Roosevelt High School days. ”She`d come over to my house, stubborn and mad, and we`d just leave her alone for a couple of hours. She always knew what she wanted. She didn`t always know how to get it, but she was bound and determined that she would.” She studied part time at Wright Junior College before marrying at age 21 and not long thereafter had a Prospect Heights dream house and two babies. For some, that would have been enough. But characteristically, Gloria Jean wanted more.
”I always worked, I always was involved in something,” she said. ”I noticed early on that whenever I saw idle people, I saw unhappy people. And I told myself I`d never be idle.”
When her sons were small, she took in bookkeeping, babysat for neighbors, demonstrated toys in her home and even put in a stint as an Avon lady. Later, she enrolled in beauty culture school and got her license as a hairdresser. That led to buying a neighborhood beauty shop in Wheeling, which she sold a dozen years later when coffee beans put her in the chips.
Since the start in Long Grove, the Kvetkos have shared a 50-50 partnership in Gloria Jean`s. As a builder of custom homes, Ed designed and built the first stores, while Gloria Jean handled the decor. When the rustic feel they`d adopted in the Long Grove location failed to make an effective transition to malls, the couple settled on the warm and friendly look of an apothecary, with lots of beveled glass and wood.
Not that there weren`t a few disagreements along the way. In the early days, Ed wanted a coffee brown color scheme. ”I said, `I`m surrounded by coffee. I don`t need any more brown,` ” Gloria Jean said. ”My choice was green and brass. And I won.”
Remembering the days when her sons were young and money was tight also helped her triumph in another test of wills, this one over a key merchandising decision. ”I realized that if I was a housewife struggling by on a tight budget, I wouldn`t be able to come into my own stores,” she said. ”I thought the best way to get people to try our coffees was to offer a quarter-pound bag. That way, housewives could experiment and try different flavors. I had to do a lot of convincing, but Ed finally gave in.”
Today, that quarter-pound bag is the company`s biggest seller and has been widely copied by other gourmet coffee stores.
The company prides itself on its selection of coffees, and that, too, grew out of an early experience. ”When I was growing up, everyone in my family had a different taste in coffee,” Gloria Jean said. ”My mother liked a little cream and no sugar. My father had to have sugar and a lot of cream. My grandmother insisted on half and half in her coffee. I learned that having coffee is a simple process, but the way everyone likes it is not so simple. There`s just no right or wrong when it comes to drinking coffee.”
That bow to individual tastes is evident at every Gloria Jean`s location. Each store carries up to 64 varieties of imported gourmet coffees in both regular and decaffeinated versions, plus an array of gourmet teas, coffee and espresso machines, coffee grinders, coffee mugs, tea sets and related accessories.
The search for new and different coffees and coffee-related products is an ongoing process and takes the Kvetkos on frequent jaunts to locales from South America to Indonesia. Two years ago, Gloria Jean said, they booked a cruise to Greece and ”stopped in every coffee store in Turkey.” There have also been frequent trips to Brazil, where the couple initially encountered difficulty in sampling the local java. ”So far we haven`t found any place in Rio de Janeiro that will simply sell you a cup of coffee,” she said.
”Instead, they give it to you free with anything you order.”
After years of trips abroad to explore new coffees, the Kvetkos recently broke down and took a regular vacation. Not surprisingly, the 18-day cruise to South America didn`t turn out quite as planned. ”We jumped ship after 15 days,” she said. ”We just had to get back.”
While she no longer travels to every grand opening of a new store, Gloria Jean and her husband do try to visit as many franchises as possible. Once, visiting a store in St. Louis, the couple walked up to an employee and began a conversation without identifying themselves. ”Do you know Gloria Jean?”
asked Ed. When the employee shook her head no, he motioned to his wife and said, ”Well, now you do.”
The store clerk looked at Gloria Jean and smiled. ”Don`t you wish,” she said.
”The woman looked like she wanted to crawl under a rock when Ed finally convinced her I really was Gloria Jean,” said the owner. ”But the thing is, I was as embarrassed as she was.”
It`s a revealing statement from a woman who`s never really grown comfortable with seeing her name splashed across store marquees from coast to coast. ”To walk into a mall and see the store, it takes my breath away. It`s like walking into a surprise party. I still just can`t believe it. But I don`t see that store as me. I see it as something Ed and I did together.”
Being the founder and owner of a national chain of stores does bring a measure of recognition, but longtime friends agree that fame hasn`t changed her. Karen McConnell, who was confirmed in church with Gloria Jean 36 years ago, said, ”Some people will try to pretend they`re somebody they`re not, but Gloria`s still just Gloria.”
Company franchisees tend to echo those sentiments. ”She`s always down-to-earth, always has time to talk with you,” said Rita Miller, the owner of a Gloria Jean`s in Spring Hill Mall. ”I`m amazed by how nice she is. She doesn`t put on any airs.”
Maureen O`Connell, who in partnership with her husband, Tom, owns six Gloria Jean`s franchises in Illinois and Wisconsin, said, ”She`s a real person, not a prima donna. You get the impression she`s like a kid in a candy store, that she just can`t believe her good fortune.”
The same unaffected attitude is evident in her approach to wealth. Having considered, and dismissed, a move to the North Shore, the Kvetkos now live in a two-bedroom ranch house in Long Grove. She dislikes riding in limousines and finds it impossible to break her longtime ritual of clipping coupons from the Sunday paper. When forced to go shopping, an activity she loathes, she`s more likely to surface at Sears or Kohls than Neiman Marcus, which prompts her husband to ask: ”How lucky can I get? A wife whose name rhymes with coffee bean and who hates to shop.”
According to her sister Bonnie Gorecki, who, like older sister Carlene, co-owns a franchise with husband Dick in Hawthorn shopping mall, Gloria Jean has never been able to shake the urge toward frugality. ”It`s simply beyond her to spend a lot of money,” said Bonnie. ”She doesn`t like mink, and if you bought her a cloth coat at K mart she`d be perfectly happy with it.”
With company sales last year of $40 million, a sparkling new corporate headquarters building in Buffalo Grove and plans to expand internationally, Gloria Jean`s story may seem like a modern day fairy tale. But things have not always gone so happily. Of the well-publicized 1990 murder of a Wilmette husband and wife who were key employees of her company, she will say only that ”we`re still going through the healing process.”
What she will discuss at great length are family matters, and she`s particularly proud that both her sons are company employees. John, 26, handles all the training of new franchisees, teaching a course the company refers to as Coffee 101. Tom, 24, is involved in the leasing department, helping to analyze the demographics surrounding shopping mall locations and negotiating leases with the malls.
She still puts in days that stretch from 8 a.m. to 6 or 7 p.m. six days a week, drinking six to ten cups of her favorite Gloria Jean`s Special Blend, black please, along the way. But she admits ”the stress levels just aren`t there like they used to be.”
With just a little more free time than ever before, she has been able to expand her scope of interest to also include industry concerns. ”She stepped forward and contributed to our educational fund, which informs both the consumer and the retailer about specialty coffees,” said Joan Walsh Cassedy, executive director of the Specialty Coffee Association of America. ”I see her as having a definite committment to the industry.”
Her ever-so-slightly trimmed work schedule now allows her to to indulge her fondness for the novels of Sidney Sheldon and Judith Krantz and her love of old movie musicals. She occasionally finds a few moments to plot the future. Comfortably ensconced behind her desk in her airy, ”modern Victorian” office, she talks about crossing the country with Ed in their new RV and of someday visiting Gloria Jean`s stores overseas.
But whatever the future holds for Gloria Jean Kvetko, one thing`s for certain: She`ll always be busy. As her husband said, ”If they ever put her in a nursing home, she`ll have to reorganize it.”
