The Resurrection of Bess Eaton

"As water reflects a face, so a man's heart reflects the man." –Proverbs, 27:19

We were just trying to enjoy a delicious cup of local coffee when the verse made itself known to me. Just the week before, the cups had been plain, with the cheerful Bess Eaton logo on the front (the "o" in the shape of a heart), white lettering surrounded by a blue box with red trimmings.

But this lazy Sunday afternoon, when my family and I made the 25-minute trip from our small town in northern Connecticut to the Bess Eaton one town over, the packaging of our treats came with a religious message. The verse was encased in a red box made to look like a Bible. On top of the saying—so no one could mistake it—were the words "Christ is the answer."

I was 11. And I was mostly there for the doughnuts anyway. But why, I wondered, was Jesus suddenly in my mom's coffee?

Bess Eaton was—and now is again—a regional coffee shop, which started in Rhode Island in 1953 and expanded into some parts of Connecticut and Massachusetts by the 1980s and 90s. It started when Angelo Gencarelli began hand-cutting doughnuts, opening a shop for his family recipe. The bakery and coffee house soon expanded, eventually reaching 56 locations throughout the three states.

By the time I was visiting regularly, Louis Gencarelli had taken over his father's business, and in 1993 he made a move that seemed strange: He put Bible verses on the cups. The local news expected negative press to be abundant, but as it turned out, no one really cared at all.

"We were in high school, so we weren't concerned with all that. Good coffee is good coffee," former Norwich resident Tara Gass-Braden told said. "Remember Testamints? The mints that they would sell? We found Testamints hilarious."

If anything, southern New Englanders clung even more fervently to their brand. Sylvia Chan-Olmsted, the director of consumer media research and a professor at the University of Florida, ties this type of branding affirmation to more general feelings the verses evoked—not religion itself, but authenticity and history of the region.

"In a way, authenticity is an important factor in branding," she said. "If you state what you believe in, and you are not ashamed of it, people like that. This Northeast type of mentality of being quirky and authentic, of being unabashedly who they are, that's their definition of themselves. It's their identity, and they like to be upfront and louder about that."

And Bess Eaton left its mark, even though it had to shut its doors. In 2004, the doughnut shop was sold to Tim Horton's in a multi-million-dollar deal, saving it from massive losses and debts. But it wasn't the religious overtones that stunted the company. Simple over-extension and poor money management led to its demise.

In its wake, nostalgia grew. Gass-Braden, who now lives in New Orleans, went so far as to set up a tribute page on Facebook in 2009: "HOLLER IF YOU MISS BESS EATON." Then she started throwing up combinations she would have ordered if Bess Eaton still existed.

"I did nothing but put up the page, and people found it," she said. "It was just a labor of love one late night, reminiscing about Connecticut summers and remembering sitting in the mall parking lot with your coffee. For me, Bess Eaton bookends the most important memories of my youth."

The page organically grew to nearly 5,000 members. Its cover photo? The Sistene Chapel's ceiling. Christianity is not a deterrent for Bess Eaton fans. They say they go for the product and the service.

That product and service eventually returned, in limited fashion. When Tim Horton's couldn't make a dent in the southern New England coffee market, it closed the shops there, and in the spring of 2011, four former employees decided to buy back the Bess Eaton name. They opened three fulltime shops and a seasonal one, keeping all the old recipes and using their old bakery.

Manager Robin Busch said their current success is a mix of their loyal fanbase and their loyal employees. "Bess Eaton has so much history here. Everywhere I went, people would talk about how much they missed it. And so many of our customers and employees are all the same people. They love us, and I don't know why that is. I don't question it."

Busch said he and his partners are being careful to keep this venture small and not over-expand like before. They also decided not to bring back the scripture.

"That was Gencarelli's thing," Busch said. "He was into the church, and it was important to him, but not to us. So we didn't bring it back."

Chan-Olmsted said taking a stand is a current marketing trend, but only if the consumer views it as authentic, which would no longer be the case for Bess Eaton. "People want to feel like they are part of something. They want to feel like they're with a team," she said.

She contrasted this with Starbucks' recent decision to remove holiday symbols from its seasonal cups, saying in that case the packaging change made news because the differing viewpoints on a global brand were newsworthy in and of themselves. "The trend in branding right now is to take a stand to showcase ideology, but I think the regional coffee brand, unlike Starbucks, was trying to just remain true to themselves."

Gass-Braden agrees that religion neither helped nor hindered her favorite coffee place. Its brand lives on, she said, because of its superior coffee, service, and clientele. "Bess Eaton coming back was one definite victory for the entire area. That the love for a chain can propel a launch for a business, years down the road, is incredibly intense. It wasn't just a product, but an experience and a place to be. There is a community there. A decent, great place that a community can really rally around."

In the scheme of things, it's that community feel that matters, whether or not God plays a part.