From coffee beans to ice cream, cafe is a hit

The Bean’s long, strange trip continues after a six-year hiatus

About 25 years ago, a group of lawyers created a place where community service was as simple as ordering a soda.

When the nonprofit Oklahoma Bean Project was established, its primary operation was The Grateful Bean Cafe — a place where folks seeking re-entry into the mainstream workforce could find training and opportunity.

It worked for 17 years, took a six-year hiatus, and returned last July.

When the Grateful Bean Cafe opened in spring 1993, organizers adopted a slogan adapted from The Grateful Dead: “What a long, strange ride it’s Bean.”

They couldn’t have known how prophetic those words would be.

Sprouting an idea

The idea was inspired by a bag of beans attorney Mary Smith brought back from a trip to Colorado in 1989. The beans were the product of the Women’s Bean Project in Denver, which was started as an alternative to welfare programs. The idea was to help abused and battered women break out of poverty and into the job market.

That program is still going strong nearly three decades later.

Crucial to the project was a building. Adoption lawyer Peter K. Schaffer purchased the historic Kaiser’s Ice Cream building, which he’d visited for the first time almost two decades prior while on leave from Fort Sill in Lawton.

“I was mesmerized with the building, the pressed tin ceiling, the tiling on the soda fountain, the soda fountain itself; it was bringing me back to my childhood in New York,” Shaffer said.

The original run for The Grateful Bean began after its historic home sat vacant four years and the Plaza Court across the street sat empty.

“Oklahoma City attorney Jay Israel was instrumental in the Bean from our beginning in 1993 and continues to be very helpful,” Schaffer said. “Engineer Garland Pendergraft did the original structural assessments; he designed and implemented structural changes to the building made necessary by the wear-and-tear of time. Architect Johnathan Majid did the modification drawings in 1992. Each of them graciously gave of their time and energy to preserve the Kaiser landmark.

“And they continue to be involved with Kaiser’s.”

The terrorist attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Building occurred two years after the cafe opened. The Bean provided safety and shelter to the injured that morning and survived the rampant business closures that followed.

The redevelopment of Plaza Court in the early 2000s brought back foot traffic, but created stiffer competition and increased property taxes. As Midtown found new life, the venerable Kaiser’s Ice Cream building, established in 1916, was too expensive for operating a charity.

So Shaffer and his daughter, who now owns the building, leased the space to Shaun Fiaccone and his partners to open Kaiser’s American Bistro in 2010. Fiaccone sold the restaurant to a manager, who eventually closed the concept. The building then became home to Kaiser’s Diner, which closed early last year.

Rather than look for another tenant, Shaffer decided to sprout The Bean once again with a slightly different name: Kaiser’s Grateful Bean.

The new incarnation isn’t an official nonprofit, but it doesn’t operate for profit.

“The mission is exactly the same: We will hire people down on their luck — the person out of the penitentiary, the single mom whose husband has run off, the people out of drug rehab, the people who want a second chance,” Schaffer said. “The only difference is tax forms.”

Where y’ Bean?

Now, St. Anthony literally looms over the Kaiser’s roof. A roof where, in the 1920s, Tony Kaiser kept a pair of guard dogs by day before dispatching them into the shop at night to snarl away would-be thieves.

Alberto Fonseca served as general manager of the original concept, and has worked in various restaurants since it closed. Fonseca said he was thrilled to get the call from his old friend to return along with other original staffers Jackie Jackson, Kerry Barnes and Jose Fonseca.

“Our prior head cook, Lorenzo Taylor, graciously taught our kitchen crew recipes and safety and sanitation procedures,” Schaffer said. “Unfortunately he was not available for full(-time) employment at The Bean.”

With a core crew in place, the Bean continues to hire people in need.

“Most of our team members are from sober living and half-way house environments,” Schaffer said.

The program’s census is 15 to 25 people, drawing from places like the Dale Rodgers Training Center, the Department of Corrections and “courtrelated or mental-health organizations.”

The only thing missing from the program is you. By dropping by for lunch, dinner or a scoop of ice cream, you are contributing to the development of someone in need.

Sean Cummings worked with the kitchen crew through the month of October to help guide and refine recipes and kitchen operation.

“He is indeed a very skilled restaurateur; we learned much from Sean,” Schaffer said.

And to make sure The Bean served the same ice cream Tony Kaiser did, former Kaiser’s bannercarrier Fiaccone sold back the original Kaiser’s ice cream formulations. The price? A free ice cream cone on his birthday in perpetuity.

“The original Kaiser’s ice cream formulations, which had not been made commercially since 1993, return to Kaiser’s Grateful Bean,” Schaffer said. “To those who remember how good Kaiser’s was, Kaiser’s is back. We are most grateful to Shaun!””

The original Bean menu was strictly vegetarian, and gradually evolved to include chicken sandwiches. But the new menu is broader.

“We still have vegetarian food, but we have hamburgers,” Fonseca said. “We sell a lot of burgers, you know, on the food.”

But Fonseca said the biggest attraction remains ice cream, shakes, sundaes and fresh jerked sodas.

So if you’re looking for a way to give back to the community, come and get it at Kaiser’s Grateful Bean.