Old City Coffee keeps perking along

As a coffee devotee, I was eager to write about the 30-year survival strategy of Philadelphia stalwart Old City Coffee.

Wouldn't you know, just as I sat down to write - fueled by a cup of joe from my home K-Cup stash, one of many competitive pressures with which Old City has to contend - the news broke of another threat to its bottom line: Dunkin' Donuts is developing a mobile-ordering delivery service. (Starbucks already is testing one in the Pacific Northwest.)

Yet Old City founder Ruth Isaac showed no jitters.

"Since we all seem to be habituated to using our phone to orchestrate every move, that makes perfect sense," Isaac said, her trademark droll wit intact.

Then again, the Haycock Township native has weathered plenty of challenges since returning to this area after graduating from Washington University with an education in the humanities, art history and French and starting her business. The inspiration was a small-batch roaster she frequented in college.

Isaac opened Old City Coffee in January 1985 on obscure Church Street, figuring she had a no-fail location, given its close proximity to tourist faves the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, and the Betsy Ross House.

Old City says it was the only Philadelphia micro-roaster of choice Arabica coffee sourced from small, family-owned, fair-trade growers and distributors. At the time, Starbucks had not spread much beyond Seattle.

No matter. Let's just say the tourists, or anyone else, weren't exactly draining Old City Coffee's self-service urns. It would be seven more years before the neighborhood around Third and Market Streets, now brimming with tech start-ups, boutiques and art galleries, started to pop.

Since then, Isaac and Jack Treatman - a chef whom she met shortly after opening the coffeehouse, married in 1988, and put to work as Old City's chief roaster - have expanded to two locations in another tourist magnet, Reading Terminal Market, where all roasting is done. They have 30 employees but would not disclose revenues.

Live entertainment at the Church Street cafe, online sales (oldcitycoffee.com), and catering services have helped Old City hang on to market share in an environment percolating with competition.

Starbucks is less than two blocks away at Third and Arch Streets. Also on Third, just off Market, Menagerie opened in September 2013 as part of the "third wave" of the coffee movement, popularized by artisanal lattes, hand-pours, lighter roasting, and single-origin coffees, and emphasizing direct-trade, relationship-building with growers.

Robert Molinaro, co-owner of Chorus Communications Inc. and Metrospect Events, patronizes all three, but most often Old City Coffee, the one across Church Street from his offices.

He's been caffeinating there daily for 10 years, drawn by more than convenience and consistent brew strength (two level tablespoons of coffee to six to eight ounces of filtered, right-off-the-boil water).

"Sometimes, that trip to the coffee shop is more of a social thing than it is a coffee thing," Molinaro said.

With a store in the 200 block of Market Street, fashion boutique Smak Parlour uses Old City's Church Street sipping room for meetings.

"A tucked-away neighborhood gem," Smak co-owner Katie Lubieski called it.

That's not how all Old City Coffees have been received. One, in the concourse of 2 Penn Center, lasted only from 1991 to 1993; another, in Wilmington's Riverfront Market, from 2002 to 2004. Isaac blamed lame traffic.

For now, Isaac, 54, and Treatman, 57, parents to two adult children, will stick with their three venues and micro-roasting model (26 pounds at once). Improvements to the online shopping experience and the company's social-media profile are planned, along with a customer marketing database.

As for that Dunkin' Donuts delivery challenge?

"We've been partnering with Instacart at the [Reading Terminal] Market for same-day delivery," Isaac said. Delivery of bulk coffee, that is, but they're working on adding drinks.

K-Cups are also in Old City Coffee's future, she said.

"Every day is surviving."

215-854-2466 @dmastrull