Do Jeans Go With That Shake?
Do food and fashion really go together? Michelle Macis thinks so. She hopes to pioneer retail in her suburban neighborhood of Anaheim Hills, Calif., with the Java Jean Bar, a fashion boutique that will also offer coffee, wine, gourmet sandwiches and desserts.
The residential Anaheim Hills section of Anaheim, Calif., is ripe for luxury, according to Macis. Residents reportedly include welloff people such as Adam Kennedy of the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team. But there is no high-end retail in the neighborhood, except for some national chain stores and discounters such as Target.
The quiet neighborhood offered little in the way of nightlife, too, so when the 2,300-square-foot space of a former Italian restaurant became available five minutes away from her home, Macis called her husband, Nick Macis, owner of food company QC Poultry, and recommended that they invest in a new retail idea.
“Jeans will never go out of style. Coffee will never go out of style,” Macis said of her inspiration.
The point of selling both food and fashion in the same room may be a good one, according to George Whalin, president of San Marcos, Calif.–based Retail Management Consultants. “The whole idea of keeping customers in the store with food and drink is valid. You can get a drink or a coffee at many of the high-end stores on Rodeo Drive,” Whalin said.
The store, located at 116 S. Fairmont Blvd., had a soft opening on Dec. 17. A grand-opening party is scheduled for April 14. By the nature of Java Jean Bar’s business, Macis had to master two very different fields.
Her staff of 14 is cross-trained to serve food and sell fashion. The top positions are held by people with long experience in their fields. The kitchen is run by Ariana Matei, who worked as a chef and a pastry chef for Hyatt Hotels. A consulting chef is Micah Polk, who worked at luxury fusion restaurant Asia de Cuba.
Macis has a design degree from the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising and also worked in sales for jeans distributor Jacob Rose Inc. The store, designed with high ceilings and concrete floors, is divided half into a cafeacute; area and half into a boutique area. The boutique sells high-end apparel for men, women and children. Premium denim is offered from labels such as Chip & Pepper, Diesel, Replay, 7 For All Mankind and Cheap Mondays.
Core price points for denim range from $110 to $270. T-shirts range from $28 to $45 from labels such as Junk Food, based in Los Angeles, and SWAG, based in New York. The store also deals in unique accessories such as belts by Long Beach, Calif., label Velvet Messiah, and art deco–style watches by Japanese watch brand Sprinto.
Hours are long at the Java Jean Bar. People can shop for clothes at breakfast, because the store opens at 7 a.m. Nighttime crowds can buy jeans after work, because the store closes after 11 p.m. on Thursdays and Fridays. Macis hopes that people in other towns will try on jeans when they sip lattes. She plans to open more Java Jean Bars in the upcoming year. —Andrew Asch
