Ward Barbee
Publisher, Prophet, Raconteur and Friend
1938–2006

In last month’s “From the Editor” column, we bid a sad farewell to the late Ward Barbee on the heels of his sudden passing. As memories and anecdotes about Fresh Cup’s beloved founder and publisher flooded in from friends and colleagues the world over, we collected an edition of “The Knockbox” (p. 14) devoted to Ward,while Julie Beals assembled the following salute to the man who carried the torch for specialty beverage retailers for the last 14 years.

Before launching Fresh Cup in 1992, Ward held a number of hard-knock jobs, selling everything from custom office furniture to paper products to order forms, even selling Bob Farrell of Farrell’s Ice Cream Parlour & Restaurant his very first order of guest checks. In between those endeavors, Ward guided and catered rafting trips through central Oregon, worked as an assistant to renowned Portland city commissioner Mildred Schwab and was co-owner of Oregon Hospitality News. But he was destined for dynamic entrepreneurship, a life on the stage.

One reason for his fate may be that he did not suffer fools. Stridently opinionated and sharp-tongued, Ward’s style of engagement could be seen at times as browbeating. But those who were lucky enough, or who took the time, knew his other side.

While working as editor of Fresh Cup, Steven Krolak quickly came to know the subtleties of Ward’s style that took others years to understand. “He plunged me into a side of publishing and a specialty coffee industry I previously knew nothing about,” says Krolak. “It was a whirlwind. I had worked with sales people before, but nobody came close to Ward. … I soon came to see that the secret of his success wasn’t high-volume pressuring, but his incredible ear. He was a gifted listener. He could simply sense what people were really saying about themselves when they thought they were talking about something else.”

His ear was the attribute that also made Ward a good publisher. “He always let his instincts override his better judgment, and we were all the better for it, since his instincts rarely let him down,” says Krolak.

And it had been his ear that led him to start the magazine in the first place, at the prompting of a professional mentor who told him: “Someone needs to start a magazine about this specialty coffee business.”

Anyone who feels they haven’t yet “made it” in terms of career milestones might consider this: Ward was 53 when he launched Fresh Cup in co-founder Jan Weigel’s (formerly Gibson) basement. For the first year, he did everything from ad sales to feature writing to design and layout on a Mac Plus. For the first issues, he trekked to Kinko’s to print proofs before going to press. (Desktop printers cost several thousand dollars in those days.) “Ward worked long hours in the basement, and people were constantly asking, ‘How much is there to write about coffee?’” says Weigel.

Bruce Milletto of Bellissimo Coffee InfoGroup met Ward when they both were starting out—before the possibilities for growth and reporting on the specialty coffee industry was foreseeable to most. The two became fast friends and colleagues. “I was impressed by the man in the basement, wearing the hats of magazine publisher, editor and salesman. … His vision was to produce a trade journal that had the look of a commercial publication, with in-depth stories that actually were of interest and help to those in the industry.”

Others in publishing, too, took cues from Ward early on. “When he started Fresh Cup, I took notes on Ward’s approach to doing business,” says Coffee Times’ Les Drent. “I observed and was inspired by the many hats he wore. I often called Ward to collaborate on stories … or to pick his brain on business topics. Ward was always there to help with a laugh and a joke to boot.”

Fresh Cup got a leg up, too, when Don Jensen of Bridgetown Coffee rented office space to Ward in the back of the Bridgetown warehouse, enabling the magazine, literally, to move into the coffee world in earnest. Jensen remembers Ward’s goal to create a magazine that would represent and inform specialty coffee culture. “We thought this guy, in his crazy manner, would succeed,” he says.

For the magazine that was originally called Second Cup (until it was discovered that the name was already registered by a Canadian coffeehouse chain, and Ward’s chiropractor suggested Fresh Cup, to which Ward replied, “Fresh Cup is even better!”), it didn’t take long for Jensen’s hunch to be proven. “Ward would sit there working away on who to contact, what to offer, writing and always seemed content,” says Jensen. “I’ll never forget the first advertisement he made up for us. It was extremely successful, and we received many phone calls on what we were doing.”

Ward’s son, Brad, recalls those first years, when he delivered Fresh Cup to Portland coffeehouses for distribution to café customers. “Dad would pay me $100 to put racks of magazines in all over town, and out in surrounding communities—Forest Grove, Wilsonville, Hillsboro, Cornelius, all of the Coffee People locations. Some places would go through dozens and dozens.”

After a few of years of monthly deliveries, several shop owners decided they didn’t want to encourage customers to read up on the ins and outs of the industry. This was when coffeehouses were taking off in Portland, and proprietors wondered if customers would get the idea to open a place of their own.

That’s when subscription-based distribution started in earnest for Fresh Cup, beginning with free subscriptions to those coffeehouses that had carried the magazine since its inception. And the rest is history.

From there forward, Ward carried the flag of Fresh Cup and the specialty coffee retailer the world over. Along the way, he made friends the only way this outspoken, raucous lover of fun knew how: for life.

“No one spoke their mind the way Ward did, positively or negatively,” says Donald Harrell of Monin Gourmet Syrups. “Every year, we discuss what trade shows we’re going to do. We do 30 or 40 a year. And why did we keep doing Nascore? Because of Ward. Not to sell product, not to meet customers, but because Ward would be pissed if we didn’t. If you didn’t go to Ward’s party, you’d have hell to pay.”

In love, as in life (or coffee), Ward’s influence was tremendous. Paula Torgeson was his partner for the last several years. Their first date was a Ravi Shankar concert, and the relationship took off from there. “Because of his bright intelligence, wit, novel sense of humor and genuine care for people, I will never be the same person I was before I met him,” she says. “He is truly one of a kind. I had the experience of a lifetime with him. Lots of laughs and good times.”

His wacky, irreverent brand of humor was among his hallmarks. Brad recalls a day when he stopped by the office and was greeted with a peculiar silence from the Fresh Cup staff. “They were just staring at me. I walk into Dad’s office, and here’s this man with his back to me with powdery yellow hair sitting at my dad’s desk. He turned around, and it was Dad. I said, ‘My god, what did you do to your hair?!’” Ward’s simple reply was, “Oh, I lost another bet, so I did it baby-chick yellow.”

He wasn’t afraid to look downright ridiculous, which, on top of his vocal nature, made him that much more visible. In some ways, he couldn’t avoid it. “He couldn’t coordinate clothes, and preferred to shop at Goodwill,” Brad says. “He looked good in those tacky clothes. He was hip in a wacky way. Dad and I were different in a lot of ways, but I identified with that goofy part of him.”

Beyond physical appearance, Ward embraced an all but inimitable brand of humor. Bud Clark, former mayor of Portland and owner of the Goose Hollow Inn, Ward’s longtime favorite tavern, met Ward in 1968. Clark remembers the time Ward made “Dare to be Gross” bumper stickers to promote his appreciation for shock-value antics. “Ward was always a bit gross about everything, and he was definitely known for it,” says Clark.

Whether he entered a public hot tub in a flesh-colored Speedo or shaved his head (“the ugliest head you’ve ever seen” according to all who saw it naked), Ward would stop at nothing for a laugh. “When we heard the news that he died, someone asked me, ‘Is this a joke, or a replay of Dare to be Gross, where we’ll find he’s coming back?’” says Clark, who himself half-believed that could be the case.

Jon Whiteside met Ward in 1993 at the New York Fancy Food Show. “What can I say? He touched my life and my soul. How can anyone ever forget Ward pulling his cart of Fresh Cup magazines down aisle after aisle at trade shows in his signature Hawaiian shirt and topsiders? His distinctive laugh? His contagious smile? One thing about Ward: When you met him, you never forgot him.”

Not only did he make a lasting impression in person, but once specialty coffee fever started spreading from the Pacific Northwest to the rest of the country in the early ’90s, Ward became a spokesperson for retailers, regularly challenging industry associations, standards and goals. His candid style and industry vision were canonized in his eagerly anticipated monthly column that was at once informative and provocative, inciting healthy debate.

Drent of Coffee Times remembers the mid ’90s when the bandwagon of big dollar Kona coffee was being ridden by counterfeiters. Ward did what he could to protect the farmers whose product’s identity was under siege. “Besides being one of the craziest and most honest characters in the world of coffee, Ward always stood up for what was right,” says Drent.

Ward walked the streets of Kona, visited coffee farms and spoke with farmers (also taking time to dance and smoked cigars), and did what few dared at the time. On the pages of Fresh Cup, he denounced the homogenization and theft of the Kona coffee brand. “Perhaps, the most courageous thing of all is that he took this stand, even if it meant jeopardizing advertising dollars,” says Drent.

Milletto notes that rather than ducking controversy, Ward thrived on it. “If he saw anything he felt was askew in our industry, he would pour his heart and soul into correcting the problem with every ounce of energy he had. He felt the retailer (the driving force behind everyone’s job in the industry) was usually overlooked. He saw his battleground as Sherwood Forest and his job as one to help the small independent.” Outside of Fresh Cup, Ward had a soft spot for quiet fishing holes on the McKenzie and Deschutes Rivers. These were the places he reflected, rested and recharged.

On a recent weekend in late September, friends and family paid homage to the man who took big gulps of life. During a three-day, 60-mile trip down the Deschutes River, in a spread of rapids called White Horse, the group scattered a bit of Ward’s remains. He had fished and guided rafting trips over this stretch of water for more than 30 years, most notably with his Escargot Tours, billed as: “River trips at a snail’s pace, catered with no Cheese Whiz on a Ritz.”

“It’s my understanding that my dad’s ashes will have a home in places all over the world,” says Brad, who today wears the coffee bean earring that Ward was never seen without.

Ward loved every aspect of the coffee industry, so it’s apropos that his last days were spent in Italy, the homeland of espresso. “He made more of an impact on the evolution of specialty coffee as we know it today than anyone I know,” says Milletto. “No one fought harder. No one I know worked for the specialty coffee industry with more perseverance. He never cared about the money or the fame his crusades might bring him.”

Ward was quick with an opinion but just as quick to make fun of himself. He could be the loudest voice in the room, but when asked, he took stock of the bigger picture and listened intently. His crusading spirit will be missed as much as his love for good food, friends and hearty laughter.

“So many of us, including yours truly, took for granted that we would be closing down another karaoke bar with him in the future,” says Drent. “He was the life of the party, and in my mind, one of the great lives of specialty coffee. In coffee terms ... he was a master blend that pulled together every signature cup of coffee.”

 

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