When exploring the history of prominent tea and coffee companies, it's fascinating to uncover the serendipitous events that shaped their existence. This holds true for both Vail Coffee Company and Simpson & Vail, each with unique stories of growth and dedication to quality.
Vail Mountain Coffee & Tea Co.: A Taste of the Rockies
Vail Mountain Coffee & Tea Company began in 1989 when two friends, Chris Chantler and Craig Arseneau, were captivated by the beauty of Vail, Colorado. Inspired by the World Skiing Championships, they moved to Vail and opened The Daily Grind Coffee Company, which quickly became a cornerstone of the community.
Vail Mountain Coffee and Tea is an award-winning local Colorado business
“Each night we were out watching the 1989 Alpine World Ski Championships, which were held in Vail that year, cheering on one of the local Swiss ski racers,” Chantler said. “At that point we knew Vail was being watched by the world, and now on the global ski map.
Chantler and Arseneau met in Boston after college and became more interested in starting their own business rather than being in the corporate world. They were excited by what was happening in the coffee industry and just how good specialty coffee was and thought it looked like a great opportunity.
Craig Arseneau, left, and Chris Chantler, right, sit in their original location on Bridge Street. The Daily Grind opened in November of 1989 and eventually became Vail Mountain Coffee & Tea Company when they decided to go fully into the wholesale business.
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“It wasn’t easy moving across country to start a business. We were totally under financed and very naïve,” Chantler said. “I will never forget when we finally opened for our first full day of business and did a whopping $45 in sales.
“We wanted to create something that would bring us joy and happiness and we came to Vail and created this business from nothing,” Chantler said. “And it’s all driven by our love for the lifestyle, our love of the mountains, skiing, biking, hiking, everything that makes you want to live here.
But what they lacked in resources Chantler and Arseneau made up for with youth and energy and The Daily Grind quickly became the heartbeat of Vail Village.
“We gave away 1,000 travel mugs with our logo on them to locals so they could get discounts on drinks. The mug quickly became a local badge of honor hanging from everyone’s backpacks,” Chantler said. “We had a wall of photos that people sent us with their mug on tour. We had pictures from the top of Everest to the Eiffel Tower and Wrigley Field.
The success of The Daily Grind in Vail inspired Chantler and Arseneau to open four other locations in Vail and Denver, including one in the Tivoli Student Union on the Auraria Campus. With the large quantity of coffee brewing up in each location it was a logical step to start roasting their own coffee. In 1992, they found a used roaster in New Mexico and set up a roastery in Minturn and they spent six months experimenting with different coffees and roast profiles.
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The wholesale side of the business grew rapidly, and they felt like they were spread a little thin. So, Chantler and Arseneau sold the retail stores and went into the wholesale business and became Vail Mountain Coffee & Tea Company.
“This gave us time to travel to meet the wonderful people that grow our coffee and tea,” Chantler said. “Over the years, what we are most proud of is the relationships that we have made with the farming communities around the world.
One of the programs Vail Mountain Coffee & Tea Company has supported for the last seven years is in the Tolima region of Colombia.
“Vail Resorts offered us the opportunity to take over the Starbucks locations in Beaver Creek during the 2020-21 season and then the Dumont location off I-70 in July 2022,” Chantler said. “These opportunities happened right in the middle of COVID. There was still uncertainty about when our wholesale business would return and when restaurants and hotels would be back to full capacity.
Vail Mountain Coffee & Tea Company has locations in Beaver Creek, Dumont and Minturn.
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“A lot of this was blind determination,” Arseneau said. “Waking up every day, not giving up, getting after it and just being passionate about what we want to do.
“One of our goals for 2025 is to grow our national online business,” Chantler said.
Commitment to Quality and Sustainability
What started as a small café has grown into a coffee roastery known for its dedication to quality and sustainability. Vail Mountain Coffee & Tea is one of the highest altitude coffee roasters of its size in the world, situated at 8,000 feet. VMCT embraces traditional Northern Italian roasting techniques to produce premium, hand roasted small-batch coffees and employs modern Technology for absolute precision and computerized control. They source their beans from all over the world, and stock and service their amazing vail community.
They support local and national initiatives focused on sustainability, community development, and environmental conservation.
Vail Mountain Coffee has partnered with the CAFISUR Cooperative, the FCLI, a Canadian government fund and The Coffee Source. Together they have financed new equipment, given hours of sustainable farming training, milling equipment and cash flow to help these women become a sustainable coffee community,” Chantler said.
“We wanted to share our passion and expertise and bring community back into our business. With a lot of help from Arrigoni Woods we glassed in the space inside the facility adding lots of reclaimed timber creating a real alpine feel. People can now order coffee six different ways, hang out with their friends, watch the roasting process or simply park in the corner with their laptops for the day,” Chantler said.
We're thrilled to partner with Vail Mountain Coffee + Tea Co., not only for their coffee packaging but also as participants in our R+R® Program. Their 12oz bag showcases the stunning Vail Mountains and ski culture.
VMCT's 12oz bag is a Quad Seal Box Bottom (QSBB) bag style. It has a resealable pull tab zipper for consumer convenience.
Their 5lb bag is a Quad Seal V-Cut (QSV) bag style and has no closure. Both are Matte Film.
“Most people don’t know that coffee is the second largest commodity traded with oil being number one. This means that the price of coffee is changing daily.
Simpson & Vail: A Legacy in Tea and Coffee
Simpson & Vail, an old time tea company, was originally founded as a green coffee merchant in 1904 by Augustus M. Walbridge on Water Street in New York City. In 1929, Mr. Walbridge sold the business to Mr. Simpson, the accountant, and Mr. Lester Vail, the tea taster.
It wasn’t until 1978 that Jim Harron’s family acquired the company and moved the company to Pleasantville, New York. Alongside his daughter, Cyndi, Jim Harron uses their Brookfield office as the center of Simpson & Vail’s operations.
Visitors to their retail office are immediately greeted by a wealth of fragrances that emanate from the various bins of loose-leaf tea throughout, and these are the international scents of a host of other countries.
But regardless of origin, Simpson & Vail always has something ready for the season. Winter brings holiday selections and blends, and the summer months find Jim promoting their delicious iced tea recipes.
“We like to ice Moroccan mint, which is green tea with spearmint. On the herbal side, we’ve also blended a Tulsi Orange Cranberry. And people love our Candy Cane blend, despite the funny name. It’s all mint and tastes great, iced.”
But when it comes to herbal teas, Jim asserts that almost anything makes a great match when brewed and chilled. “We’ve found that Burgundy Blast and Caribbean Splash taste great iced, especially Burgundy Blast. It’s got hibiscus and rosehips in it, so you get a nice red color.
The Harron Family's Impact
When we look back over the history of some of our most prominent tea companies, it is fascinating to realize that they may never have existed had it not been for an odd twist of fate or a serendipitous sequence of events. Even when he was still a young boy, Harron always wanted to work in sales and started his career in the textile business, working for Cannon Mills in New York. He enjoyed the job but as time went by he found that he was travelling 60 percent of his time and so was rarely at home to watch his four children growing up.
Anyone who knows Harron knows him as a real family man who is very proud of his children and of what they achieve individually and together as a group. And it was at this point that fate intervened!
Harron was friendly with David Walker, whose son ice skated regularly with Harron’s son Carl. While sitting at the side of the rink one day watching the boys practicing, Harron mentioned that he was thinking of leaving his job and that he was looking for a business to buy. So Walker introduced Harron to Simpson & Vail, a company that had started life as Augustus M. Walbridge, a green coffee business in New York City.
“When we visited the store one day in 1978, the company really needed rescuing and resuscitating,” remembers Harron. “So, once we had tasted all the teas and coffee on sale, we talked through the possibilities, worked out the figures and decided to invest together and buy the company out.
Harron has always had a sharp eye for a business opportunity. He recollects with a chuckle that, as a kid of 8 or 9 years old, he made himself some valuable pocket money by collecting “any old ‘junk’ I could lay my hands on” and sold it out of the family basement. Perhaps at that stage he was too young to have yet developed the principle that has subsequently been his guiding maxim - to always offer customers a quality product at a fair price. He learnt that later he says, from Lester B Vail, and Harron’s ethics shine through in everything he and his family does.
Harron’s adventure into the tea world shows how willing he has always been to try something new, and his bold approach to life has carried the business forward by leaps and bounds. When he took over Simpson & Vail, the full range of teas totaled about 18 products. Today the catalogue lists some 380 teas, 100 herbal infusions, 78 different coffees and all sorts of accessories, and a range of specialty foods such as honeys, jams, chocolates, sauces, etc. The tea list includes some unusual teas from rare origins such as black teas from Bolivia, oolongs from Vietnam and Kenya, green teas from Sri Lanka.
“I love having the opportunity of experimenting with new and different products,” he says. “And there are always new teas to try from all around the world.
Nor has Harron ever shied away from hard work. As soon as he had taken over Simpson and Vail, he set out with a determination to win back accounts that had been lost under the previous owners and to find new customers in local department stores, businesses, religious organizations, catering outlets, in fact in any establishment that might be interested. One local store took a tea rack from him some 30 years ago with 8 loose leaf teas and still has the rack today - but now with 42 different blends.
Harron always intended Simpson and Vail to be a family business and when asked what he is most proud of, he says without hesitation, “the fact that two of my kids joined the business and now run it - Cyndi and Jim Junior act as co-presidents. Cyndi takes charge of herb buying and Jim Junior is tea and coffee buyer and chief tea taster. My wife Joan is in charge of all the tea accessories and I’m still working full time.
Jim Harron, Sr. “When I look around the store and think what state the business was in when we bought it, I am just so pleased that we took something that was about to go under and managed to build it back to what you see today. But, with the interest in tea increasing all the time, there is still so much to do.
Margaret Trapp Cruse: A Pillar of Simpson & Vail
Margaret was hired by Mr Vail in 1928, when she was just 16 years old, to be his personal assistant. She also did typing for Augustus Walbridge, the original owner of S&V, at his office that was in the same building as S&V at 89 Front Street in New York City. In 1942 Margaret left S&V when she became pregnant with her eldest daughter, Barbara. From 1942 until 1959, as busy as she was being a wife and a mother (to her daughters Barbara and Mary), Margaret still managed to find time to work at S&V during the busy Christmas season or when her replacement took her summer vacation. In 1959, when her replacement moved out of the area, Margaret, facing college tuition expenses for her daughters, returned full-time to work at S&V.
After Mr. Margaret had many accomplishments in her life - certainly in her era. And while her successes in the business world of S&V were important to those of us that followed her, Margaret's joy was her husband of 48 years, Clinton, and their daughters.
We were fortunate enough to have been visited by Margaret and varying family members several times over the years. When she passed away Jim, Sr. attended her wake in New Jersey. There in the room her daughter Mary had set up a table commemorating Margaret’s dedication to her time at Simpson & Vail - her favorite teapot, 2 cups and saucers, some scones and a box of S&V Ceylon tea.
We wanted to take the time today to tell you about Margaret, to share with you the story of how one woman made a difference to so many people.
Here is Jim Sr. sitting by a piece of Simpson & Vail history, the roll top desk that was Lester Vail's personal desk in 1929 (86 years old). The desk was given to us by Barbara Cruse and Mary Gannon, daughters of Margaret Trapp Cruse who was the first Simpson & Vail employee in 1929 and retired from S&V in the mid 1970's. (See Margaret’s bio below.) After Margaret retired she was given some S&V memorabilia, which she had cared for until she passed away on July 16, 2012.
We were also fortunate to receive two pictures, one featuring Wall Street circa 1847 and the other South Street at the corner of Maiden Lane circa 1828 and a wall hanging clock with pendulum motion.
Remembering Jim Harron Sr.
It is with profound sadness that we report the passing of Jim Harron Sr., an icon, a master storyteller, a man with a thirst for knowledge and lover of life. Jim passed away on January 18 peacefully at home surrounded by family. He and his wife, Joan, bought Simpson & Vail in the 70’s and worked together here for 44 years. They took an almost failing business and turned it into the brand you see today. While they turned the reins of the company over to their eldest son, Jim, and daughter, Cyndi, years ago, they still came to work every day. Jim was in the store entertaining customers as recently as this Christmas season, delighting them with stories about teas or some of the marvelous adventures he’s had and discoveries he’s made over the years. He will be sorely missed by his family, all the employees here, his friends and the community. Jim lived life to the fullest and cherished every day.
“We joke about writing a book on how not to run a business,” Chantler said.