The TM Ward Coffee Company: A 28-year Chatham Tradition
— May 18, 2020
If you’re one of many people whose morning slight includes a tasty prohibited crater of coffee from a internal café, we competence find it formidable to suppose a time when coffee shops weren’t a norm. Until a midst 1960s, however, coffee cafés and coffee bars were roughly unheard of in a United States; and until a midst 1980s, they were still utterly rare, generally in a suburbs.
Thanks to a prophesy of TM Ward owner, Axlyn Sommer, Chatham coffee lovers have enjoyed delicious, lovingly prepared coffees, teas, and other special treats during 7 South Passaic Avenue given 1992.
The TM Ward Coffee Company
One crater during a time given 1869!
A CHATHAM FAMILY BUSINESS WITH A 150-YEAR HISTORY
The Sommer family coffee business began in 1920, when Axlyn’s father in law, William Sommer, worked as a coffee wholesaler for a New York-based coffee importer and roaster. During his early years in a coffee business, William learned bullion standards for roasting, tasting, grinding, and wrapping coffee. As his seductiveness in and talent for a coffee attention grew, William stretched his business to embody a squeeze of a TM Ward Coffee Company located on Broad Street in Newark nearby a Federal Building.
Since then, a Sommer family has continued using a vast coffee sell business, including harsh and wrapping coffee, in a room on Broad Street. Today, 75 percent of a TM Ward business includes indiscriminate coffee for restaurants, nation clubs, hospitals, bagel and sandwich shops, and grocery stores via a easterly coast.
CHATHAM — AN IDEAL PLACE TO CALL HOME AND RUN A BUSINESS
A internal of Manasquan, New Jersey, Axlyn, and her husband, Bob, changed to Chatham in 1970. “When it came time to find a family home,” says Axlyn, “we chose Chatham since it felt like home-town America to us. In further to a beauty of a neighborhoods and surrounding area,” she adds, “the schools were excellent.”
Axlyn and Bob have 4 children — 3 sons, Jeffrey, Scott, and Robert Jr., any of whom is in a family business — and a daughter, Traci, a sports consultant who competent for a 1992 Olympic gymnastics trials. Eldest son, Jeffrey, is obliged for roasting beans TM Ward imports from all around a world. After they are roasted in Norwalk, Connecticut, a beans arrive during a Newark plant, where they are belligerent and packaged. Middle son, Scott, runs a indiscriminate multiplication for TM Ward; and Robert Jr., who lives in Sweden with his mother and dual children, handles all Internet sales and promotion for a company.
“I adore meaningful a small partial of a Sommer family
helps make other people happy.”
— TM Ward owners Axlyn Sommer
A BRILLIANT BUSINESS IDEA AND ITS EVOLUTION
Twenty-eight years ago, after her children went off to college, Axlyn saw an event for TM Ward in Chatham. “I had been creation present baskets for fun during home, that were a strike with family and friends,” says Axlyn. “I shortly satisfied there was a niche for my work in a area. With zero like TM Ward in a Borough, we found a emporium on Passaic adult for lease and we motionless to go for it!”
“My strange suspicion was to emanate present baskets with coffees, teas, nuts, and other items,” says Axlyn. “But direct was such that a association developed to embody coffee machines, tableware, and tea towels, among other excellent products.” In further to a renouned coffee-of-the-month club,” she adds, “we offer Chatham-specific mugs, towels, and plates. Our nonbreakable melamine setting and portion pieces have been impossibly renouned since they’re ideal for backyard / poolside entertaining. During college examination time,” says Axlyn, “many relatives come to us to send their kids a special morale- and energy-boosting basket of coffees, teas, and other treats.”
In further to internal deliveries,
TM Ward ships corporate, birthday, and holiday present baskets
as good as other products opposite a United States.
MAKING PROGRESS DESPITE COVID-19 SETBACKS
Over a two-month COVID-19 lockdown, with usually a one-week closure of a Chatham shop, TM Ward continued all a business with health reserve practices in place. Axlyn says, “Although a initial week was a bit slower than usual, restaurants fast transitioned to take-out orders and a coffee business kept moving. Because we offer grocery apparatus in a Chatham shop,” she adds, “TM Ward was deliberate an essential business. We used a week we were sealed to get orderly for gripping everybody safe.”
“Life is valuable,” says Axlyn.
“Wearing a facade and holding precautions to forestall a widespread of any disease
isn’t about a inconveniences. It’s about what’s good for others
as good as what’s good for you.”
THE NEW NORMAL AT TM WARD WORKS WELL
“Now,” says Axlyn, “we ask clients to place their orders by phone so that we can ready them for pickup. We concede usually 2 people in a emporium during one time. Clients must, of course, wear a mask, and my staff members also wear masks and gloves. As distant as removing your crater of joe,” she adds, “we will take your order, make your coffee usually as we like it, and give it to you. That way, usually staff members hold a equipment.” Axelyn says everybody has been really deferential about wearing masks and honoring safe-distancing practices.
“Everyone in Chatham has finished a smashing pursuit following reserve rules
and operative with a new normal,” says Axlyn.
CHATHAM SUSTAINS ITS FOCUS ON THE POSITIVE
Axlyn says it’s been emotionally relocating to see how people have rallied to keep life certain as good as safe. Parents, for example, have orderly drive-by celebrations for graduations and birthdays. “Just recently,” says Axlyn, “a neighbor’s son played Pomp and Circumstance on his wail from a stretch while another neighbor walked adult her drive in jubilee of her high propagandize graduation.”
GIVING BACK TO CHATHAM, OTHER COMMUNITIES, AND HEALTHCARE ORGANIZATIONS
Axlyn believes it is critical that she and her business give behind to a community. For this reason, she is on a house during a comparison center, where she has prolonged donated coffee and, before COVID-19, volunteered her time. More recently, Axlyn has sent coffee boxes to internal hospitals, including Morristown Medical Center, Overlook Medical Center, and Saint Barnabas Medical Center.
WHERE YOU CAN SEE OUR TROUBLES ARE ALL THE SAME*
In addition, Axlyn suggests TM Ward is a source of solace, compassion, and support to a patrons. “After 9/11,” she says, “I put a come-in-for-a-hug sign on a emporium door. TM Ward is like Cheers,” says Axlyn. “We call we by name, listen to your stories, and sympathize with hurdles we all share in navigating life.”
In a time when we can sequence usually about anything from a Internet,
Axlyn recommends selling locally
to stay connected with and minister to your community.
“Chatham is a good village for cultivating friendships and business,” says Axlyn. “As a family, we appreciate a clients for their kind and continued support. We are here to do what we need. We adore your ideas, your suggestions. We adore portion you. We are committed to staying in a community. We are Chatham.”
“It’s critical for me to be with immature people, get their ideas,
and hear their comments, either disastrous or positive.
It’s a usually approach we grow,” says Axlyn.
A POSITIVE FUTURE FOR BUSINESS IN CHATHAM
Last October, TM Ward distinguished 150 years in business. “That’s a miracle for any business,” says Axlyn, “but it’s generally conspicuous for a family business. When we plead a future, it’s always with a suspicion of gripping TM Ward alive in Chatham for a prolonged term. I’ll work here until my kids get a offshoot and drag me out,” she laughs.
Although Bob died 3 years ago, a Sommers’s sons are carrying on a family business. “Bob’s deficiency is an huge blank for us,” says Axlyn, “but we feel sanctified each day. Bob and we built TM Ward in Chatham together. Continuing a business is a reverence to him.”
“I trust good times come out of bad times,” says Axlyn.
The COVID predicament has forced us to step behind and reassess a values.
It has reminded us to give as most as we can
because it matters.”
CHATHAM IS A GREAT PLACE TO LIVE AND WORK
The TM Ward Company is among successful businesses that heed Chatham as an unusual place to live, work, and possess a business. In further to a superb schools and storybook neighborhoods, Chatham offers residents and visitors worldly amenities like TM Ward that come with civic living, though but a hustle-bustle and responsibility of a city.
When deliberation where to get your subsequent crater of coffee, visit TM Ward during 7 Passaic Avenue in Chatham. In further to an well-developed crater of coffee, you’ll enjoy the accessible ambience of a nation ubiquitous store, a robust aroma of coffee, and refined, personalized use that distinguishes TM Ward from today’s big-chain coffee sellers.
You might call TM Ward currently during 973-635-8929
or revisit a association online during info@wardcoffeeofchatham.com.
For some-more information about shopping or selling
a Chatham home or business,
Call me currently during 201-532-0788.
