How Mr. Coffee Is Still Bringing Cafe-Quality to U.S. Homes

There’s a cynical old saying: Hatred breeds excellence. Scoff if you’d like—but not before you hear the story of how that adage created one of America’s best-known holiday gifts: a sturdy little appliance known as Mr. Coffee. Vincent Marotta was a Cleveland real estate man whose business stalled when he couldn’t secure financing. One morning in 1969, Marotta was sitting at his kitchen table trying to plot his next move when it occurred to him that his coffee (made by his wife, Ann) tasted awful. It had always tasted awful, in fact. So had the coffee he’d drunk at his friends’ houses, too, Marotta realized. That bitterness—figurative and literal—was enough to get Marotta tinkering on a machine that would make a decent cup of joe. As things turned out, another Joe would help him pull it off, but that part comes later. Fault for the nation’s universally lousy homemade coffee lay with the age-old stovetop percolator, which cycled boiling water through the grounds until the brew tasted like crankcase oil. “Coffee boiled is coffee spoiled,” Marotta would say. America had just put a man on the moon, so it’s not like decent coffee was technologically unattainable. In 1957, George R. Bunn had introduced the Bunn-O-Matic coffee maker, but only restaurants used those multipot behemoths. Marotta’s goal was to create a countertop appliance that could heat water to 200 degrees and then pump it—one time—though a paper-filtered coffee basket. Grinding It Out Inventor Vincent Marotta (l.), shown here with Joe DiMaggio (bottom left), managed to take the technology perfected in huge, commercial coffee machines like the Bunn-O-Matic (bottom right) and fit it neatly into a countertop appliance (top.) Within a year of its launch, Mr. Coffee had revolutionized the way Americans brewed their favorite drink. “The whole idea was to mimic the best coffee methods that were previously done on commercial coffee makers,” said Dave Buck, senior manager of new product development at Mr. Coffee. He’s in a position to know. Buck’s first day with Mr. Coffee was shortly before the machine’s 1972 launch. “My first job was to take 5,000 heater elements and, by hand, bend them to the configuration necessary for the machine." With a price tag of $39.99 (about $290 today), Mr. Coffee wasn’t cheap, but the better-tasting brew converted people quickly. By 1979, Mr. Coffee was cranking out 40,000 machines a day. Without Mr. Coffee elevating Americans’ palates, Starbucks might never have caught on. Another big part of the formula was Joe DiMaggio. Marotta talked the retired Yankee into being Mr. Coffee’s TV pitchman, and once Joltin’ Joe demonstrated how easy the machine was to use, millions went out and bought one. The Espresso Lane Americans consume an estimated 400 million cups of coffee a day, but close to a third of those are espresso-based drinks. Mr. Coffee has met market demand with new machines like its Café Barista (left) and its 4-in-1 Single-Serve Latte, Iced and Hot Coffee Maker (right), which essentially makes nearly any coffee drink you’d want. Today, Mr. Coffee still makes its basic brewer, but the company's aware of where the java scene is headed. According to market researcher NPD Group, 81% of Americans made coffee at home during the pandemic (up 8% from pre-Covid times), which also bred a taste for more sophisticated varieties. Mr. Coffee responded with its 4-in-1 Single-Serve Latte, Iced and Hot Coffee Maker, which essentially functions as a hipster coffee shop in your kitchen. “It’s taking that original idea and staying current with the trends,” Buck said. Which would no doubt make Marotta (who died in 2015) proud: Boiled—and spoiled—coffee is a thing of the past. Boy Band Brew Initially reluctant to become a product endorser, Joe DiMaggio wound up doing Mr. Coffee commercials for 20 years. In the process, Mr. Coffee learned an important lesson: The right personality can sell coffee to an entire generation. Earlier this year, the company signed ’90s heartthrob AJ McLean of the Backstreet Boys—known best for their 1999 hit “I Want It That Way”—to promote its new latte machine. (Unwilling to pass up a good pun, Mr. Coffee immediately launched an #IWantItLatte sweepstakes.) Covered in tats, Backstreet’s bad boy is now 44 and married. Middle age notwithstanding, McLean assured his fans that he was “pumped to be partnering with Mr. Coffee.”

Perspective

Mr Coffee, Which Changed How Americans Caffeinate, Keeps Steaming Ahead

The little machine brought cafe-quality brew into the country's homes

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Robert Klara

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