Buster's New Coffee Roaster is Living His Dream in South Pas

Ask Jake Nelson which he loves more, coffee or the John Carpenter classic “Halloween,’’ and the wiry South Pas resident might glance at his tattoo, peruse his freshly roasted cup of joe and smile coyly. 

It’s no easy question for the Iowa native, who took a bus from his home state to South Pasadena five years ago for the 30th anniversary celebration of the “godfather of all slasher films,’’ as he called it one recent afternoon at Buster’s Coffee.

For, as any fan of the 1978 cult film will tell you, the "Myers’ house,'' where the homicidal villain "Michael'' stabbed his sister to death, is located right here on Meridian Avenue — just up the street from the popular, family-owned java house for whom Nelson is now the sole roaster.

To see more photos of Nelson, please click here for the South Pasadena Patch Facebook page. 

The 31-year-old started Jack’s Coffee Roastery in 2012. He sells his beans only to Buster's and Fiore Market Cafe, both South Pasadena businesses. 

“He was one of the weirdoes who came for the "Halloween'' convention,’’ jColette Richards joked about how the two met. Richards owns Buster's with her sisters, Renee Richards and Monica Barry.

Barry opened Buster’s in 1986 as an ice cream shop, and after Colette Richards returned from a trip to Austrailia in 1990, having seen the overseas popularity of coffee houses, the sisters opted to buy their first capaccino machine. And soon after, Buster’s became known as the hot spot for locally roasted coffees: Wilson Coffee Roasting Company and Jones Coffee Roasters. Buster's sold the local coffees for 20-plus years. 

A Passion for Coffee

It was in the 1990s that a 12-year-old Nelson visited his sister in Oregon and sipped his first latté.

Some years later, back in Iowa, he got into the coffee game, became a barista, and started to roast at home. Then he moved to Meridian Avenue — yes, across the street from the Myers' house — and became the barista for Buster’s.

“We work together really well,’’ Colette Richards said recently. “He will take ideas and work with them, and come up with his own. He has a passion and taste for what good coffee is really all about,’’ she said.

Nelson liked South Pas, right off the bus.

It had the small town feel of the fictional Haddonfield, IL. He walked from his home, where he used something akin to a popcorn maker to roast coffee, across the street to his job at Buster’s. And Richards was so pleased with customers’ repeated comments about their “fresh’’ coffee, that she cleared out the kitchen at her mom, Clara Richards’ store, Family Fair, some 100 feet away, and tasked Nelson with coming up with Buster’s new coffee menu.

Using beans from Nicaragua, Columbia, Guatamala and Ethiopia, to name a few, Nelson touts that any cup of his coffee you drink will have been roasted within the last two days. 

“Everybody should taste fresh coffee,’’ he said.

Jack-O-Lantern

Given that “Halloween’’ is his favorite movie of all time — check out the ink on his right arm of Michael Myers’ face and the rickety Myers’ home — it’s perhaps no surprise that Nelson named his company after the age-old tale of Stingy Jack. Irish folklore has it that an unscrupulous, ghostly fellow named Jack walks the earth with a lantern made of a carved-out turnip lit only by a piece of glowing coal. Over the years, lore turned the turnip into a pumpkin, and hence the dawning of the Jack-O-Lantern. 

From the moment he started working at Buster’s, Nelson said, he liked the vibe: it was family owned, artsy — the sisters often curate shows of pieces by local painters — and offer discounted, day-old sandwiches for the bargain seeking patron.

He even likes the posted signs that alert customers to the “no computers downstairs’’ rule. When a reporter asked Richards about this rule, she and Nelson answered in unison, “Because you don’t want this to turn into Starbucks.’’

Well, that begged the question: Does Nelson ever drink corporate roasted coffee?

“Only if I’m feeling nostalgic,’’ he quipped, noting he worked two years in Iowa for the Seattle-based chain. 

If John Carpenter Can Do It…

It’s a competitive market right now for independent roasters. But Nelson feels confident his java will hold its own against the likes of Intelligentsia and Handsome Coffee. One main difference, he said, is price. At Buster’s, a cup of his coffee starts at $1.25. From there it jumps to $2 for 12 ounces, $2.25 for 16 ounces and $2.65 for 20 ounces.

Plus, Nelson said, he’s a fan of the underdog.

“I mean in 1978 [director] John Carpenter…had a very small budget and basically made a classic for pennies. The budget was so low that they didn't have enough money to pay a [special effects]  company to make a mask so they went out to a regular Halloween store and bought a William Shatner (Captain Kirk) mask, cut the eye holes out, and painted it white,’’ he said.

Viola! Michael Myers.

Additionally, Nelson pointed out, Carpenter wrote the score and the screenplay.

“It really is inspiring to me because it's a model that you can still do something great even when you don't have all the means in the world to do it,’’ he said.

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