Juan Valdez - coming to a coffee shop near you

Reuters reports that Juan Valdez is taking on Starbucks in NYC.

Colombian coffee icon Juan Valdez will lead his country's growers' federation into Manhattan on Tuesday to open its first New York coffee shop, and market watchers are wondering whether the challenge to Starbucks Corp. will amount to a hill of beans.
The National Federation of Colombian Coffee Growers plans to open its first Juan Valdez coffee shop at Lexington Avenue and 57th St. on Tuesday in a modest challenge to Starbuck's dominance of the gourmet coffee shop market.

This isn't the first coffee shop for Juan either. In December 2002, The National Federation of Coffee Growers of Colombia opened its first "Juan Valdez" Coffee shop in the Bogota airport.

(there's more to read)

At www.friendsofjuan.com they mention that the Juan Valdez Café will also be opening in Washington, D.C. this year. "Each Juan Valdez Cafe will serve the best of what Juan and the Colombian Coffee farmers have to offer. All of Juan's friends will be able to kick back and savor new exclusive Colombian specialty coffee blends."

Their new campaign, lifestyle focused print ads, is currently running in InStyle, Entertainment Weekly, People, Rolling Stone, US Weekly, Food and Wine, and Gourmet magazines.

If you can't see the copy on the ad, it says "[3658 miles from the coffee fields of the Colombian Andes. But still the perfect climate for Colombian Coffee.]"

We reported back in May 2003 that the Colombian coffee growers had decided to bring back Juan. Juan Valdez was 'born' back in 1959 at DDB. In 2003, Juan Valdez made a cameo appearance in the film Bruce Almighty starring Jim Carrey in which he pours the lead character a cup of coffee.