Top Shelf Coffee owner scores with NBA, looks for a jolt from lenders

By Ed Runyan

WARREN — In the last five months, Jordan Filippidis has received a $50,000 loan from Warren, purchased additional equipment and taken on several new accounts for his Top Shelf Coffee, but he’s not satisfied to stop there.

On Tuesday, Filippidis received a visit from Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher, a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate, to discuss other ways to get the capital he needs for further expansion.

Filippidis has a contract with the National Basketball Association that allows him to sell his Colombian Supremo Blend Gourmet coffee with NBA graphics on the packaging.

He also has agreements with the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers and Philadephia 76ers and NHL’s Philadelphia Flyers to sell his coffee with their graphics on the packaging and eventually sell the coffee in their team shops.

He also recently received orders to produce the coffee with the NBA graphics in Discount Drug Marts and about 100 Walgreens stores in Northeast Ohio, Filippidis said.

He now has five employees but believes the business could expand to 30 or more if he could secure the money to buy licensing agreements with the 28 other NBA teams. Each team charges $5,000 for the right to use its graphics, meaning he needs $140,000 to enter those markets.

“If I had the money, I would be with each one right now,” Filippidis said.

Filippidis, who has been in the coffee business about 16 years and has a factory on Griswold Street Northeast, received a $50,000 loan from the city that enabled him to purchase a $95,000 packaging machine earlier this year.

The city is allowing him to use the money interest-free, along with an additional $45,000 he borrowed earlier, while he gets the NBA part of his business up and running. He isn’t being asked to repay those two loans yet, said Mayor Michael O’Brien.

Filippidis used about $70,000 of his own money to purchase other equipment needed to sell coffee in the type of packaging needed for coffee displays. Before his NBA contract, Filippidis sold his coffee to coffee shops, restaurants and food-service operations in about 12 Northeast Ohio counties.

But reductions in the work force at Delphi Packard Electric and General Motors have reduced his sales volume in the last couple years and made it hard for Filippidis to qualify for a conventional bank loan, he said.

Fisher, who stopped at Top Shelf at the urging of Jim Graham, president of the United Auto Workers Local 1112 at the General Motors plant in Lordstown, said he would talk to representatives of several agencies about loan possibilities for Filippidis.

“I don’t know if it will be successful, but I guarantee I will talk to them,” Fisher said of the U.S. Small Business Administration, Ohio Department of Development, Ohio Treasurer’s office and one or more banks.

“I thank you for what you’re doing for the Valley, for the people who are working for you,” Fisher said.

“In this recession, we need to send the message that the future of American industry is the small business,” Fisher said.

Fisher said the Strickland administration has talked to banks about their current lending strategy, which has swung from being overly free and easy to too restrictive.

“We’re working with banks in Ohio. Whether they got TARP [federal Troubled Asset Relief Program] funds or not, they need to start lending,” Fisher said.

“Over the next month what we’re going to try to do is take the opportunity with the NBA and put you on the map nationally to take advantage of that contract,” Fisher said.

Filippidis said his “books don’t look too good” because of reduced business the last two years, and he has been turned down about three different times for a small-business loan.

“With all due respect to banks, I hear from a lot of small businesses who say, ‘I’ve never missed a payment and I still can’t get a loan,’ and that’s wrong,” Fisher said.

runyan@vindy.com