{"id":24349,"date":"2021-05-04T17:00:43","date_gmt":"2021-05-05T00:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/hi-lo\/?p=30000019957"},"modified":"2021-05-06T16:21:25","modified_gmt":"2021-05-06T23:21:25","slug":"pops-java-queen-mary-downtown-coffee-allanach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/hi-lo\/pops-java-queen-mary-downtown-coffee-allanach","title":{"rendered":"New coffee shop Pop’s Java pays tribute to father who rode in on the Queen Mary 84 years ago"},"content":{"rendered":"

Three months ago, Jake Allanach realized his dream of opening up his own coffee shop. But for the first-time business owner and proprietor of Pop’s Java in Downtown, his new shop is more than just coffee, it\u2019s a symbol of his love and admiration for his father.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy dad passed away 10 years ago of prostate cancer and my dream for the past seven years was to open a coffee shop in memory of him,\u201d the 39-year-old explained.<\/p>\n

Allanach comes from a family of commercial fishermen, both his grandfather and father were swordfish anglers who charted a boat out of Newport Harbor. As such, it seemed natural to give his shop a nautical theme. From the blue-and-gray color scheme, to the overhead lamps wrapped in fishing net, to the corrugated metal lining the exterior of counter, the entire space is a tribute to seaworthy craft.<\/p>\n

Though, perhaps the most creative testament lies within the shop\u2019s original recipes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to come up with names that were associated with commercial swordfishing or fishing in general,\u201d Allanach said.<\/p>\n

The Purple Fever latte, which is lavender flavored, sweetened with agave and frothed with oat milk, is a callback to a common swordfish-related term. The flank of the massive fish, Allanach said, glistens purple in the sunlight.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you hear ‘purple fever’ within the fishing community, everybody knows what you\u2019re talking about. It\u2019s the ultimate game,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The latte Elvis Is in the Building comes from a popular phrase fisherman would say over the radio when they spotted a swordfish on the water, Allanach said. The drink is made from a non-alcoholic rum infused with simple syrup, sweetened with agave and steamed with whole milk.<\/p>\n

Why rum? It was a favorite liquor of Elvis Presley, Allanach said.<\/p>\n

The Opah latte\u2014flavored with his mother\u2019s pistachio and spiced pecan syrups and steamed with whole milk\u2014is named after the fish Allanach said he\u2019s fond of catching, Opah, also known as moonfish.<\/p>\n

All of Pop’s Javas\u2019 coffee and espresso are sourced locally from Black Ring Coffee Roasters in North Long Beach, where Allanach said he \u201cfell in love\u201d with their rich yet smooth roasts. Most of the syrups used to flavor and sweeten are made in-house by his mother, Ann Allanach, who also works behind the counter. The pair currently live together in Downtown, not far from their shop at 449 E. Broadway.<\/p>\n

A professed kombucha fanatic himself, Allanach\u2019s shop is also a kombucha bar and boasts eight choices of the beverage, in addition to two nitro cold brews. The kombucha is sourced from Tap Shack out of Ocean Beach in San Diego. The couple who own the business, Allanach said, drive up once a week to drop off cases of the tart, fermented drink.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Jack Allanach and Ann Allanach at Pop\u2019s Java in Long Beach Wednesday, April 28, 2021. Photo by Thomas R. Cordova.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Allanach said he\u2019s still fine-tuning what drinks to have on his menu and experiments weekly with new recipes. One that regulars have dubbed the \u201ccinnamon roll\u201d is made from vanilla nitro cold brew, almond milk and a cinnamon simple syrup.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got to find a fishy name for that,\u201d Allanach said.<\/p>\n

Allanach\u2019s background in coffee started a little later than most, with the bulk of his research conducted during 2020\u2014though he did work as a Starbucks barista for several years as a teenager.<\/p>\n

A businessman first and foremost, Allanach left his job as executive vice president for Disruptive Drinkware, a stainless-steel bottle company, at the beginning of 2020.<\/p>\n

Though he appreciated his tutelage under Disruptive Drinkware owner Fred Smith of the Smith\u2019s Food and Drug grocery chain in Utah, who Allanach said taught him nearly everything he knows about business, he grew tired of the industry.<\/p>\n

It was a slow build, Allanach described, that ultimately led him to take the plunge and open his coffee shop. In the years following his father\u2019s death, Allanach would take his boat out to the 14-mile bank, a stretch of ocean between Dana Point and Catalina that was formerly a hot spot for commercial fisherman.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also where Allanach spread his father\u2019s ashes. Finally, one day when he was visiting his father along the southern tip of the bank, he decided he was going to sell his boat and start saving. By January 2020, he was ready.<\/p>\n

\u201c[I knew] it had to be in the right area, with the right story,\u201d Allanach explained. \u201cAfter my father passed, my mom showed me all these articles she had collected of my father and I said, ‘We\u2019ve got to do it in Long Beach.’\u201d<\/p>\n

In July of 1937, Allanach\u2019s father, Jack Walter Allanach was the subject of much press attention for his five-and-a-half day journey from London to New York on the Queen Mary. He was only four years old.<\/p>\n

When Jack Walter Allanach was 2 he had been sent to live with his grandparents in London. His grandmother was a Swedish chef and his grandfather an English butler for a very wealthy Standard Oil heir. He lived contentedly there for two years before his grandparents decided to send him back to the U.S. as the Nazi presence in Europe was gaining traction.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 1937, that\u2019s when Hitler started bouncing around Europe and that\u2019s when his grandparents said, I think we need to get you back to the United States,\u201d Allanach explained.<\/p>\n

Press got word of Jack Allanach\u2019s imminent journey on the historic liner and, as it\u2019s often said of the press, they had a field day.<\/p>\n

Encased behind glass near the entrance of Pop’s Java are a dozen worn and faded news clippings and photos of 4-year-old Jack Allanach. Headlines read: \u201cBoy Makes 6-Day Trip From London,\u201d \u201cA Globe-Trotting Four-Year-Old\u201d and \u201cCalifornia Boy, 4, Hastens Home Alone From London.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"
The glass display of news clippings featuring Jack Walter Allanach’s journey on the Queen Mary in 1937. Photo by Cheantay Jensen.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

That last headline, Jake Allanach said, was a little misleading\u2014his father did have a nurse traveling with him. By the end of his travel back to his father in California, which some news outlets followed, Allanach said his father was quite exhausted from the press. He didn\u2019t understand all the fuss.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy father had grown up on boats, since his father was a commercial fisherman, and he just thought the Queen Mary was another ferryboat,\u201d Jake Allanach said.<\/p>\n

The rest of Jack Walter Allanach\u2019s life was left out of the media spotlight. For many years he worked as a commercial fisherman until the 1970s, when the market starting outsourcing fish from cheaper waters overseas, Allanach said.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnless you owned a cannery, there wasn\u2019t much money in it,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

His father later started his own tax consulting business until he retired, but always made the time to go fishing with his son.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a lot of traits from him, where he\u2019s a numbers guy and he was willing to take chances in life when it came to business and things of that nature,\u201d Allanach said. \u201cI think he\u2019d be very proud of what we\u2019re doing in memory of him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pop’s Java is open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. Pop’s Java is at 449 E. Broadway.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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