Our History
The True History of Bean's Café
By Leesie "Bean" Ballew
I was nicknamed "Bean" when I was just a few days old. When I was six, my mom bought our first truck, a blue ford pickup we named Tucker. We lived in Boston then; I was in first grade and she was teaching Greek philosophy at Boston College. In June, when school was out, we put a camper top on the back of Tucker and lots of Red Sox stickers on his bumper and drove all the way from Boston to Alaska. It was a great adventure.
The back of Tucker was my little kingdom. I had my toys, books, drawing tablets, and crayons, and lots of pillows on the mattress that we slept on when we camped. Most important, I had control of our food supply: the cooler and the food box. When we got hungry, I would push open the sliding windows, lean through to the front of the truck, and announce: "Bean's Café is open for business! May I take your order?" I would write down what Mom wanted to eat, fix it for her, and serve her in the front with a bill for her meal that said "Bean's Café thanks you for your business!" Little did I know that my game would grow up with in a few years to become a cherished Anchorage institution. The year was 1977.
Mom and I both fell in love with Alaska - so much so that we drove Tucker back up to Alaska to stay the very next year. Mom had already volunteered for three years at Haley House, a soup kitchen in Boston's south End, as she knew from our Alaska trip that Anchorage did not have a place for its street people to eat, rest, read, shower, watch TV, make phone calls, or just relax. So, using Haley House as her model, she was determined to set up a place as soon as she could - and to name it Bean's Café…
From Dream to Reality
First Mom talked to dozens of people, everyone she could find who might have ideas or advice about the best way to get Bean's started. Then, in early 1979, she signed a five year lease on a little empty warehouse downtown, right across from the Sheraton hotel. The next week we opened the doors of the warehouse so anyone could come in and help out - with furniture, supplies, equipment, food, paint, music, or jokes - and come they did. The first helpers were the very street people whose place Bean's was created to be - and people from all over the world were soon coming in, to visit, eat, rest, help organize, or bring donations.
I remember especially a Tibetan lama holy man, an antique piano, Hefty bags full of day-old donuts my mom would pick up from Dunkin' Donuts every morning at 6, and the way the orange boots and table (which had originally furnished the Sheffield House coffee shop) clashed with the maroon carpet (from the floor of the Holiday Inn dining room). I remember lots of nice folks from the health department and from unions - carpenters, plumbers, electricians, sheet metal workers. I remember learning the play pinochle with the Beaners, serving coffee donated by Café del Mundo and the Marx Brothers Café, and making friends with just about everybody. Most of all, I remember feeling safe and cozy: no one had to worry about anyone getting out of line. Mom said it was because the Beaners realized it was their own place, and they made sure that nobody spoiled the peaceful atmosphere they had created.
It wasn't long before Bean's outgrew the warehouse, even transformed as it was into a multipurpose center with restrooms, a kitchen, an office, and a supply room. Thanks to the support of hundreds of Alaskans, Bean's relocated in 1985 to a brand new, much larger building with facilities, programs, and services that we could only dream of in the early days. But when I visit Bean's Café now, I still see some of the same kind and gentle faces of those who taught me how to play pinochle 20 years ago, and I remember how a common vision for a welcoming place brought so many together to keep Bean's Café open for business.
Leesie "Bean" Ballew, wrote this history commemorating Bean's Café's 20th anniversary in 1999. She is now 31, living in Seattle with a 7 year old daughter of her own, and working as a graphic artist and designer. Her mom, Lynn Ballew, lives in Anchorage and has opened a non-profit motel, Safe Harbor Inn, which is the only one in this country for homeless families and people with disabilities.