Remember the old Disney cartoon where Mickey is floating through the air, drifting on a current of smell, the cooling pie on the window luring him by the nose? A similar phenomenon is occurring in downtown Kirkland. On any given Monday or Thursday, resident noses follow the rich aroma of freshly roasting coffee at Caffe Rococo on Park Lane.

This particular end of Park Lane, near the four-way stop, can be a tricky spot to entice customers.

“This has always been a fairly quiet corner of Kirkland,” said owner and roaster Adam Olsen. “People sort of stop at Cactus. [Business owners] were very excited ... for an excuse for visitors and residents to come down to the end of the street.”

Olsen discovered his passion for coffee after spending some time as a restaurant manager. He and his wife bucked the current trend of “careers first, start a family later,” choosing to start their family early in their 20s. With its long hours, restaurant management “is not family-friendly,” said Olsen, a long-time Kirkland resident and father of three.

As he left the restaurant scene, several options were open to Olsen, who chose coffee “because it is a craft, more so than anything else I could get into.” His business partner and high school friend Kent Beidel approached him about starting a coffee shop, utilizing Olsen’s restaurant experience to create a successful business.

Before Caffe Rococo opened in September 2010, Olsen was primarily a coffee roaster, working out of a warehouse and distributing his coffee wholesale to independent coffee shops, boutique hotels, and restaurants. So why open a coffee house in Kirkland?

“It was serendipitous,” says Olsen. “We had a wholesale on Lake Street. Unfortunately, that went out of business, but that opened the door ... there are a lot of coffee houses in Kirkland, but there’s not a ‘second place’ that is open to the community, a comfortable place where you can be all day ... that’s the environment I was really going for.”

The idea of a “second place” is the very foundation of Caffe Rococo, where the coffee is great, a “prerequisite in Seattle,” but where the primary product is culture.

“Coffee is just the delivery,” Olsen stated. Caffe Rococo engages the community in a number of ways.

On Friday nights, musician Rob Gregerson entertains customers with his guitar and his personality. Coffee tastings with food pairings (like chocolate) are on the way. Caffe Rococo is hosting a book signing this month. And in lieu of hanging rotating art, it honors its regulars with a photo on the wall.

Olsen had intended to hang photos of family and friends only, but says they were “overwhelmed with participation.” He originally bought 74 frames but now has photos for 212. It's a “good problem to have,” said Olsen. “We’ll probably have to wrap the frames all the way around the back wall.”

Even the coffee roaster itself attracts customers. Curious visitors are welcome to check out the sleek silver roaster, stepping behind the glass enclosure to get an education. The roaster produces eight pounds of finished coffee per batch. Olsen tastes each roast (a process called cupping) before shipping it out to ensure a high-quality product. In addition to picking up some beans inside, customers from around the country can order freshly roasted coffee online through the Rococo Coffee Roasting website.

While roasting is a craft, pouring a beautiful latte is an art form. Olsen and employee Jake Grahn had an impromptu barista competition, aiming to impress with their milk foam designs. Grahn finished first, upstaging his boss with a petite flower design floating atop the latte.

Grahn loves to cheer up customers with his latte art. His most elaborate creation to date was Einstein's face, though he is also proud of a skull and crossbones designed for a fire chief’s substantial quadruple tall latte order.

Apparently, the most popular drink at any coffee house is the double-tall latte. Grahn prefers the double-short latte, employee Geoff Steiner likes the cafe con panna, and Olsen sticks with his daily half-cup of the Ethiopian Yirgacheffe, a Roaster’s Choice Award finalist. Olsen laughs about being the coffee roaster who only consumes a half-cup a day.

“I’m high strung by nature, wound up and excitable all the time,” he explained. In fact, that’s how Caffe Rococo got its name. “I was Googling personality traits for myself, one of which was a word meaning ‘to over design something’ ... in the art world saying something is ‘rococo’ is actually a negative connotation. I could spend all day figuring out how to do a five-minute task.”

Caffe Rococo, however, conjures up other descriptive words like community, warmth, and a sort of “Cheer’s-like” feeling. In an effort to be family-friendly, Caffe Rococo offers a free kid’s cocoa with a purchase. Olsen has a great respect for “all the hard-working moms,” claiming that the free cocoa is there at his wife’s insistence.

“I have a good wife,” Olsen said. “As much time as I spend here, she’s home working just as hard.”

Perhaps Kirkland has Mrs. Olsen to thank for the welcoming “second place” of Caffe Rococo. “Behind every good man,” as they say.