I drink Peet’s coffee. There is none better. I enjoy several Peet’s coffees, but am partial to Arabian Mocha Sanani. Before I moved to the Bay Area 13 years ago, I thought Starbucks was as good as it got, but I’ve never bought a single bag of Starbucks since discovering Peet’s.

Despite the fact that the CEO’s wife was part of the communications practice I managed while I was at Alexander & Alexander Consulting Group, I didn’t know that much about the company’s history. Until Monday, that is, when I read that Alfred Peet, the fellow who started the company, had died peacefully at the age of 87. (In the newspaper obit, I learned, for example, that the founders of Starbucks came down to Berkeley so they could spend time with Peet and learn all they could from him; he also provided Starbucks with beans in their early days.)

Today, I received an email from Peet’s (I signed up for their email mailing list some time ago) directing me to a blog the company started just so customers could leave messages of tribute to the company’s late founder. The blog was launched on August 30; it already has 250-some-odd comments.

The blog isn’t the extent of the company’s tribute to its founder. According to the email:

A framed photo of Mr. Peet and the memorial will be placed in the four stores that he opened before retiring???Vine Street, Menlo Park, Piedmont and Domingo???along with Solano where many of his customers still live. Through this memorial and blog, we wish to invite our customers to share their memories and pay tribute to Mr. Peet. We have also placed a leather scrapbook in the Vine Street store in his honor, should customers want to drop by and write a note or share a photo.

The chain has grown to 150 stores nationwide, 96 in California, since Peet retired.

It’s interesting to see a company that has managed to create strong ties with its customer base use a mixture of channels—online and in-store—to celebrate the connection and let customers express themselves. The seamless blending of a blog with a leather book at the first store suggests that the line between social media and old-fashioned communication may be starting to erode.

Now, I’m gonna go brew myself some Peet’s and read some of the comments left to the blog.