If Boris Yeltsin wants to take home an example of how a small-business owner gets started in a capitalist democracy, he might have a cup of coffee with a former countryman, Tony (Anatoly) Yuffa.

He's invited.

"We need to call Yeltsin this weekend to invite him over to have a cup of coffee," Yuffa said from the roasting floor of his 13-month-old Dazbog, a coffee-roasting company located in the tidy little industrial area between Interstate 25 and Santa Fe Drive, south of Colfax Avenue.

Yuffa has started two successful companies since he emigrated from Leningrad to the United States 17 years ago.

His first, Shoe Biz, was started in 1986 in Republic Plaza, where the shoe-repair and cowboy-boot retail outlet still operates. But Shoe Biz has grown to four stores now, and Yuffa and his brother, Leonid, are turning another $500,000 in revenues selling roasted coffee.

Yeltsin could call them today.

Leonid, who roasts coffee for 150 customers, said that's one of the marks of their family-based entrepreneurship: "One of the three of us is always here."

He was referring also to Simona Katz Yuffa, Tony's wife and a Denver native.

The Yuffas' story is as American as a cup of joe - which isn't really American at all, since the drink and its popularity date from Arabia in the 13th century.

Yuffa actually got a taste for coffee in Italy, at 14 years old, when he rose each morning early to work in Italian vineyards while he, Leo, a third brother and their parents waited to discover what country they would be assigned to as Russian-Jewish refugees.

They left their home in Leningrad at 4 a.m. to catch a 7:40 a.m. plane to Vienna in 1979. It was a trip they could tell no one in Russia about for fear of social, educational or employment recrimination, but all the time they planned it they were hoping to come to the United States.

They were lucky. After five months in Austria and Italy, they got their wish.

In fact, they were twice lucky. The city they came to was Denver.

Yuffa went to Hinckley High School and worked to help support his family, learned the shoe repair business in his father's shop, then started Shoe Biz. Leonid, who was 9, went to school, then worked with another startup coffee roaster, Alpine Specialty Coffee, to learn the business. Then he started Dazbog with his brother.

Not counting Dazbog, there are 11 coffee roasters listed in the Denver Yellow Pages, so it's a competitive market.

Jonathan Perry, president of Alpine Specialty Coffee and Leo's old boss, grew up in Seattle, the nation's coffee-drinking capital, so he knows there's room for more rivals in Denver than just his former employee.

"There's probably 25 independent coffee roasters there," he said. "I helped start a family member on a coffee cart and learned the business."

Someone there told him Starbucks had already set its eyes on Denver, so he and his wife came here to start their own roasting company five years ago.

Alpine Specialty Coffee hasn't grown as quickly as Dazbog, but that is by design, said Perry. "We're focusing on quality products and quality customers," he said. But even growing slowly, the company's client list is at 100, ranging from coffee carts to larger stores.

Dazbog just landed an account with Cub Foods, and its Russian-branded labels and some of its blends - the names range from Svoboda, which means freedom, to KGBlend, a secret formula - are already on Cub shelves.

In the roasting room, Tony Yuffa dips his hand in a barrel of green, unroasted beans to show off a palmful with pride.

"I love to touch them," he said, demonstrably fond of his product.

The company, with three employees besides the Yuffas, takes orders until 2 p.m., then Leo roasts the coffee in a single roaster, sometimes through the night, for morning delivery.

Yuffa says he expects to double or triple last year's half million in sales in 1997.

"Everything we thought of about America was here," he said of the opportunities Denver and the United States offered him and his family.

Yet artwork on his company's walls suggests this immigrant's homeland is hardly forgotten.

Yeltsin's and Russia's full participation in this weekend's Denver Summit of the Eight is needed, he said, to ensure further economic development.

"It's a country of a huge population. It's a country of the future, I still believe. And it's a country that needs to be included in order to prosper," he said.

"If they believe in themselves, and then go after it, I believe they could do well."

Yeltsin might do well to take him up on that cup of Joe. Robert Schwab writes about small business, minority business and women in business for The Denver Post. His column appears Saturdays. He can be reached at 820-1410, or send e-mail to business@denverpost.com and put "Schwab" in the subject field. Dazbog

Address: 1110 Yuma St., Denver Phone: 892-9999 President: Tony (Anatoly) Yuffa Employees: 6 Revenues: more than $500,000 in 1996. Caption: PHOTO: The Denver Post/Brian Brainerd Tony Yuffa, left, wife Simona, and his brother Leonid roast coffee every afternoon at their small plant at 1110 Yuma St. The owners of the 13-month-old company, Dazbog, have invited Boris Yeltsin for a cup of coffee.Copyright 1997 The Denver Post Corp. Record Number: 681740