Not because the coffee is particularly revolutionary, but because the drive-up kiosk is staffed by women wearing lingerie — except on Tuesdays and Thursdays when they wear pasties.

Why set up a coffee kiosk where women in skimpy outfits sell coffee? It’s simple according to the owners:

“Because we knew it would make a lot of money,” said co-owner Mariah Doom as she stood in full — or maybe minimal — regalia in the kiosk on a recent afternoon.

So far business has been great, with cars often lined up into the street, she said, a boom box blaring dance music in the stuffy kiosk.

“Some people are surprised because they don’t know it’s a lingerie coffee shop,” Doom said. “I’m not sure how because you can see the signs. Some people don’t even want to look at you; they’re like ‘Oh, my God.’”

She says working at the kiosk is “super fun,” but she also said that the door and windows lock, the building is equipped with an alarm system and the baristas keep mace handy.

Some community members have voiced disapproval of the business, suggesting the operation is in poor taste and too close to neighboring Smith Elementary School, which is about a quarter mile away, but Doom says she’s only had one rude customer.

Jilyn Oliveira, the principal of Smith who is on maternity leave, and Russ Van Hook, the acting principal of the school, said through a school representative Monday that they had not heard any complaints about Natte Latte from parents.

According to City Manager Ron Alles and City Attorney Jeff Hindoien, the business does not violate any Montana laws, city ordinances or zoning rules.

Specifically, Natte Latte does not fit the city’s definition of a “sexually oriented business.”

Helena City Code 11-2-4, which defines land use for zoning districts, states under the “sales” category that a sexually oriented business is an operation that “primarily offers goods, services and entertainment for compensation that appeal to the prurient interest of adults, including escort agencies, nude modeling studios, sexual encounter centers and related services.”

Hindoien said Monday that the fact that the employees of Natte Latte wear lingerie at work is beside the point.

“From the standpoint of the city’s zoning ordinance, that is correct,” he said. “It was presented to us as what it is — a drive-thru coffee operation.”

“It’s compliant with our zoning regulations,” Alles said Monday of the business. “Our job is to create the statutes, their (Natte Latte’s) job is to follow the laws we create, and to date they’ve done that.”

Alles said that he had not been contacted directly with complaints about Natte Latte, but that his office has received a “mixed bag” of comments for and against the business.

Natte Latte co-owner Kyle Nelson, who also owns Dermawerx, a tattoo and piercing parlor in Helena, says he got the idea for the coffee kiosk while he was living and working as a tattoo artist in Bremerton, Wash.

Nelson recalls that a repeat customer who appeared as if she “didn’t have nothing” came to get a tattoo from him after getting breast enhancement surgery. When he asked her where she got the money to pay for the breast implants, she told him, to his surprise, that she made the money working at a coffee kiosk.

About a month later, he visited the coffee kiosk and was amazed to see the woman driving a Mercedes.

“That right there was game winning,” he said while sitting in the office of his tattoo parlor. “So the concept came from that.”

He said that the permitting process for Natte Latte was remarkably easy, but that despite the heavy customer traffic the business isn’t especially profitable yet because he financed the operation himself.

Nelson says he needs to make more money to support Doom and himself and their new baby. Natte Latte will allow them to spend more time with their kids and raise a family without paying for day care, he said.

“I’m not here on this earth to make a profit and get all these toys and stuff. I’m actually here, I feel, to help people,” he said, mentioning the recent breast cancer awareness fundraisers he’s held at Dermawerx.

As to people who say that Natte Latte is in poor taste, Nelson, who says he isn’t a church-going man, indicated the tattoo on his neck above his Adam’s apple, which references Matthew 7:1-2.

“Do not judge, for the measure you judge will be measured to you. Do not take the toothpick out of your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own,” he said, recalling the passage from the Gospel of Matthew. “And that’s straight from scripture, and here they are pointing fingers at us saying we’re bad.”