CARLSBAD - There are usually only a few things moving in Carlsbad Village at 4:25 each morning.

The fat beach squirrels popping their heads out from under the coastline's large stones. The waves skittering back and forth on the sand. And Glen Moeller, the early-morning Starbucks regular who swung into the coffee shop five minutes before it opened each day to greet the gals behind the counter.

"He was a fixture for a lot of us, someone we always expected to see," said Andrea Doty, who has worked at the downtown Starbucks on Carlsbad Boulevard for eight years. Moeller visited the store almost every morning in the three years before he passed away earlier this month. "He was really quiet, kind and helpful. He was everyone's friend."

Moeller started popping into the store about three years ago, after he lost his wife of 58 years, Doty said. He'd bring in articles printed out from the Internet, especially ones that mentioned Starbucks.

"Stock prices, company news, anything he thought we might be interested in," said Doty.

The coffee shop wasn't the only place Moeller spread news he'd researched on the Web, neighbor Rosemarie Toland said. He was interested in whatever his friends or neighbors were up to, and often brought articles or other research to friends.

"I was having trouble with my computer once, and he printed out a bunch of stuff and brought it over," Toland said. "If there was anyone who needed anything, he'd do it."

Moeller was born on July 6, 1924, in Grand Island, Neb., on a family farm where waking up early was not optional. He attended the University of Nebraska for a short time before being drafted into World War II, where he served in England. He met Valerie Nippress there, and soon after, she became his bride.

The couple moved back to Nebraska and then to California, where he worked for Firestone Tire Company while attending night accounting classes at USC. He became an accountant, and later owned a pizza parlor before moving to Carlsbad in the mid-1980s.

There, he continued his early-morning farm ways, waking up around 3 a.m. and figuring out ways to be useful to others, Doty said. He was a member of Bethlehem Lutheran church in Encinitas.

When Moeller fell ill last month, his friends from Starbucks visited him at his bedside just about every day, Toland said.

"He had his own community there," she said of the coffee shop.

That community honored Moeller's April 3 death shortly after he passed away. They gathered at his Starbucks to remember him.

The service was held -- when else? -- at 4:30 a.m.

His family and friends suggested donations in Moeller's honor to the San Diego Zoological Society or any hospice organization.

- Contact staff writer Erin Schultz at (760) 739-6644 or eschultz@nctimes.com.