Jittery Joe’s coffee roaster Charlie Mustard operates the coffee roaster inside the old Roaster building located at 780 E. Broad St. Mustard uses his skill set to roast the variety of Jittery Joe’s’ coffee profiles.
By ETHAN CRANE – Variety Editor
In response to an impending development, the Jittery Joe’s Roaster was forced to move from its historic downtown location.
Jittery Joe’s Roasting Company co-owner Bob Googe woke up on Oct. 16, 2011 to find an article in the Athens Banner Herald detailing a new mixed-use development in downtown Athens. The building of the Jittery Joe’s Roaster would be demolished to make way.
“I look in the newspaper and there’s this article that says ‘new Walmart coming to downtown’ and where it’s going to be and what buildings are going to be torn down and (Jittery Joe’s) was one of them,” Googe said. “That was the very first (I heard) of it and I was like, ‘What?’”
The development, headed by Atlanta-based Selig Enterprises and located on the Armstrong & Dobbs tract between E. Broad and Oconee streets, faced fierce community resistance. Grassroots organizations such as People for a Better Athens held rallies in attempts to block the project. They were specifically opposed to a Walmart — the original intended anchor store — opening downtown.
The new Roaster features a concrete floor which allows the building to house the new, larger coffee roaster and increase the amount of coffee palettes that can be stored in the building.
“(Selig) met with us and apologized that we found out (through the ABH), but we don’t own the building so they had no obligation to tell us,” Googe said. “They didn’t really know how much people liked Jittery Joe’s in town and how much a part of the community we are. They didn’t really expect the reaction they got, and they got a pretty negative reaction.”
After multiple commission hearings, town hall meetings and plan revisions, Selig was given the green light by the Athens-Clarke County Commission in July. Walmart was dropped as a possible anchor store, the ultimate goal for many activists, and the total amount of commercial space had nearly been halved from 200,000 square feet to 102,000.
But Jittery Joe’s still needed to find a new home.
“We looked at dozens and dozens of places. We actually had a lease on a place at the edge of the county but the more we thought about it we realized we consider ourselves to be in Athens,” Googe said. “We realized we need to be where people can walk to us, where the community knows where we are. We have that on Barber Street.”
Operations began at the Roaster’s new location on Oct. 7. The new facilities will continue to house both roasting operations and a tasting room.
Googe says the character of the Broad Street location, something he attributes to increased coffee sales, is one of the biggest losses.
View Relocating the Roaster in a larger map
“It took us years to get (the old) place kind of funky, from the handmade doors to the stained glass windows, and it’ll be the same with the new place. We’ll just do it over time,” Googe said. “It’s kind of gotten its own personality that when new wholesale potential customers come they relax and enjoy it.”
Googe’s younger daughter, sophomore Nicole Googe, has many fond memories of the unique Broad Street building.
“I would go with my dad and I would always jump on the bags of coffee in the back, because they all seemed so tall and far apart,” Nicole said. “The Roaster was also storage for a life size chess set at one point, and I went with my father and sister and ran around moving chess pieces.”
On Oct. 29, nearly two years after the debut of the Armstrong & Dobbs development, a press release issued by spokesman Brian Broderick of public relations firm Jackson Spalding said Selig would no longer pursue a project in downtown Athens for the time being.
“I feel badly for Selig. However, I am also frustrated about the hundreds of hours and tens of thousands of dollars that Jittery Joe’s has now, in essence, wasted,” Googe said. “It will be years before the benefits begin to outweigh the costs.”
But Googe and coffee roaster Charlie Mustard, among others, see positives that made the move worthwhile.
“It’s a really cool neighborhood and there are a number of different galleries and studios right next to us, and over there we’ll have tons of parking,” Mustard said. “But letting people know where we are will be a big thing. We’ve been here 15 years and people will keep coming (to Broad Street) and say ‘Where’d they go?’”
Googe and Mustard hope to retain many familiar elements of the Broad Street location to keep a consistent personality for the Roaster while also planning an improved workflow system within the building.
The tasting room of the Broad Street Roaster serves coffee, tea and other drinks like Jittery Joe’s stores around Athens.
“The thing that will be helpful is (Broad Street) sort of grew organically and we’ll be able to be more intentional in the new space,” Googe said. “From the beginning, we’ll be able to lay all the product out so it’ll be efficient, easy and safe for everyone who works there.”
The Barber Street location includes a new, larger coffee roaster that the wooden floor at Broad Street would not have been able to support. This roaster will maximize coffee production and storage space.
“The busiest summer we’ve ever had (was in 2013). It is going to save me a lot of time,” Mustard said. “For example, what I can do in three and a half to four hours on (the old) roaster, I can do in an hour and fifteen minutes on (the new) roaster.”
The increase in the roasting machine’s capacity — roughly six times larger than the current machine — will ease the workload entering fall and winter, the busiest time of year for Jittery Joe’s, according to Googe and Mustard.
“After Thanksgiving we roast seven days a week, 20 hours a day until the week before Christmas,” Googe said. “So the last thing we really wanted was to move our business entering the busiest time of the year, but that’s what we ended up doing.”
The Roaster’s new location also includes an expanded parking lot that will make hosting community events, such as coffee education nights and concerts, easier. The Broad Street location featured essentially no parking for visitors.
The Roaster moved to its new location at 465 Barber St. on Oct. 7. “We decided to go with this Quonset hut- it kind of looks like half a barrel. We’re going to do a ton of work to it,” Googe said.
“We’ve been in a constant battle with the people next door (on Broad Street) over parking for a number of years. You can park a fleet of buses at our new place,” Googe said. “So we’re hoping to have tasting nights where we roast two, three, four different coffees and Charlie, our coffee roaster, can come in and invite people from the community to taste coffees and learn about the roasting process.”
Although Googe and Mustard are both optimistic about the move, both say the sentimental value of the old space makes it hard to leave.
“There are a lot of great memories down here. I hate to be leaving,” Googe said. “We’ve had concerts down here, we’ve had weddings down here. Rose of Athens did their very first production in our Roaster. When Katie, my eldest daughter, graduated last year we had her graduation party down here and we had people coming in from all over the country.”
Mustard’s son, senior Blake Mustard, sees the move as a chance for Jittery Joe’s’ business to grow as well as something beneficial for his father.
“I’m excited about it. There are a lot of connections to the old building and a lot of good stories. But there will be good stories in the new building, too,” Blake said. “(My father) loves working next to the railroad tracks. He said it was his favorite place to work, so I think that’s a big positive for him.”
The front porch of the Broad Street location is only one of the unique additions to the building. “We’ve spent about fifteen years making this place what it is, from the handmade doors inside to the stained glass,” Jittery Joe’s Roasting Company co-owner Bob Googe said. “We’ve got to start all over on that stuff (on Barber Street). But we’ll be able to move in and roast immediately.”
Despite the tough circumstances, Googe accepts the move and seizes the opportunity to make it a constructive experience for Jittery Joe’s.
“In some sense you have to think ‘Okay we have to move, so there’s no sense in dwelling on why we don’t want to move.’ We did everything we could to stay, but now that we can’t stay, we sort of have to turn the corner. Otherwise we’re just wasting emotional energy for nothing,” Googe said. “I might as well think, ‘Alright, how can I make the next thing as good as possible?’”
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