roasted joe fair trading since 2002
about joe coffee: At the end of May, joe coffee bar closed (at 1100 Walnut Street, Philly) but we've moved into Pumpkin Market, 1610 South Street, in August, 2009. Fair trade, organic and specialty- grade coffee beans still get promoted in Philly! With your enormous support you helped me achieve my goal 8 years ago when we started--make Philly fair trade friendly. joe the coffee house closed, and we will go into another direction. Hooked on our coffee and can't let go?
*online internet store still operates
www.joecoffeebar.com using PayPal!* Pumpkin Restaurant and Pumpkin Café serve our brews; Pumpkin Market, 1610 South Street, carry the freshest fair trade coffee beans possible--ours. We're roasting there, and now you can drink the same great espresso drinks and brews you did in our coffeehouse. Check out their website: www.pumpkinphilly.com
* At the Head House Farmers' Market , 10-2 p.m., on Sundays starting MAY 2ND FOR THE FOURTH YEAR. we're selling our roasted coffee beans--see you then! America’s oldest market.*
* Metropolitan Bakery Café, 4013 Walnut Street, carry our Aztec hot chocolate drink and mix.
* Sexy Green Truck--not just any green truck! At Temple University, 13th & Montgomery, ON Montgomery about the 4th truck from the corner--been selling the best coffee on campus--OURS! Tell 'em Joe sent you.
* InFusion Coffee & Tea, 7133 Germantown Avenue in Mt. Airy. www.infusioncoffeeandtea.com Now serving our delicious Honduran full city roast, and our awesome Guatemala vienna roast. They were the SECOND fair trade coffee house to open in Philly, they're my friends, and we've been partnering on things for seven years. Say hi for me when you stop in.
* Giovanni's Room, 12th & Pine Streets, sell some of our beans, granola, and aztec hot chocolate mix. Always fresh! www.giovannisroom.com
* Greenable, 850 N. 5th Street, sell our coffee beans, granola, and aztec hot chocolate mix. Always fresh! www.greenable.net
* Mariposa Food Cooperative, 4726 Baltimore Avenue, in operation since the early 1970’s to proviude residents of West Philly and beyond with access to and info about food, especially healthy, local products www.mariposa.coop
*Food For All Collective, a collectively-run, member-owned, bulk-food buying club in South Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. More information can be found on our about page. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact them for more information.
* THE FOOD TRUST, One Penn Center
Suite 900, 1617 John F. Kennedy Blvd.,
Philadelphia, PA 19103, serving our coffee daily in their offices (leading to high-productivity!) while helping to ensure that everyone has access to affordable nutritious food. www.thefoodtrust.org
coming soon!
Four Worlds Bakery, 3642 Woodland Avenue, http://fourworldsbakery.vpweb.com/ We will be moving our soon-to-expand coffee roasting operation to FWB; and other artisans are in the works. FWB will be a busy place; basically a shared art studio making "art you can eat and drink." Opening of the store will be the culmination of all these efforts as we welcome in the public to the space so we can feed you. Gil's Canele, and Buttercream Cupcakes are moving in shortly, too. Watch for more news!
Our espresso machine is pumping out the same perfect espresso drinks you came to expect at joe, and you will be able to choose our roasted coffee French pressed for you to order, and a selection of loose teas.
Thanks for supporting small local independent businesses,
what’s behind the joe coffee and Pumpkin Market friendship:
joe coffee bar space today... thanks! We miss you, too!!
history: Just over seven years ago, joe opened. It was the first fair trade coffee house in Philadelphia. The #1 mission was to make a difference in the lives of the coffee growers and their families—and serve the best coffee we could get our hands on while informing patrons of how their purchase was ethical, fair, just—without preaching. There's five grades of coffee: from day one we only served the top grade, always fresh and always within days of roasting. Mediocre was up and down the block—I didn't think Philly needed another. Most patrons just wanted "regular coffee", unsure what fair trade meant. British, Italian, French visitors knew and wanted to have a conversation about it! Friends universally told me not to do it—"no one cares about fair trade or other people's struggles, you'll turn them off". I was convinced nothing would change unless you enlighten others: Provide a sign, literature, information. In a world of overinflated egos, the greatest lesson I learned when attending the old original Restaurant School in Philadelphia, was that food was number one—the food was the god, the chef was vehicle to get it out there. You were only as good as the last meal you served. Food was made here usually with locally-grown organic hormone-free ingredients or small local producers—not from agribusinessUSA or a nameless factory elsewhere, filled with preservatives and what-not. Nothing here was ever recalled, banned or sketchy, just wholesome. Maybe not always familiar.
As other fair trade coffee houses opened, we shared information, experiences, and networked. As a founding member of Independents Coffee Cooperative, we've grown from four to nine members with over a dozen stores in the Philadelphia metropolitan area, talking about fair trade, doing the walk and the talk. We also wanted to keep an edge over the glut of chains that appeared like tumorous growths on a hormone-stuffed bovine right before slaughter. How bad? When I opened joe there was one St*-*ucks in a 5-block radius—today there are THIRTEEN (hmmm, can't figure out why their stock dropped so quickly). Plus a three-fold increase in chain food establishments.
We wanted to be part of the community, an alternative for everyone; provide an outlet for local photographers, support non-profits around us, contribute to fundraisers the Thomas Jefferson University students who usually patronized us often had. We held keys for peoples' parents, neighbors, paramours, and friends., introduced singles to one-another, connect others for business, incubated a couple small start-up businesses. We comforted some, lent a shoulder to others. We did what we thought was the right thing to do.
When customers were upset—like us—about the aberrant direction we thought our country leaned, we signed petitions, spoke up about injustice, allowed religious affiliated people to share their experiences and photos of the missionary work they did in Iraq, Haiti, and elsewhere-often standing room-only events. Authors and a Pulitzer-prize winning local photographer, local candidates, nationally-respected news journalists and just regular folks-liberal and conservative, yes really-respecting one another's opinions and opening minds to alternatives. Health care, or the lack of it universally, was often a topic. We were interviewed, filmed, quoted often about our experiences, and the experiences of the medical professionals surrounding us. They are on the front line, wanting to help the uninsured with limited time and resources. I think we usually succeeded, but surely sometimes we fell short of our target. How open. How American.
Our customers: How the hell can someone start a business, attract the kindest, most generous, diverse, friendly, caring, funny people like those walking through our doors? I wish I knew. It is truly touching that "strangers" opened their arms daily, shared themselves and their knowledge, help, family, jokes, comfort. Local universities and schools had us on their circuit for ethical business tours. Seeing patrons return to say hi after graduation, marriage, major moves across the country—even foreign countries!—my staff and I were touched. Who got us listed in an Italian guide book?! How did a little local place like us snag a Co-op America Green Business Award in 2006? Wow.
Loyal attentive caring employees make my long, long days more tolerable, and fun. Seeing their pride in pulling perfect shots of espresso, explaining fair trade to customers, believing the mission, staying in touch after they left was gratifying.
Together with my customers, joe supported over 200 fair trade coffee producing families (collectively) by selling their fairly-produced coffee, tea, chocolate, nuts, spices, fruit (sometimes), mugs and other accessories—anything we could sell. And we did it while we recycled everything imaginable—and got a good laugh reading how the corporates said you can't cut your waste-stream by half or more.
We made a difference with you. Just by buying a cup of coffee, organic locally-grown and milled wheat flour in your banana bread, or organic fruit in granola, a mug changed peoples' lives. The students I met who said they were encouraged to volunteer, do social work or seek employment in alternative industry to make more change possible convinced me we made progress. How do you top that? Thank you all for being there.
joe@joecoffeebar.com