Appendix E-J

For many years now, musician friends have come up from Denver to play at Everyday Joe’s or friends from Fort Collins have moved to Denver. Now, though, the good people of D-Town may just be talking about this place at 144 S. Mason.

I got a text message yesterday morning from an old vounteer-turned-Denverite. “Everyday Joe’s made the Denver Post,” it read. “Shout out about joes in the A&E section.”

“Whaaaaaaaa?” I replied.

I bought a paper yesterday for the first time in at least 2 years. I turned to the A&E section and read a well-written piece by Mr. Ricardo Baca concerning the music coming out of what he called The Great North Of Fort Collins. Part of the reasoning given for the great music…the great venues. And oh yeah…Everyday Joe’s is a venue.

There are very kind words there from very kind people: Jon Alonzo and Danielle Ate The Sandwich.

“My favorite place to play in Colorado is Everyday Joe’s,” said Danielle Anderson, better known as Danielle Ate the Sandwich, a mostly solo folk act with more than 3.5 million YouTube views and a No. 5 peak on the iTunes singer- songwriter chart. “It’s such a quiet room, and the people — the Fort Collins people, who are my people — are good people.”

If you want to read our dear friend Jon’s kind words, please read the rest of the story over at the Post’s site.

Daneille’s words, though, talk about the good Fort Collins people. You are good people. We could not agree with her more. We’ve been saying this a lot lately, but it is worth repeating: thank you for being our community. Thank you for allowing us to be part of your community. It is an honor we take seriously.

You are so very, very snazzy.

Popularity: 44% [?]

It’s hard to believe Everyday Joe’s has been open for 7.5 years. Over the majority of those years, we have hosted at least 2 shows a week: on Friday and Saturday nights. However, with changes to the music scene, vision of the use of the space at 144 S. Mason, revised thinking concerning the stewardship of volunteer resources, and a handful of other things…we have decided to cut back from 8-10 events per month to 4-6 events per month. We desire the events we do host to be a service to the community, to the musicians playing the shows, to be energizing to the volunteers running the building that night, and to be enjoyable to you. Filling a calendar for the sake of filling a calendar does not accomplish those things. Having a handful of shows & events focused like a laser beam on these things is what we see happening…and our short foray into this territory has proven a good foray to this point.
From the beginning, we have wanted to be a place where the nationally recognized act can be seen & heard in an intimate room and a place where the local act can begin to play. This is still part of what runs through our veins. While the cutting back of formal concerts will limit the number of acts who play from the stage, we are very excited to be working with a few new friends from the local music scene to put on a weekly Songwriter Circle. Beginning Wednesday, February 9 at 7 pm in our auxiliary room downstairs, musicians honing their craft can gather to share songs, compliment each other, and critique each other. It will be facilitated and structured in a way that will give everyone in the room a chance to play. We’re quite excited.

What do you think of all this? Let us know.

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Those are our windows. We see you walk past them before you walk through the doors. Thank you for walking through the doors. Thank you for being our community and for allowing us to be a part of yours. It’s a joy to occupy a small space in your universe.

It’s an easy thing to say that we love being here, because we do. It’s not always easy to remember why, though. I was sitting at our Christmas Eve service with my friend Dwight and we were talking about having kids…about how the things your kids do that are so wonderful become normal, and maybe harder to notice or easier to overlook because of that. It made me think of Everyday Joe’s.

New Year’s Resolution: notice things. Like our 80-year-old windows.

What do you notice at Everyday Joe’s that we should be reminded of? Let us know in the comments.

We love you. Again…thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Hat’s off to you and to 2010. Off we go into 2011.

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Who loves art? Who loves fairs? Who loves art fairs? Wowzers, look at all those hands in the air. You can put them down now.

Our dear friends at Ruminate Magazine will be kindly invading 144 S. Mason tomorrow (November 20) and setting up the 4th annual Ruminate Art Fair.

The fair has two sessions: 10 am -5 pm and 6 pm – 8 pm. Of course, you could have distilled that information by reading the lovely flier below that the Ruminators (clever!) sent over.

I’m not really into blog posting at this moment, so I’ll let said flier do the rest of the talking. Bye Bye.

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Coffee is an impressive thing. Tasting it can be like tasting wine…or in this town…delicious beer.

However, it is just a thing. Things are best when made useful. We make quality, ethical coffee mostly useful by serving it to people/using it as a way to serve people. We also want to educate folks about coffee. When you know where things come from, it makes them more useful.

In an effort to take coffee from mostly useful to very useful…and to further serve people…we host occasional happenings called Coffee & Goodness. We all taste coffee together. We learn where it comes from. We learn how to respect the hard work that got it to us. We learn about a local organization and all the profits from the tasting go to that organization.

Our next Coffee & Goodness is this coming Saturday, September 18. We will be benefiting The Matthews House, an “organization that serves at-risk youth ages 16-21 that lack significant family support in their lives. We work to create opportunities for positive life change for these youth as they make the transition to living on their own.”

The coffee we will be tasting is the Santa Monica from Concordia, Columbia – roasted by our pals at Novo Coffee.

Cost is $8, which gets you a sample of the coffee brewed 4 different ways. Come by any time between 2 & 5 p.m. to start the coffee circuit.

See you then.

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Chalk us up as near-giddy.

We’ve been working for the past year or so on a way to brew coffee other places. A way to take our method of service outside of 144 S. Mason. Well, it’s happening.

The good people of Grant Family Farms have invited us to be the coffee & tea vendor at their 3rd Annual Harvestival this weekend. We accepted with gratefulness and began to plan. Here’s what will go down:

• We’ll be offering one bean brewed your choice of 3 ways: French Press, Hario V60, or Clever Coffee Dripper. The bean is Santa Monica from Concordia Colombia. It’s mighty fine. Read all the tasty deets at Novo’s site.
• We’ll be offering a nice array of hot, loose leaf teas from The Tea Table. Black, Green, Herbal, Rooibos…we’ll have you covered.
• We’ll also have those snazzy new diner mugs and Clever Coffee Drippers for sale.
• The booth will largely be staffed by your fav Everyday Joe’s volunteers, so come say hey.
• There will be killer live music at the festy. We’re most looking forward to Mr. Isakov and Ms. Sandwich.

Methinks that list covers most things important. Check the poster below for all other deets or head to the Harvestival site. See you this weekend!

Oh…and we love you.

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The Agents of Future are some of my favorite people/one of our favorite bands on the face of the planet in its entirety. They were part of the 2009 90/10 Benefit. My guess is – regardless of what believe – you want some part of what they carry around with them.

Observe:

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UPDATE 7.26.10 | REMEMBER THAT TIME WE HAD CARPET?

It is so good to be back. Despite the break-in on Sunday morning at 4 a.m. , we are all in good spirits. Nothing was taken or damaged or even touched. A man had a good night on the town. Walking home, the pew in our foyer looked comfortable. To get to that pew, a glass door needed to be smashed. The door was smashed, the pew was slept on, a witness called the authorities, a man was escorted out of the building, and now we have wood on our door while we we wait for some glass.

new door & EDJ signage coming soon.

That wake-up call from the police was a weird twist to an otherwise productive weekend cleaning up things made beautiful. Thanks to everyone who helped in all areas: prep, feeding the crew, clean-up, and financial. Remember that time we had carpet?

scrub scrub.

the windows love the new floors more.

cleaning fuel.

'tis ready for the ball.

first gathering on the concrete.

UPDATE 7.24.10 | 8:02 A.M. : ‘TIS COMPLETE-ISH

The MVPs worked until midnight on Thursday as well. They arrived again at 6 am on Friday morning and worked until the completion of what they started arrived…right around 3:30 pm.

The floors are the hotness. Everyday Joe’s…so hot right now.

We’re working hard to clean the place up, replace some baseboard, and generally get things back in order. Pictures as the day progresses. Below: one from yesterday nighttime to get your anticipatory senses ready for Monday morning.

we still can't believe it happened.

UPDATE 7.22.10 | 7:22 A.M : LATE NIGHTS & EARLY MORNS

We hired the MVPs of concrete design, apparently. It’s like the Miami Heat.

The crew got their machine up and running yesterday morning. Then they worked until midnight last night. Then they returned at 6 a.m. this morning. Much sleep? Negatory. Ankle-breaking ridge that bisected the coffee house? Gone-zo. Plus, they plan on finishing the heavy work today, leaving just a bit of clean-up to do tomorrow. If you ask me, they never need to pay for coffee at Everyday Joe’s again.

burning zee oil.

the crew transport at 6 a.m.

ORIGINAL POST:

love.

We miss you.

It’s been two days now. We don’t miss the carpet, though. It was a joy to rip it to shreds. It was hard work getting the concrete underneath ready for the crew that came in on Monday, but it was worth it. Then the crew’s main grinder’s engine broke. A new part will be in tomorrow morning. Things are at a standstill until then, but there was something good about standing in the building today before the rest of the change happens.

Enjoy the photos thus far. More as things progress. Thanks to Max Jensen and Doug Blocksma for capturing them.

final gathering on the carpet.

the final view.

chairs must rest too.

that which was vile is gone.

hello, concrete.

our work is done.

see you never.

the pros begin. are halted, but resilient.

Popularity: 8% [?]

We love the people of Novo Coffee. It is a very large part of the reason we carry their nicely roasted beans at Everyday Joe’s. We also love when they throw parties.

The Mile High Showdown Throwdown at the Novo Roastery last week was a fine fine time. We got to give/receive many hugs to/from fine coffee folks we hadn’t seen in some time. And perhaps it isn’t good to identify them as coffee folks. Probably better to identify them as fine, fine people that we’ve had the pleasure of meeting because of coffee things over the past year. Seeing them has some ideas brewing (punny) in our heads so we might see them more. We’ll talk about that later.

All in all, the Everyday Joe’s family was represented by about 20 folks at the party, many of them pouring in the latte art throwdown. THE Ben Thomas and THE Josh Taves made it to the semis, while Chris drew an ace in the first round and decided to take his shirt off as a distraction technique. It didn’t work.

Photos below, courtesy of the mighty Coulter at Coal Creek Coffee. More photos here.

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Would you like to see the beginnings of something? Here you go:

Over the past year, we have been forcing ourselves to think more creatively about the idea of being non-profit. One manifestation of forced creativity are our Coffee & Goodness events. They are great and we have one in development we will announce very soon.

Another manifestation that we are very excited about are Benefit Beverages. The Dickens Chocolatte was the first of these – with all profits going to CoCOA: The Colorado Coalition Of Artists.

The time has now come for a second beverage which is near and dear to our hearts…and delicious.

A couple months ago – as part of our Other People’s Coffee series – we profiled Sola Coffee Bar in Scottsdale, AZ. It is non-profit. It is volunteer powered. It is a place of relationship. It is run by people we sat and talked with when it was just a hope in their hearts. It is in the desert.

You know what else is in the desert? Agave.

The picture of beginnings up there is the beginnings of the Sola Agave Latte – our next Benefit Beverage. Just a bit of agave nectar goes a long way. We find that when it is factored into a latte, it is astoundingly tasty. And when all the profits from the drink go to Sola Coffee Bar, it tastes even better.

We now encourage you to come in and enjoy. The Sola Agave Latte will be available for a limited time. Try it hot. Try it iced. Try it for your mother.

FURTHER:

• Other People’s Coffee: Sola Coffee Bar
• Sola Coffee Bar official site

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