Here at Exit 177 on Interstate 80, halfway between New York and San Francisco, halfway between Omaha and Denver, halfway between Cozad, Nebraska, and Roscoe, Nebraska, sits a sign that says, "Friends Don't Let Friends Drink Folger's."
The humble black-and-white placard, sandwiched between the familiar signs of Amoco and Phillips 66, Hampton Inn and Applebee's restaurant, sprouts from a concrete island in an empty parking lot, just past the drive-through window of North Platte's new espresso bar and smoothee shop.
That's right. Spit out that watery truck stop coffee and throw away the bottomless US$0.35 cup. Now you can fill your thermos with a US$3.50 grande skinny mocha, brewed with Seattle's Best, right here in this ranch and farm town 2,340km -- a 24-hour drive -- from Seattle.
PHOTO: NY TIMES
A tall order
"Our mission statement is to rid the world of bad coffee," said Theresa Corns, 32, who on May 31 opened the little shop with her husband of eight years, Greg. "You give them a free cup of coffee, they're hooked. Once they get that taste, then it's a need rather than a treat."
Corns, who used to manage the Applebee's on the other side of the parking lot, is taking it one double-shot at a time. She pours little taster cups of Chai to initiate the innocent. She places a gummy fruit ring around each smoothee straw, a chocolate-covered espresso bean atop every frappuccino.
PHOTO: NY TIMES
The menu explains the difference between cappuccino (shot of espresso topped with velvety steamed milk foam) and caffe latte (shot of espresso combined with steamed milk and topped with a small amount of foam), and the owner, a lifelong resident of these parts, gently corrects pronunciation (LAH-tay, not lat-ty).
"Some people pull up and they'll say, `I've never done this before, I don't know what I want but I want something,'" Corns said as she mixed a strawberry-banana smoothee, with extra banana, for a guy in a cowboy hat. "We do samples a lot because a lot of people are not familiar with our things. They'll be like, `Wow, I didn't realize a smoothee was this fruity.'"
At first, Java Junction seems a symbol of America's homogenization, a little slice of Los Angeles airdropped on the heartland. But less than a kilometer from the requisite Wal-Mart and Staples, it also feels like a unique small-town treasure. There is not a Starbucks in the entire state of Nebraska.
Local flavor
Java Junction is designed to resemble a train's caboose, a 4m by 4m rectangle painted bright yellow with a burgundy roof. Out front, authentic signal lights flash green by the wrought iron swings where passengers from the cross-country Greyhound nurse their caffeine. Corns orders rugelach and biscotti online to satisfy the big-city clientele passing through on the Interstate, but also stocks jars of chokecherry and blubarb jam made by her Aunt Ruthann.
The Corns, who met at a Pizza Hut, are coffeeholics who used to fill their cravings while traveling out of town (he drinks Americano, espresso with a little hot water; she takes straight brew, often decaf).
They bought an antique espresso machine for their home overlooking a lake about 32km from here, and began to convert their friends cup by cup. One day, they looked in their coffee mugs and saw self-employment.
They have sunk US$53,000 into the business -- including a US$7,500 espresso machine and a US$2,300 smoothee blender -- and are planning to open a second outlet 77km down the Interstate in Cozad (Exit 222) in the spring.
"We all know that coffee is becoming more deeply ingrained in American culture," said Karen Foley, editor of Fresh Cup magazine, a 10-year-old trade publication that serves the nation's 12,000 to 15,000 gourmet coffee bars. Of the rural Midwest, Foley added, "Those areas are definitely in their infancy in terms of the espresso revolution."
No trail blazer
But Java Junction is not exactly a pioneer in this 24,000-person ranch and farm town, well known as a pit stop among long-haul truckers and travelers. Calf-A-Coffee, a tiny white booth with a green roof, has been steaming milk in another vast parking lot about a kilometer away for three years. The Espresso Shop, a used bookstore-cafe with occasional live music and a panini grill sits on a corner of the small cobblestone-street downtown.
At Java Junction, 80 percent of the customers are Interstate passers-through, but Corns keeps a Rolodex of regulars, the cards annotated with a description of their cars and their poisons. Ten cups earns one free.
Kristi Enockabee, in her burgundy sports utility vehicle, picks up a decaf skinny hazelnut with whipped cream. "It's not so much of a coffee as all the other stuff," she said.
Ed Welch, a train conductor from Cheyenne, Wyoming, fills his 32-ounce travel mug with dark roast, lots of cream. "I used to make my own coffee," he said. "It's our oasis out here in the middle of nowhere."
At the walk-up window, there's fair warning: "Last espresso for a latte miles."
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