Newspaper Page Text
«T home (H)P on The ROUT* CJDlTh VCROOf) ThORRSBCRRY
V ernon Thornsberry sits in the sunny kitch
en of his Normattown house on a Saturday
afternoon drinking—what else?—Jittery
Joe's coffee. "The good stuff, really dark," he
says. He gets as much as he wants for free; it's
one of the perks of being the official Jittery Joe's
coffee deliveryman, a job he's had for about a
decade. His eyes are twinkling mischievously as
he tells me about his plans for the rest of the
weekend: being a man about town, Vernon al
ways gets invited to the best parties and shows.
We talk a bit more about his coffee (French
press, of course) and then get to the business of
the day: whal it's like making the rounds to keep
downtown pantries well-stocked with beans.
Flagpole: So how did you get started deliver-
ing coffee for Jittery Joe's?
Vernon Thornsberry: Alright, well I started
working on Washington Street at Jittery Joe's,
where the Room 13—there's another place there
now—used to be. I was working serving coffee
when Charlie Mustard came in and started roast
ing. So that's when I started working there, then
they closed the place down and sold it to this
guy named Ernie. We moved onto Prince Avenue
and roasted beans there, and that's when I
started delivering coffee beans. Then they closed
that place down, and Charlie moved onto East
Broad Street, and that's when I started delivering
coffee beans from there, too.
FP: How much coffee do you start the day off
with on your bike?
VT: Sometimes I start off with 165 pounds,
and that's a lot! Those bags are five pounds
apiece. When it gets down to 80 pounds, I can
ride the bike instead of pushing it.
Oh, and it was hard at first! Because I only
had coffee on the front of the bike, it was tilting
over. Then Charlie decided to put some on the
back to balance it out, and that made it better.
But I'm an experienced driver; I've never spilled
the beans.
FP: Tell me about the route you take. All over
downtown, right?
VT: Well, I start at the roasters on Broad, I
go to Bluebird first, then after Bluebird I go to
DePalma's. I go to Speakeasy, I go to Five Star
Day. That's when I go to Walker's and that K.O.
coffee place.
FP: K.O. Coffee? [Laughs] Do you mean the
O.K. Coffee on College at Clayton?
VT: [Also laughs] Yeah, yeah, never mind,
it's O.K. Coffee, then Phoenix, Last Resort. Then
Redeemer Church, The Grit, Bischero, Big City
Bread, and the Co-op. Well, sometimes I do,
sometimes I don't; the Co-op doesn't always
order. Marti's every so often, that's kinda far up
this way.
Yeah, I get there around three in the after
noon on Fridays; about 5:30-6, I finish up.
FP: Well, I’ve walked the route with you once
or twice and it's a pretty pleasant way to spend a
sunny afternoon. You bump into lots of interesting
people; everybody knows you and stops to say hi.
VT: Oh, yeah, yeah, the shop owners are
pretty good, and I get to talk to a lot of people
sometimes. When I'm taking care of business,
though, I have to go real fast. But people are
always asking how much the coffee beans cost,
or where you can get coffee beans, just all types
of things.
A lot of people just don't know what it is,
and they stop and ask me, "What is that? What
is that you're selling?" They say, "What's in the
bag?" and that's when I say, "Oh, it's coffee
beans," and they say, "Oh!"
Meghan Jones
!
u
V
I
i
8 FLAGPOLE.COM-APRIL 4, 2007
NEWS & FEATURES I ARTS & EVENTS I MOVIES I MUSIC I COMICS & ADVICE I CLASSIFIEDS