No-frills ‘coffee shop’ keeps the java flowing
TONY BROWN/DAILY FORUM
Joe Tennihill, Alan Coy and Rod Couts, pictured from left, enjoy some hot java Tuesday morning in the “coffee shop” Couts has set up near the front of his business, Accent Advertising & Signs on the courthouse square in downtown Maryville. Couts said he opened the “shop” — with coffee available free to anyone who wants a cup — as a light-hearted way to point out the current lack of caffeinated beverage offerings in the central business district.
It is a Main Street tradition across virtually all of small-town in America. Every weekday morning small groups of men and women cluster around tables in crowded diners and cafes and share coffee and conversation before heading off to their own shops and offices.
Often the tables fill up again around 10 a.m. for the mid-morning break, and not uncommonly a fair number of retired folks make the downtown coffee shop their home away from home until lunchtime or even well into the afternoon.
Weather is complained about, gossip is spread, shop is talked, local sports teams are boosted and politics are debated.
It happens around courthouse squares from coast to coast — but not, alas, in downtown Maryville, where there hasn’t been a true coffee shop since The Bookstop, a combination bookstore, antique shop, coffee shop and gourmet snack bar, closed following a devastating fire in August 2011.
Sure, a regular legion of coffee hounds gathers throughout the morning at the Hy-Vee supermarket on the South Main retail strip, and then there is Ali’s Bakery, a popular coffee-and-pastry hangout at 108 E. Sixth Street two blocks north of the square.
But Ali’s is more of an in-and-out bakery than a coffee shop, and Hy-Vee, while home to a full-tilt cafe and its own Starbucks kiosk, is definitely not downtown. Ditto for the newly opened Scooter’s coffee and snack shop on the other side of the street.
So, what’s a traditional, socially minded downtown coffee drinker supposed to do?
Pull up a chair at Accent Advertising & Signs, that’s what.
A sign store?
Well yes, a sign store, and most of owner Rod Couts’ business is exactly that — a place that makes and sells custom signs and provides customers with any number of branded advertising specialties.
But now Accent is a coffee shop as well.
Couts accomplished this feat by setting out a couple of tables with four chairs each and equipping a counter top with a commercial-grade Bunn-O-Matic coffeemaker and a cappuccino/hot chocolate machine.
He found both in the basement of the building next door to Accent, which he owns and rents to Melody Blair, who uses the location for her Minnie Lane art and antiques store.
The machines didn’t work at first, but Couts was able to repair them for just a few bucks — pretty much his only capital investment, unless one counts the stack of Styrofoam cups, a package of napkins and a couple of bookshelves stocked with well-thumbed paperbacks.
It’s not much, admits Couts, but then again he’s selling coffee for a very attractive price — free.
The longtime downtown businessman said he has plenty to do without running a for-profit coffee shop, but he does want customers, and anybody else who happens by his store at 114 E. Third St., to feel welcome to stop in and have a cup of java.
Signs hanging in Accent’s display window read “Just Coffee — Check out our flavor of the day.”
That’s right, flavors.
Which means Couts is assuring his “customers” they can have any style or blend of coffee they desire as long as its caffeinated Maxwell House, Folgers, Hills Brothers or some other common supermarket brand.
“Ain’t no foo-foo coffee here,” reads a “flavor of the day” sign just inside the shop entrance.
And while Couts is offering up the brew itself at no charge, another sign jokingly lists prices for sitting around and talking for various lengths of time.
Fifteen minutes goes for 75 cents, while Couts is “selling” an hour’s worth of coffee time for $2, with four hours of loafing available at the bargain-basement price of $5 — such a deal.
And while the coffee will keep flowing for however long it needs to, “customers” are responsible for “BYOB” — Couts’ shorthand for “bring your own biscotti, biscuits, etc.”
“It’s a conversation piece if nothing else,” said Couts, who for years has been offering free coffee to anyone in his store who wants a cup. “It’s just a lark, not a money-making thing.”
