Call Your Mother is roasting 100% arabica coffee beans grown in Brazil for its drip coffee. So expect a nutty, sweet flavor from your medium-dark roast cup of JoJo’s. Patrons will still be able to order lattes and cappuccinos, but Call Your Mother will just use its own beans.
To start, Call Your Mother is roasting 100% arabica coffee beans grown in Brazil for its drip coffee. So expect a nutty, sweet flavor from your medium-dark roast cup of JoJo’s. Patrons will still be able to order lattes and cappuccinos, but Call Your Mother will just use its own beans. (Until now, the chain has partnered with D.C. roaster Lost Sock coffee for its beans.) The cost of coffee drinks will stay the same, according to co-owner Andrew Dana.
Call Your Mother, named one of the nation’s best bagel shops (outside of New York) by Bon Appetit magazine last year, is entering the coffee business because it’s something Dana has wanted to do since launching the bagel shop in D.C.’s Park View neighborhood back in 2018, he tells DCist/WAMU.
“We just didn’t really have the bandwidth,” he tells DCist/WAMU. “I’ve always wanted to control the sourcing and just really be hands on with the coffee.”
Launching JoJo’s was a matter of timing, he says. Call Your Mother is buying the beans through Huckleberry Roasters, which is the brand the chain uses for its Denver locations. (Call Your Mother expanded to Denver, Colorado in 2022.) The new Old Town location also has the space to roast coffee in house, and the roasters will be displayed at the shop so customers can see the process.
Dana and his partner in business and life, Daniela Moreira, named JoJo’s after their one-year old daughter. The couple hopes to expand beyond the Brazilian bean, trying out different single-origin coffees and blends.
“Once we’re really comfortable with just roasting and sort of executing every day then we want to do special releases,” Dana says.
Call Your Mother’s new Alexandria location is the 10th to open locally. The chain also has three Denver locations. Call Your Mother also sells bagels on weekends at the Dupont Circle and Silver Spring farmers markets, but don’t expect JoJo’s there just yet.
Dana attributes the bagel chain’s growth to having a dedicated staff, who earn at least minimum wage plus tips and receive benefits including a health insurance match plan and retirement match plan. The head of coffee is someone who started as an hourly-wage worker at the owners’ other business Timber Pizza Company, says Dana.
“Our growth is like staff centered,” Dana says. “Very early on, we told our staff don’t look at this as just a restaurant job. Look at this as a startup where you can build a career.”