Caffeinating a Community

Kimmel, 53, with flyaway blond hair, flip-flops and a tan, hails from Jacksonville Beach, Fla., and Janet's Java is imbued with her love of the tropics. An elementary school art teacher created a 15-foot, cement-and-burlap wall sculpture of the sun that hangs on the rear wall and can be seen at night, illuminated, from the road. Another artist painted tropical birds on the wall behind the counter and decorated the bathroom doors with a couple of dancing Hawaiians -- the girl with the grass skirt guards the ladies' room; the boy with the ukulele guards the men's.

Kimmel makes enough money to pay the rent and her home mortgage, she said, and business continues to grow. Janet's Java averages 300 customers a day, most of them in the early morning. The shop closes at 2 p.m. weekdays, but Kimmel, who has a beer and wine license, hopes to extend the hours and expand her offerings to ice cream and made-to-order sandwiches -- and beer and wine. The shop is available for special events and occasionally stays open at night for live music. But no food can be cooked; the landlord won't let her cut through the roof for the required oven ventilation.

Despite such limitations, Janet's feels fully established after four years in business. People continue to come in and say they didn't know Janet's was there, Kimmel said.

Others have been coming from the beginning, helping to give Janet's the neighborhood feel that Kimmel was aiming for. They are loyal, they said, because they want Janet's to survive.

"This is my office," said Stan Grigsby, a military consultant enjoying a slice of cherry pie while working on his laptop on a recent weekday. Janet's doesn't have wireless Internet service, a decision Kimmel made to encourage conversation. Grigsby, who allowed that he would use the Internet if wireless access were available, said he is glad that it is not. "People actually talk to each other," he said. "What a concept!"

In the early days, Kimmel said, customers offered to pay her electricity bill or her water bill to keep her going. Even today, one customer, whom Kimmel has entrusted with a key, comes to the store every morning to take out the trash. Another, Gil Mendez, 43, a retired naval officer wearing a black Pink Floyd T-shirt one recent morning, burns music CDs for her on his laptop. On this day, it was a live concert by Bad Company.

Others bring her tchotchkes from their travels -- a large statue of a toucan from Costa Rica, a painting of a parrot from France.

And some others just enjoy the place, letting their children pick out sweets from the case or relaxing on a couch and catching up. "Hi, Roxy!" said a little boy to Kimmel's Chihuahua, who was trotting around his feet. Kimmel smiled as she chatted with the boy's mother and changed light bulbs in the ceiling with an extension pole.

She turned around and saw a patron leaving. "Thank you, Chuck," she hollered. "See ya!"