KINGSTON — The owners of MoeJoe Coffee Co. have been spreading a little mojo throughout the Little City By the Sea lately by providing more than just the typical Northwest espresso stand fare.
The area’s newest coffee shop, which is located in the old Kingston Tax Service office on Highway 104, has what owner Mary Lee Perceful calls “the best of both worlds” — a drive-thru and indoor seating.
“We’re going on a sense of community and I think it’s good to have,” Perceful said of having both options.
Warm yellows and pinkish reds color the walls, which are accented by a mix of light and dark wood furniture. Perceful was striving for a non-corporate look in her decor and didn’t want everything to match.
“Just want it to be bright and inviting,” she said.
Baristas make the usual drinks with Dillanos coffee, plus what Perceful calls “coolers” — chilled and blended coffee drinks.
“Our blended drinks are really good,” she said. “We worked on them a lot to get them standardized.”
Pastries and bagels are also available and Perceful said she would like to expand the food menu slightly to include sandwiches, plus gelato in the summer.
A secret ingredient behind MoeJoe’s success is the homemade chocolate syrup for mochas and other chocolate syrup-based drinks, made by Perceful herself.
“I can control the consistency of it and the (chocolatiness) of it,” she said, noting that most chocolate syrups are watered down. “It’s just better. I like it better.”
Perceful and her husband, Steve, are veterans of the food industry, as he helped open Seattle’s Metropolitan Grill, and the couple owned several cafes and restaurants on Bainbridge Island, the last being Percy’s.
“We really like the service industry but we didn’t want to be heavy into it like restaurants,” she said about their latest venture.
The Percefuls are no strangers to coffee, either — they served espresso at their Bainbridge Island restaurants and enjoy visiting other coffee shops when they travel. They also make their own lattes at home.
“(We) thought it would be fun to do — to do a coffee biz,” she said.
The name has a two-part story to it: “Moe” is Steve’s Norwegian mother’s maiden name. “Joe” is a play on words, such as Steve’s name in his blues band, “Blond Moe Joe Johnson;” the common blues phrase “got my mojo working;” and coffee slang, as in “Cuppa Joe,” which is also the name of one of the drinks.
“Mojo is a driving force in blues and in coffee,” Perceful said.
What makes MoeJoe Coffee Co. stand out is not only the coffee, but the customer service, she said.
“It’s our intent to give not only an excellent coffee drink or coffee experience. It’s our intent to give really excellent service to our community,” Perceful explained. “We want to be more open, a gathering place, not a rush ‘n’ go place.”
