‘The Cheers of Holland’: The success of JP’s and what comes next

HOLLAND, Mich. (WOOD) — A downtown Holland coffee shop that got its start three decades ago is set for a new chapter.

Ferris Coffee & Nut announced in February it would be closing the 8th Street location on March 23. Foxtail Coffee Co., based in Florida, will be taking over the place this summer.

The 57 East 8th St. coffee shop first opened in 1993 as JP’s Coffee and Espresso Bar. Founder Jack Groot had dreamed about opening a coffee bar and had been looking for locations in Grand Rapids and other lakeshore communities.

He would pass the 8th Street spot on his way to work at the Prince Corporation and one day it caught his eye. At the time, it was dark and empty, as the property owner was sick and hadn’t been able to get a new tenant.

Groot remembered Starbucks, which was in the early years of forging its nationwide presence, always preferred corner locations.

“I always like to joke that they grew a little faster than we did,” he said.

He approached the landlord and struck a deal.

‘A COMMUNITY PLACE’

JP’s served up its first cup of coffee on Nov. 23, 1993.

Groot said he did $172 in sales that first day and saw just a small dip the next day with $168 in sales.

It was mostly Groot running the coffee bar at first, along with a few part-time employees and his first manager, Skip. The first couple of months, Groot was working 100 to 110 hours a week.

Local leaders, like a pastor and other business owners, were “early champions” of JP’s, spreading the word and telling others to stop by, Groot said.

His focus was the community, he said:

“When you’re in business, you have to make money, so selling product is important,” he told News 8. “But to me, it was more about being a community place. … I didn’t really like think about it. That’s just who I am and I think because of that, that was the atmosphere that I encouraged and the type of people that I employed.”

Three to five years later, the shop really started to hit its stride. It soon became embedded as a community icon.

Groot’s team remodeled the space in 1998, and in 2000 he took over the west part of the building (currently Big Fish Sportswear), which had been a RadioShack and then Sports Express. He originally ran it as Ruby Juice, a juice and smoothie bar, but closed it in 2004.

“We just didn’t do enough sales,” he explained. “It was a great concept, but we had franchised it, opened a couple of locations and then ended up selling the franchise a couple of years later.”

The two sides were joined together to make a 4,200 square-foot coffee shop.

“It was the early 2000s and the economy was not doing well, and we were struggling,” Groot said. “We ended up creating the barista school.”

The barista school operated out of the coffee shop’s addition, bringing in students from all over the country and even internationally for week-long courses on making coffee and owning a coffee bar.

Groot and his team also did consulting. As the coffee industry grew, he embraced some changes, like pouring latte art, but ignored others.

“I jokingly sometimes would say I’m an old man in a young generation’s industry. … Things were changing and improving. Some things really good, some things maybe I didn’t agree with,” he said. “We were established really before most places were. There was not a lot of coffee bars when we first opened. So some of them would call me old school and stuck in the mud. And I might look at them and say, ‘But I don’t want to do that, because what’s more important to me is my customer relations.'”

‘SO MANY MEMORIES’

There were so many memories at the coffee shop, he said, adding he wished he wrote some of them down.

Tulip Time was always a busy time for the coffee shop. Groot said it was fun being in the center of the action and he always put chairs out front for his parents to watch the parade.

“Tulip Time was crazy at times,” he recalled. “My staff would just grin and bear it to get through, because a lot of times the tourists didn’t have the same grace that our regular customers did.”

The staff would write down “all the silly things that happened” and things people said on a dry erase board in the back.

Another fond memory he recalled was when a woman came in to sell stuff, despite the ‘no soliciting’ sign on the door. When he asked the staff why she was there, they told him she was selling tamales.

“I’m like, ‘Well, why didn’t you tell me that?'” Groot said. “So she would come in every couple of weeks and we’d buy a couple dozen tamales, and then the staff would all get tamales from her.”

He said all of his managers over the years were amazing, jokingly referring to one as the “second major of Holland,” as she knew everyone.

“Just so many memories,” he said. “Lot of staff over the years, so many memories.”

FERRIS COFFEE IN HOLLAND

All business must eventually close, be sold or passed down, Groot said, and his three sons weren’t interested in the coffee business. Eventually, about 20 years after it opened, he made the decision to sell JP’s to Ferris.

“We had come through a number of years of, I had made some not great decisions and some things that cost us,” he explained. “There’s just a lot of things going on. And when somebody comes and values what you have and wants to buy it, it’s something that I couldn’t look away from, and so I saw it as a real opportunity.”

“It’s a decision I don’t regret,” he said. “The only thing I do really miss is I miss, you know, having my staff and having our little kingdom here in the middle of Holland and the clientele that we serve.”

Ferris Coffee took over the coffee shop in 2014.

Groot’s plan was to work for Ferris and retire from the company, but after nine months working as the director of retail, he resigned. He said Ferris is a great company, but as an entrepreneur, he didn’t fit in the corporate environment.

Ferris kept the JP’s name for a few years, before remodeling and reopening it as Ferris Coffee-Holland in 2018. The coffee bar was later cut in half, with Ferris remaining in the original east portion of the coffee shop. The west portion was turned into Big Fish Sportswear.

On Feb. 28 of this year, Ferris, which was not available for comment for this report, announced it would be closing.

“It’s with heavy hearts that we announce the upcoming March 23rd closure of our beloved Holland café,” Ferris wrote in a social media post. “While this decision was difficult, we’re so proud of the community we’ve built over the years in the historic downtown district.”

It said one of the team’s “greatest joys” was participating in events like Tulip Time, and while it’s the end of an era, they’re excited for the new business, set to be Foxtail Coffee.

A NEW CHAPTER: FOXTAIL COFFEE

Baton Collective, based in Ada, will be bringing in the coffee shop with Florida roots. It will have  “inviting rustic décor, comfortable seating arrangements, and a full craft coffee menu,” Foxtail Coffee said in a release.

“Foxtail Coffee offers unique neighborhood spaces that set it apart from others in the market,” Alex Tchekmeian, founder of Foxtail Coffee, said in the release. “It bridges the gap between a quick-service offering and an independent coffee shop. We’re looking forward to the Holland community grabbing a cup of coffee, finding a place to land, and staying for a while.”

The shop aims to become a “social hub.” Foxtail will offer a full coffee menu, seasonal drinks, light food and merchandise.

“Our dedication to the art of coffee and roasting and sourcing premium origins is matched by our commitment to offering guests a welcoming and comfortable environment,” Tchekmeian said.

Foxtail is also planning a new location in Ada near the new Ada Hotel, which is expected to open in the coming months, the executive director of the Ada Business Association previously told News 8.

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Groot noted there were several businesses interested in the old JP’s location.

“With the new tenant that we have coming in here, I think there’s a really great opportunity for them to take it and make it even more than what it is today,” he said. “They’re going to put a pretty big investment into the building, into the location and what they’re going to do. So I’m very excited about it.”

He said some have, perhaps jokingly, asked if he would take over the coffee shop again. He said now that he’s 61 years old, he doesn’t want to put in the work to start up a business like he did when he was 30.

“Getting up and running and getting a staff built and getting a reputation and building that culture in your business … I’ve always said it takes up to about five years really to get that going,” he said. “I don’t want to work that hard. I’m in a different place in my life and I don’t want to be in working six days a week, working 12-hour days, so it’s not my role anymore.”

When asked if he has any advice for Foxtail Coffee, he cautioned that he wouldn’t want to tell management how to run their business, but he hopes the team focuses on the community.

“Our big thing was we loved being the ‘Cheers’ of Holland,” he said. “Our community and our clientele, my staff were just the most important thing to me. And to our staff, being able to serve the community was what drove us. That’s what we loved doing.”

He enjoyed seeing “all segments of the population,” from kids up to people in their 90s, rubbing shoulders at JPs.

“To me, that’s where the strength of JPs was,” he said. “So my hope is that they focus on that. And I think that’s what they do, so I’m excited for them to come in and do that.”

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