'They've become like family:' Locals, employees celebrate last day of business at Java Joe's

When Flor Mora opened Java Joe's at 7 a.m. Wednesday, it was the last time anyone would ever flip on the lights, turn on the registers and warm up the coffee pots in the Hilton Head Island cafe.

For Mora, who has worked at the Coligny Plaza coffeehouse since 1997, the day was a sad one.

"It feels like a funeral," she said. "I started working here bussing tables. I had my two pregnancies (while working) here. This is a huge part of my life."

Java Joe's, at 101 Pope Ave., Suite C, closed Wednesday after co-owners Nick Watson and Santiago Hueyo recently decided it was time to retire.

The first customers who walked through the door Wednesday morning had been doing so for so long, they couldn't even remember when it became part of their routine.

"I come every day," said Hilton Head resident David Rau, taking his place at a mosaic-tiled table. Next to him was a neatly folded New York Times and Wall Street Journal. "This is my chance to sit down and read two newspapers. Always these two."

When Bob Sauer walked into Java Joe's a few minutes later, Rau looked over.

"There's Dr. Bob," he said.

"Retired doctor," Sauer was quick to note, sitting down. "I've been coming here since they first opened."

From 7 to 8 a.m. every day, Rau and his friends gather at a corner table at Java Joe's for coffee and conversation.

"You got a little bit of everyone here," Rau explained, pointing to people as they pulled up chairs at the small table. "He's a doctor. He's a master builder. He's a real estate guru. He's a lawyer, he's a doctor, and I'm a newspaper man."

He paused. "We can solve all the problems of the world down here, every morning. We're always right." He seemed serious at first, but then smiled. "Except him," he said, gesturing to one of his friends. "He's always wrong, and I'm always right."

Rau said he and his friends will continue their morning coffee tradition, likely down the street at the Watusi cafe.

It'll just get pushed back a half an hour.

"Last week, I was saying, 'Oh, it opens at 7:30,'" he said. "Everybody looks at me, saying, 'Rau, you're the only one who needs to be here at 7. We'd like to get an extra half an hour of sleep.'"

As he talked, more customers filed in. One of the next to stroll in was the original owner, Joe DeFravio.

Occupying the back corner of Java Joe's is a large portrait of DeFravio lounging on a hammock with a cup of coffee in one hand and a Key West newspaper in the other. It's been a Java Joe's mainstay since its original location opened on the other side of the plaza.

"If the owners want to get rid of it, just let me know," he said to Mora after she took a picture of him standing in front of his portrait. The painting was created by his son's mother, Nancy Mitchell, a Hilton Head artist.

"You can put 'before' and 'after,'" he joked to Mora.

"You look the same," Mora replied.

DeFravio didn't quite remember when he first opened Java Joe's.

"It was in the '80s ... '86, '87, '88, '89, I do believe," he said. Then he paused. "But I've been corrected on that, so I'm not positive."

He wanted it to be a place of "headlines and coffee grinds."

"We wanted to get newspapers from around the country because we have so many people here from around the country," DeFravio said. "We wanted to have a gathering place for people all over the country so they could read their local papers and enjoy good coffee."

The newspapers idea ended up not working out logistically, he said, as some of out-of-town papers couldn't be delivered farther than Interstate 95.

But he did succeed in establishing Java Joe's as a spot for locals and tourists -- and one or two celebrities, including the late Chris Farley from "Saturday Night Live." Island developer Charles Fraser was also a frequent customer, DeFravio said. Back then, customers would drink their java out of the aptly named "Joe's mugs."

"I had my good-looking face on them," he recalled.

He claims, though, he wasn't the one to think up the name Java Joe's, despite being named Joe.

"It wasn't so much me," he said. "The guy next door who did all the management named it."

Hilton Head resident Susan Ochsner joined Rau and his friends at their corner table. She had an appointment Wednesday morning, she said, but she told her doctor she needed to make her routine morning stop to Java Joe's on its last day of business.

"I said, 'Text me when you get to the office so I can stay a little longer at Java's.,'"

Ochsner has lived on Hilton Head since the early '70s. She can remember when a bank stood on the spot that Java Joe's now occupies.

"I walk my dog on the beach and then come here," she said. "These girls are very special. They're invaluable."

On this particular morning, she's likely referring to Mora and Shannon Halterman, who has worked at Java Joe's for 13 years.

"I started here when I was 13," Halterman said from behind the counter, glancing back quickly before turning on a coffee grinder. Her dad, Charlie, sat a few feet away at the table with Ochsner. Both of his daughters, Shannon and her older sister Sandy, have worked at Java Joe's.

Throughout the day, employees came out from behind the counter to hug customers they're on a nickname basis with, assuring them that they'd stay in touch via social media. Some customers carted out wicker chairs, tin signs and decorations they'd purchased, small neon-colored price tags attached to all the pieces.

A few customers shed tears on their way out the door.

"They've become like family," Ochsner said. She said another much-beloved employee, Priscilla, showed her how to make her favorite coffee.

"Just a shot of French roast to give it a kick."

Meanwhile, Rick Ingersoll puttered behind the counter, a cup of iced coffee in one hand. He's not a Java Joe's employee, but he bantered and joked with Mora and Halterman as he brushed past them, making his own beverage the way he likes it. Halterman assisted him in ringing up his order.

After he paid, Ingersoll sat at the two-stool bar nearby, estimating he's been coming to Java Joe's for about nine years.

"Everybody was so welcoming," he said, recalling his first visit. "It just became 'the spot'"

Some of his best friends were made over coffee and pastries at the cafe -- not just locals, but out-of-towners who routinely visited the shop.

"I met a couple from Albany here," he said. He's since visited them in New York.

Another Hilton Head Islander, Bill Forsyth, told Halterman he wanted to purchase an old-fashioned coffee dispenser used in the original location that was being sold for $25. But he had one particular request.

"I want you to sign it," Forsyth told Halterman.

"No, you don't, I'll ruin it," Halterman laughed.

"I've seen you grow up and you're not going to sign that for me?" Forsyth returned.

Halterman gave in, producing a marker and signing the bottom end of the canister.

"OK, we're going to get everyone here to sign it," she said.

As Halterman walked away with the dispenser, Forsyth gestured around the shop. "This is a really, really good representation of Hilton Head."

When Halterman returned, Forsyth gave her a look. "I'd like my card back. I didn't give that to you as a going-away present."

Halterman smiled and hugged him. She told Forsyth she'll be doing deliveries at a flower shop in the Village at Wexford.

"Order flowers and I'll come bring them to you," she added.

Halterman attributes a lot of who she is to her early days at Java Joe's.

"I was a very shy kid and then this place brought out my personality," she said. "This place brought out the best in me."

Another barista, Nicole Miller, has worked at Java Joe's for three and a half years.

"I spend more time here than I do at home," she said.

Miller said some of the mosiac-tiled tables at the coffee shop will be used at the Art Cafe when it moves to a new location on Lagoon Road. She said the cafe will be on the second floor of a building that will also house Bomboras Grille, which is next door to Java Joe's in Coligny Plaza and where Miller also works.

In fact, when the new Bomboras opens, Miller said she'll be heading up a new coffee menu.

"We're going to do an ode to Java Joe's," Miller said.

As she reminisced, she said she had been assigned one final task as a Java Joe's employee that evening at 9 p.m.

"Tonight," she said, welling up a bit, "I will lock the door for the last time."

Follow reporter Ashley Fahey at twitter.com/IPBG_Ashley.

Related content:

• As owners retire, Java Joe's on Hilton Head Island to close, September 28, 2015

This story was originally published September 30, 2015 at 4:59 PM with the headline "'They've become like family:' Locals, employees celebrate last day of business at Java Joe's."