Plain Joe Coffee

The Plain Joe Story
We could have done one of those boring “About Us” pages that you see everywhere, but Joe just doesn’t brew that way. Instead, we’re going to give you a story.

Joe was born in 1997 when I was doing sales and marketing for this company in Dayton that was selling exercise bikes to paralyzed people. True.

One of my clients was Christopher Reeve. Nice guy, but stubborn as an ox. Dana was super, super nice and their whole story is very tragic. So, if you have any spare money lying around after you buy some Joe, give it to their foundation. Good cause, good people.

Anyway, I was selling these bikes and had a guy who lived in Kona, Hawaii buy one. He bought a coffee plantation (farm? whatever) with his accident settlement. When he got the bike, he was so excited that he called me and said he was sending me 20 pounds of Kona coffee beans just because he wanted me to have something special for making his life exciting again. I said, “Sure, ok” and didn’t really give it much thought.

A few weeks later, this very large sack of coffee beans shows up at the shipping dock. It smelled SOOOOOO good and we ground and brewed up a whole large coffee-maker batch of the stuff. Heaven for coffee drinkers. I’m a guy to share the wealth, so I stroll into the CEO’s office, Bill Phillips, and asked him if he would like some of this really good Kona coffee.

Now, to tell you the rest of the story, I need to tell you about Bill Phillips. Bill Phillips was a good ol’ boy born in Como, Mississippi. He loved life, but didn’t take himself too seriously. He grew up in the South, Manilla and Australia. When he was old enough to make a living, he made it by selling a computerized ad system to television stations. Made a fortune.

He then met his “daughter’s mother” as he called her, moved to Dayton, Ohio where she and her father (Mr. Mauch) lived. He bought an interest in Mauch, Inc. set up shop making artificial knees, spinal fixation systems and stuff that you will NEVER want to ever, ever need in your lifetime. But, if you ever needed them, Mauch was the best. He later sold the company to Ossur, got divorced and I don’t know where he is. But, when he calls, I’ll answer. I hope he does; he’s texture in my life.

Anyway, so I stroll into his office and he points to me and says in his best Mississippi accent, “No thanks! I like my joe plain. Just plain joe.”

BANG! Plain Joe Coffee was born, right there. I made a logo with a Ward Cleaver character pointing at you, everything black and white and a contrarian brand to the up and coming, “all the rage” Starbucks.

But, real life took hold and Joe sat on the shelf for a few years until I ran across someone who lives in New York and thought this was a killer brand. We dusted off Joe, got some coffee roasted up for us by this coffee roaster in Brooklyn and we were selling coffee. And then, in December 2007, I hired Veronica to run the place for me, get Joe on the retail shelves and all sorts of stuff like that, including this web site.

A few weeks later, we are cruising around the Internet, looking at coffee places and trying to find that “something different” when Veronica is behind me, making erotic noises while sipping coffee!! Another moment! That is when the Plain Joe Radio Show was born and everything that goes with it.

So, that is where we are today. We will keep adding to this story as we do new stuff, but that is Plan Joe’s story so far. Now, aren’t you glad we didn’t do one of those boring “About us” pages? (read less)

The Plain Joe Story
We could have done one of those boring “About Us” pages that you see everywhere, but Joe just doesn’t brew that way. Instead, we’re going to give you a story.

Joe was born in 1997 when I was doing sales and marketing for this company in Dayton that was selling exercise bikes to paralyzed people. True.

One of my clients was Christopher Reeve. Nice guy, but stubborn as an ox. Dana was super, super nice and their whole story is very tragic. So, if you have any spare money... (read more)