Sometime in early 1994 (or maybe it was late 1993... I'm not very good with dates... but that's another story), my friend Mary Ellen Garrigus approached me with an idea for starting a publication dedicated to Christian coffeehouses in New Jersey. The main portion of this monthly newsletter would be a calendar of all of the Christian coffeehouses, so people would be able to know on any given date what was going on. She asked me what I thought. This was not the first time someone had tossed around the idea. In fact, for a few seconds I had actually considered attempting the same sort of publication. I explained to Mary Ellen the two major reasons why it wouldn't work: how to finance it and how to get the information to put in the calendar of events. I didn't think you'd get enough subscribers even at a nominal fee to make a go of it, and the coffeehouses were in various places around the state of New Jersey, so local advertising wouldn't work. Plus, from my experience doing a music column for a Christian newspaper in Brooklyn called "The Beacon", I knew that getting information from coffeehouse managers was like pulling teeth. Though we were giving them free publicity, many were negligent in providing the information.

Fortunately, Mary Ellen ignored my advice, and in June 1994, the first issue of Espresso Cafe was published. With a background in sales, Mary Ellen had gone to a number of coffeehouses and set up a table where people could subscribe. I'm not sure how long it took, but eventually Espresso Cafe had a few hundred subscribers. I was impressed. And though there were rumors that Mary Ellen was getting rich from Espresso Cafe (we had a good laugh about that) the publication at its best was a "break even" proposition. Besides providing a calendar of events to coffeehouse-goers, the purpose of the publication was to educate people about the pro-life movement and get them involved. Mary Ellen had been very involved in the pro-life movement and at the time was a staffer with LIFENET, a grassroots organization which continues to educate and mobilize people in the protection of unborn children. So, from the start, the publication was a part of LIFENET and contained articles relevant to the pro-life movement.

Julia Conte, a volunteer with LIFENET who was also a coffeehouse manager (for a number of years, she ran Light In the Woods in Morristown, a favorite coffeehouse for many performers and Christian music fans), did all the graphic design of Espresso Cafe and did the layout of the publication each month.

Somewhere along the line, I think it was around the Summer of 1998, Julie resigned as graphic designer to attend to her growing family. I had filled in for her on occasion and agreed to take on the responsibility of doing the monthly layout. Not too long after that, Mary Ellen left LIFENET, and relinquished her role as publisher of Espresso Cafe. Fortunately, Karen Eberly, another LIFENET volunteer, offered to pick up the reins. So, now it was Karen and I putting the publication together.

I must confess that I dreaded that time each month when we'd have to assemble the listings and put out a publication. Between a busy schedule as a freelance graphic artist during the week, and a busy schedule as a Christian musician and worship leader on the weekends, not to mention a number of other commitments, I really didn't have the time. And after a long day of working on the computer, coming home and typing up calendar listings was not my idea of fun. But I thought that Espresso Cafe was too important to let die, and I knew that was what would happen if I didn't work on the publication. Fortunately, Karen felt the same way and was faithful in the arduous task of contacting coffeehouse managers for information each month. We were usually getting the publication out at the last minute, largely because we were waiting for information and continued to get eleventh hour additions.

Somewhere along the line, this time I won't even hazard a guess when, our listings began to be broadcast on 99.1 WAWZ-FM, Zarephath, NJ. I don't remember how it came about... Mary Ellen had probably presented the radio station with the idea and they liked it. Vivian Wright, a staffer at WAWZ, began hosting The Coffeehouse and Cafe Update, which was a series of announcements that would air from Thursday through Saturday. I knew many people heard the broadcasts, because I would frequently have people come up to me and say, "I hear you're playing in such-and-such a town this weekend." They heard it on the radio.

As a musician, Espresso Cafe was such a blessing for me. Some coffeehouses do very good publicity, but some don't. Most musicians have had this experience: you play to a handful of people and as you're packing up your gear, the coffeehouse manager says to you, "Sorry about the small crowd... next time we're going to do some publicity." (I'm not making this up.) I now had the assurance that even if the venue did nothing else to get the word out, if they were in Espresso Cafe, a few hundred subscribers would know about the event, and many more would hear about it on WAWZ. As a person who likes to sleep late on Saturdays (and every other day of the week), Espresso Cafe spared me from a number of early morning phone calls. You see, somewhere along the line (I'm using that phrase a lot here), I became "Information Central", or as the Newark Star-Leger called me, the "Coffeehouse Guru." Invariably, I would get phone calls from strangers that went like this: "Hey man, I hear that you know what's going on. Any coffeehouses tonight?" In my half-asleep state, I'd rummage around for postcards I'd received from any coffeehouses and try to remember anything else that was taking place that weekend. Espresso Cafe gave me a place in which to refer people and go back to sleeping late on Saturdays.

Everything went along for a few years with Karen and I putting out the publication together. She started laying out the articles, which took some of the burden off me, and occasionally we'd get listings so late that she'd lay out the calendar as well. Though she always thanked me profusely for all my hard work, I still maintain that she had the toughest job, between getting the information from the coffeehouses, maintaining the subscriber database and actually printing and mailing the publication. In late May 2001, Karen informed me that LIFENET no longer wished to continue Espresso Cafe as part of its ministry. I had a feeling that this would happen at some point. Though I'm grateful for LIFENET taking the publication under its umbrella, it seemed to be more of a pet project of Mary Ellen and later, Karen. Still, I think they can be satisfied that the pro-life message reached many people over the years as a result of Espresso Cafe.

Without much hesitation, I told Karen that I would take over Espresso Cafe, but it would no longer be a printed, subscription publication. It would be a web site, free to everyone. She asked how I would finance it. For years, I had planned to build my own web site for my music ministry and graphic design business, so I would just incorporate it into that. Once again, I had no time to pursue this, but I still felt that Espresso Cafe was too important a resource to give up. Prior to Espresso Cafe, the only way people would know about a coffeehouse was is if they were on the mailing list for that particular coffeehouse. No one was on every mailing list, and Espresso Cafe was the only place to find a comprehensive listing of coffeehouses in the New York metropolitan area. A few similar publications had sprung up over the years, but didn't last long, probably because of the amount of work in putting out a monthly publication. My main concern, besides having to try to get the information from the coffeehouses, was whether WAWZ would want to continue broadcasting the weekly listings with LIFENET now out of the picture. After all, I was just an individual, not an organization. I finally started to draft a letter to the program director of WAWZ to ask that the listings be continued. That same day, Karen contacted me and let me know that Scott Taylor, host of WAWZ's morning show, "Music Along the Way," wanted to get in touch with me. Scott and I had worked together at WMGQ-FM, a secular adult contemporary radio station in New Brunswick, NJ. For 5 1/2 years I had been a writer and creative director there. Scott was the afternoon drive-time disc jockey when I had arrived at the station and was promoted to host of the morning show a year or two later, and still held that position when I left. Though we ran into each other occasionally, I hadn't talked to him in a few years, so I was glad for the opportunity to catch up. Though I knew he had hosted WAWZ's morning show for a few years, I was unaware that he was now program director and the reason he wanted to speak with me was to see how the radio station could partner with me in the ministry of Espresso Cafe.

My goal had been to just maintain the coffeehouse calendar with a minimal amount of effort, but the support of WAWZ encouraged me greatly. Vivian Wright had recently resigned from voicing the Coffeehouse and Cafe Update and Scott suggested that I start doing the announcements. In the meantime, Erika Jacobsen, WAWZ's production director who had been working with Vivian, filled in the gap in getting the announcements on the air. July 2001 was the last printed edition of Espresso Cafe, and August marked the premiere of espresso cafe on the Web. (I decided to lose the initial caps on Espresso Cafe for the Web edition. All lowercase letters seemed cool in an e.e. cummings sort of way, and seemed appropriate in this age of email, e-commerce and e-everything else. Or maybe I just got tired of hitting the shift key.)

So, that's the long and short of it... okay maybe there was no short of it. But you must admit, I was pretty thorough in my history of espresso cafe, especially since I can't even remember the names of relatives and close friends these days (I'm too young to be having senior moments.) Thanks for reading this far. And for those of you who have been subscribers of the printed version of Espresso Cafe, thanks for sticking with us through the years. Though some of the old coffeehouses are gone, new ones start up each month, and the Christian coffeehouse scene in New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania is stronger than ever. It's been a long, strange trip, but we're only in the middle of it, and espresso cafe online is just another bridge we're crossing as we continue to serve the Lord Jesus Christ together through the medium of Christian music and other creative arts.

august 1, 2001