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Xavier And Mercy Alums Joe And Johanna Perazella Have Found Just What They Needed By Opening Their Dream Coffee Shop

When Joe Perazella ’05 and his wife Johanna traveled to San Diego in 2014, they had only been dating for less than a year, but that did not stop them from a hatching a plan together.

Inspired by a visit to James Coffee, the couple started thinking about creating their own café back home in Connecticut.

“We were there, and we looked at each other and we we’re like – we need this,” said Johanna, who graduated from Mercy in 2003.

It would take almost four years from that moment, but the couple got their spot.

We wanted to be able to offer really good coffee in a really relaxing environment that everybody can be comfortable coming in and ordering. We have the punk rock music on and the dim lights. We wanted to make it a place we would go to and hang out.

In the fall of 2018, the Perazellas opened Perkatory on North Main in Middletown, fulfilling their shared dream.

“We wanted to have a place where people can connect, build relationships and come together and congregate,” Joe said.

Whether it is the logo, which features a skeleton raising the shaka, the universal sign for hang loose, or the posters paying tribute to southern California skate boarding culture, Perkatory is unlike any other coffee place you’ve seen in Connecticut.

“There is a general feeling or idea with craft coffee that it is intimidating. You go into a craft coffee shop and you do not really know what you want, and there’s this feeling that the baristas are going to judge you,” Joe said. “We wanted to remove that. We wanted to be able to offer really good coffee in a really relaxing environment that everybody can be comfortable coming in and ordering. We have the punk rock music on and the dim lights. We wanted to make it a place we would go to and hang out.”

Perkatory Coffee

Yolanda Christine Photography (YCP Studio)

Joe Perazella ’05 and Johanna Romegialli Perazella, Mercy ’03

Yolanda Christine Photography (YCP Studio)

With its raised ceilings and big open spaces, Perkatory strikes a welcoming vibe. Even the name hints at the type of atmosphere both are aiming for with the café. Perkatory is defined as “the anguished prolonged period spent waiting for a fresh pot of coffee to finish brewing.” “We do not claim to be the best coffee shop in the world, we just want to have fun with coffee,” Joe said. “We felt that was lacking in the industry.”

Since opening, the café has become not only a destination for good coffee, but a place for the community to come together. Before COVID hit in March, Perkatory had hosted different events, including a night for autistic children. City workers, students, retirees. Throughout the week, the cafe is a hub of activity.

“We want the customer to feel a part of what we have here,” Joe said.

For the couple, coffee started as necessity. When they first met, Joe was working long hours and in need of any sort of pick-me up he could get, and Johanna was working in Pennsylvania and traveling back and forth to Connecticut. But now, the world of coffee, and Perkatory, which added a second location in Southington this year, represents so much more.

Before opening the shop, Johanna, who has Type 1 diabetes and stage 3 kidney disease, was told she was going blind.

“I will need a kidney transplant, it is just when – I will lose my vision, it is just when,” Johanna said. “Unfortunately, with diabetes, it is not like you just have diabetes, you also have 15 other things that go along with diabetes. And one of them unfortunately is that I am going blind.”

That diagnosis was all her husband needed to know.

Johanna was working at a doctor’s office and spending every day staring at a computer screen. Something had to give. Perkatory had to happen.

Xavier Director of Communications, Matt Conyers with Joe

Yolanda Christine Photography (YCP Studio)

“That was a big part of why we did this – just to get her in a better situation,” Joe said. “I knew her job staring at a computer screen was not helping her eye situation.”

Perkatory Coffee

Yolanda Christine Photography (YCP Studio)

Their time together is something neither takes for granted.

“As corny as it sounds, he is my soulmate, and being able to be here with him and doing something that we both love has really made me extremely grateful for every little thing we get to do,” Johanna said.

Eventually, Johanna will lose her sight. The couple understands that and is prepared for what lies ahead. But Joe also believes the change in jobs has helped.

“Every time she goes to the eye doctor now, he does not say she needs surgery – he is like ‘you look good,’ ” Joe said. “Before every time she went it was, ‘You have to get laser surgery or an injection.’ ”

As a couple, the Perazellas face everything together, big or small.

“Both of us are willing to make sacrifices for the other, and we’re both very vocal,” Joe said. “If something is bothering us, we bring it up and solve it right then and there, and we work on it. And if it becomes an issue again, we do the same thing.” When it comes to the business, both occupy different roles. Joe is the roaster, and in charge of merchandise. Johanna handles customer service, and the café’s long list of cleverly named lattes.

“We always say – we have such good communication,” Johanna said. “Our marriage is different. We own two cafes. We are parents. Our marriage is just not a typical marriage. We have so many different levels. It is a lot.” The Perazellas never met while they were at Mercy and Xavier, but the husband and wife share many of the same traits and values. Both credit Xavier and Mercy with helping them to get to this point. “We both went to Mercy and Xavier kicking and screaming, but once we graduated, we said ‘thank goodness,’ ” Johanna said. “If we did not go to Mercy or Xavier, we wouldn’t be here.”

At Perkatory, the Perazellas have also seen the power of being part of both communities.

Johanna Romegialli Perazella, Mercy ’03

YCP Studio

Since opening, Johanna has met so many Mercy alumni who have stopped in to support the business, and Joe has formed a friendship with Tim Boyle ’13, who is in his third season with the Green Bay Packers.

Last year, Boyle stopped by Perkatory to surprise the Perazellas on Joe’s birthday after hearing he was a Packers fan.

“A couple of our customers know how big a Packers fan I am and they were like you have to go to Perkatory they’re big Packers fans,” Joe said.

The Perazellas have since traveled to Green Bay as a guest of Boyle.

“That’s like the epitome of the Mercy and Xavier community right there,” Johanna said.

The relationships, the opportunities, the moments. For both Joe and Johanna, Perkatory is an opportunity to be together, doing something they have always wanted to do. And they don’t want to see it end anytime soon.

“I think we are just really happy, and we don’t want anything to change,” Joe said. “We just hope things get to stay like this.”

Yolanda Christine Photography (YCP Studio)