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Thursday, January 10, 2013 — The Plainville Citizen
Jitters Continued from page 2
Russell Wisener. Bloethe said she always wanted to have a coffee shop, a shop reminiscent of coffee shops in the 1960s. “Not really a hippie’s thing, but a new age thing, for this era,” she said. She got the idea back in 1987, when she was a new graduate of the Hartford College for Woman Entrepreneurial Course. But starting a food business is notoriously hard. Banks didn’t loan to restaurants because most restaurants close within two to five years. “Almost anything can ruin it,” Bloethe said. On a trip out to Montana, Bloethe saw a sporting goods/consignment/closeout store and thought “what a cool idea!” After determining that the venture was possible, Blothe started her own consignment and closeout store for sporting goods, along Queen Street, called Pass It On Sports. A few years later, the hair salon which shared the building left after Blothe bought the building. Then she had space to start her coffeehouse. For the first four to six years, Jitters did not turn a profit. Bloethe used the profits from Pass It On Sports to keep Jitters running. It was a labor of love, she
Photo by Daniel Jackson
Shirley Bloethe points out features of the green building she plans on building near the Jitters coffeehouse. said, working retail during the day while working Jitters at night. “It wasn’t just a business for me, it was my life.”
Bloethe said the coffee house was rewarding in every single way except monetarily. Customers would de-
scribe the place as “your cabin in Vermont,” said Bloethe, with wood floors, a fireplace, and a décor of wooden skis, a pair of snowshoes and even an old sled. Blothe put out reading material on Tarot Cards, healthy eating and salt lamps. All of the food served was organic and local. Bloethe purchased materials for organic salads from a farm in Plainville and farmers markets in New Britain and Berlin. By the summer of 2012, Bloethe had the business exactly where she wanted it. “Literally, everything was in place,” she said. She was offering lunch, concerts, spa services, several classes and workshops a week, a bookstore on new age subjects and of course, Pass It On Sports. Business was picking up and more help had been hired, when she began a run
of bad news. First, her nephew, who was close to the family, died at age 20. A few days later, her father died. “It just crushed me,” Bloethe said. But then on Sept. 26, Bloethe’s daughter called her in the morning to say “Mom, your building is on fire.” Bloethe’s heart sank. She drove to Jitters and arrived just as the Southington Fire Department began to set up. She ran around to the back of the building. The whole back side of the building— the kitchen area — was engulfed in flames. The business change — a retirement she calls it — will give her more time to develop better relationships with the people around her. “People are important in my life; Family is important in my life and now I have the freedom to be there for them and with them.”
HEALTHY STARTS
HERE YMCA OF GREATER HARTFORD
Nature Continued from page 4
Open your eyes to the beauty that is everywhere in our little town. Birds, animals, flowers, wild turkeys are everywhere and you can get rather silly watching their antics. I’d love to hear your nature observations. I’m in the phone book.
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