A Cup of Joe and ‘Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes’ Nolia: Family + Coffee is a coffee shop where kids can be themselves B Y NATA L I E S C H U ST ER | PHOTO BY BET H MA NN

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efore stepping foot inside Nolia, you hear something unexpected for a coffee shop on a quiet street in Durham. Children are laughing … and screaming … and singing. Turns out, it’s storytime. This is Nolia: Family + Coffee, a community-inspired coffee shop where kids can be, well, kids. Owners Natalie Minott and her husband, Justin, opened the shop in July. They had long been unable to find spaces that were both child-friendly and made great coffee, they say. To design the shop, the owners turned

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october/november 2019

to neighborhood residents, who suggested most of the details, including menus and toys. The shop should also, the community said, have a storytime. Every Thursday at 10 a.m., Justin handles the coffee and Natalie, an animated storyteller, captivates children and parents alike with carefully selected stories and songs. On a recent Thursday, Natalie began by swinging her arm as a makeshift trunk for the reading of “Have You Seen Elephant?” and then jumped into a rousing “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” singalong. Natalie also sang “The Itsy Bitsy Spider,” transforming into a “tiny spider” and a “big spider,” and, as the kids laughed, she sucked in her cheeks for “The Pout-Pout Fish.”