Shortly after 1 pm today a little bit of excitement happened at the cafe. A pigeon (similar to the one pictured above) flew inside the coffee shop while Roland was helping out Eugene for the lunch rush. With great care and stealth, Roland approached the pigeon, which was fluttering against one of the windows in an effort to escape, and managed to cup it in his hands. Then Roland carefully took the bird to the patio and released it. -- Post From My iPhone
Around 8.30pm last night a storm system quickly moved in. A premature darkness ensued as ominous storm clouds gathered. Thunder rumbled and spectacular flashes of lightning lit up the sky accompanied by strong gusts of wind.
This morning, in the aftermath of the storm, there was a victim. Diagonally across the street from the coffee shop, in the lawn on the east side of 66 Isabella Street, a large tree (estimated to be at least 50 years old) came crashing down sometime last night. The tree fell towards Isabella Street and its top landed on the metal fence which runs along the perimeter of the lawn. It's likely that that section of the fence sustained some damage.
On July 11, 2009, Fred O'Neill, a regular patron of and a dear friend to many at Java Jive, passed away at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto.
He was born August 8th, 1942 and was the only child of Mary (Lynk) and Peter O'Neill. He resided in Bridgeport, Glace Bay, and moved to Toronto in 2006. For much of his life, Fred dedicated his life to teaching and worked as a teacher and principal at Bridgeport School in Glace Bay for 35 years. He was instrumental in developing innovative educational programs to foster the full potential of all students.
On Saturday, August 1, a number of us gathered together for a celebration party on the patio to honour his life.
Reminiscent of the Wizard of Oz the torrential downpour we had this morning, accompanied by thunder, lightning, and great gusts of wind, had a most unusual effect on our patio. During one of the great gusts, the wind began to switch, then two of the umbrellas to twitch, and soon they became unhitched. One of our regular patrons witnessed the wind launch these umbrellas, located on the far west side of the patio, into the air and propel them across its length, ultimately to land on the metal framework above the east patio. A third umbrella wasn't so lucky and sustained major damage. -- Post From My iPhone
The above video is a segment recorded by one of Java Jive's regular patrons on the night before Pride Day. This is the first number in Angel Summers' repetoire. Here she performs Diana Ross.
On the evening of Saturday, June 27 at 9 PM, see Angel Summers perform hot selections from Diana Ross, Shirley Bassey and Gladys Knight. A show not to be missed!!!!
Starting on Saturday, June 6 and for every weekend throughout the summer, local artists are encouraged to display their work at our Art & BBQ Fusion Festival on our spacious patio. For more information, call 416 923 7267.
This morning a webcam was installed to compliment the eMac and the instant messaging programs - specifically, aMSN (MSN with video support on the Mac), iChat, Skype, and Yahoo! Messenger - installed on it. --- Posted from my iPhone
Early Sunday morning Eugene and Roland ventured to Jay's Garden at the corner of Gerrard and Sackville, where the selection of flora is amazing. Early that afternoon Roland volunteered to do the planting and then put his greenthumb to work.
A gentle giant of a dog, who was a fixture of this neighbourhood for many years and a frequent customer of Java Jive, Ezerbloo at age 11 1/2 years passed away quietly on Saturday, May 23, 2009 at 5am. He will be fondly remembered by all who knew him.
The first full edition of Java Jive Perkolator goes to press on Tuesday, May 18 and will be in the coffee shop on Wednesday, May 19. Download a copy of this issue.
If you check the right column of our blog, you'll find a section called Do You Have Something To Say?. Here you'll see our Twitter feed, which is clearly identified by a bird icon.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with Twitter, it is basically a way of communicating in real time through short, quick messages called tweets. These messages can be posted from a computer or a mobile device (such as a cell phone or Blackberry). Any messages (or tweets) which you post to our Twitter feed - @javajivecafe - immediately appear here on our blog. So if you have something to say, just tweet it!
Starting on Wednesday, May 13, the eMac computer officially goes online for Java Jive patrons to use. So that customers have reasonable access to this computer, each patron has a limit of 30 minutes. For patrons who come into the cafe to use the computer station only, each session costs $2.00.
On the eMac, Firefox and Safari are installed for web browsing. Frequently accessed web sites are bookmarked in both browsers for quick and easy reference.
For instant messaging, customers have a choice of aMSN (javajivecafe@live.com), iChat (javajive585@aim.com), Skype (javajivecafe), and Yahoo! (javajivecafe@yahoo.ca). Each of these programs has been set up with a default username and password. If you prefer to use your own username and password for one of the instant messaging programs, please feel free to enter that login information.
For those patrons who bring their laptops to the cafe, they can avail themselves of the wireless network. But for those patrons who don't have computers, we have installed an eMac, a desktop computer with a cool all-in-one design, which patrons can use for a minimal fee. If this initial installation is a success, we may likely add a couple of other computers.
Originally released in 1940, this song was first performed by The Ink Spots, a popular all-Black group from Indianapolis, Indiana, which formed in the early 1930s.
This particular version of the song is very appropriate because it takes place inside a small neighbourhood coffee shop.
JAVA JIVE LYRICS
I love coffee, I love tea I love the java jive and it loves me Coffee and tea and the java and me A cup, a cup, a cup, a cup, a cup (boy!)
I love java, sweet and hot Whoops mr. moto, Im a coffee pot Shoot the pot and Ill pour me a shot A cup, a cup, a cup, a cup, a cup
Oh slip me a slug from the wonderful mug And Ill cut a rug just snug in a jug A sliced up onion and a raw one Draw one - Waiter, waiter, percolator
I love coffee, I love tea I love the java jive and it loves me Coffee and tea and the java and me A cup, a cup, a cup, a cup, a cup
Boston bean (soy beans) Green bean (cabbage and greens) Im not keen about a bean Unless it is a chili chili bean (boy!)
I love java sweet and hot Whoops mr. moto Im a coffee pot (yeah) Shoot me the pot and Ill pour me a shot A cup, a cup, a cup (yeah)
Slip me a slug of the wonderful mug an Ill cut a rug just as snug in a jug Drop a nickel in the pot joe Takin it slow Waiter, waiter, percolator
I love coffee, I love tea I love the java jive and it loves me Coffee and tea and the java and me A cup, a cup, a cup, a cup, boy!
While not quite the hanging gardens of Babylon, the next couple of weeks will see a small transformation of the east patio as space above it is adorned with flowers. Stay tuned.
While we'd love to have our dogs, like Sage, join us on our large patio, we have to abide by certain city by-laws (which this author sees motivated more by politics rather than health issues). So to accommodate this situation and maintain the peace, we do provide a designated dog parking zone along the fence, which runs parallel with Isabella Street. Right now there is only one freestanding post available to tether dogs. We plan to install more posts to which you can tether your pooches and post appropriate signage.
From May 3 - May 31, Christine Russell, one of the participants in CONTACT 2009: Toronto Photography Festival, will be featuring some of her work in her first ever photo exhibition. Called The Golden Triangle: Moments in Time, this exhibition captures people’s faces and actions and reveals cultural diversity and traces of nature in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Burma and Thailand. From young monks of the village to the children living on Garbage Mountain, to rickshaw drivers, life on the river, from sea to flower, these are real moments caught through Russell’s lens. Please come explore Java Jive Café, a cozy, local café that supports local artists.
Starting on Monday, May 4, these BBQ dinner specials will continue throughout the summer. All dinners are $6.25 each and are freshly grilled to perfection. Simply click on the image to check out what's on the menu.
Yesterday the first edition of Java Jive Perkolator went to press and is now available at Java Jive for free. This newsletter is basically the hard copy counterpart to this blog.
Last summer Java Jive had a multimedia screen, which was among several screens deployed throughout the downtown core to advertise our cafe and several other local businesses, and wireless Internet installed. This was a boon for the cafe because patrons would bring their laptops with them. Now, fast forward to early 2009. A few weeks ago the company which had installed this hardware came in one day and mysteriously took it all away. Being a regular customer of this cafe and someone who helps out from time to time at this cafe, I talked with the rep who had supervised the hardware installation last summer. He explained that the equipment would not likely be returned to the cafe. The company was apparently a victim of the current economic climate.
Last week I spoke with the owner of Java Jive, with whom I am well-acquainted, and convinced him about how important it was to the business to have wireless Internet back at the cafe. So on his behalf, I called Rogers (with whom he has their home phone service) and set up an appointment for Internet installation. At about 12 noon on Monday of this week, a Rogers technician visited Java Jive and performed the installation. Later that same day I visited the cafe and installed a wireless router so that patrons who did bring their laptops would be able to access the Internet.
Originally opening its doors as a P.A.M.'s franchise in 1994, this neighbourhood cafe, located on the northern periphery of Toronto's Gay Village , has been a fixture at the southwest corner of Church and Isabella Streets. In 2003, the franchisee, who had become dissatisfied with the way the franchise was being run, decided to break his contract and go his own way; hence, Java Jive came into being. In late 2006, Eugene Johnson, the current manager of Java Jive, with many years of experience in the hospitality business under his belt and a warm, easygoing nature, came on the scene. Since then, this little coffee shop hasn't been the same.
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