Java Shack, the tiny Arlington coffee shop that has anchored the Courthouse neighborhood for almost 20 years, has some new blood at the helm.
Owner Dale Roberts has sold the business to Commonwealth Joe, an Arlington-based coffee company, a deal first reported by ARLnow. Commonwealth Joe roasts its beans in Culpeper and has been providing coffee to Java Shack for more than a year.
Roberts opened Java Shack in 1996 at 2507 Franklin Road — in a building that lives in local lore as the former headquarters of the American Nazi Party. For the past year, he had been thinking about moving on to something new, and in Commonwealth Joe he found kindred spirits. Commonwealth Joe was founded in 2012 by Robert Peck, Sean Douglass, Carl Barth and Eric Mo, four friends who met at the University of Virginia.
Roberts had been approached by another potential buyer in the past, he said, but that owner wanted to gut the place and leave little of the original Shack, he said.
“I never want to see Java Shack go away, so handing it over was not an easy decision,” Roberts said. “But I think I found people who share the same values and interest. They live here; they know what Arlington is all about.”
Commonwealth’s Peck said they don’t intend to make major changes to the coffeehouse. “We understand how welcoming Java Shack is. It’s got that neighborhood coffee shop vibe, and people say that’s very important to them. We’re not planning to make it into something completely new,” Peck said.
Roberts, 55, isn’t retiring. The avid cyclist and former human resources officer for MCI Communications will help Java Shack with the transition for the next six months while he contemplates his next move.
“I have a lot of ideas in my head. I think I could do a lot for the small business community, if I decide to go that route,” he said.
But first, he had planned to man the Java Shack counter by himself one last time, which he plans to do Dec. 31. Commonwealth Joe takes over Jan. 1.
“I said that’s what I wanted to do because I opened it all by myself, and I wanted to finish that way too,” Roberts said.
He’ll probably make plenty of Dale Specials — a drink that features several shots of espresso over ice. Just don’t ask him to make any frozen coffee drinks, as they’re his least favorite thing to make.
