Copyright thebusinesstimes
Jitterz Coffee Hut and Monumental Coffee are sticking to making coffee and letting third parties make their food items Tim Harty, The Business Times Jitterz Coffee Hut owner Alexandra Ruppe wanted more sleep. Monumental Coffee owner Landon Balding wanted to keep up with volume demands. Both businesses were doing some of their own food prep, but each owner recently decided it was time to let someone else do it. For Jitterz, which was making its own egg-potato-onion-pepper mix for its breakfast burritos and egg patties for its bagel sandwiches, the answer was contracting with downtown Grand Junction restaurant Cafe Sol. For Monumental Coffee, which was baking its own pastries, mostly the sweet variety, the answer was Mountain Oven Organic Bakery in Paonia. Jitterz Coffee Hut Jitterz Coffee Hut, 644 North Ave., has been using a third party for baked goods such as muffins since Ruppe and her brother, Jaden, bought the business in 2020 (Alexandra became sole owner in early October). Jitterz recently switched to Be Sweet Cafe & Bakeshop, 150 W. Main St., for its baked items. Cooking savory elements for its breakfast burritos and bagel sandwiches had “completely outgrown us,” Ruppe said, so a few months ago she began the search for someone to take over that operation. She wanted that third party making burrito mix and egg patties the way Jitterz did and “delivering it to us and not having to worry about it.” She determined the best option was Cafe Sol, which assumed its role about two months ago. “I just knew they had a good product and they care about their product,” Ruppe said. “That was really a highlight for me. Also decent pricing, that’s a big one for me, so I don’t have to charge crazy amounts to the customers.” She said the breakfast burritos and bagel sandwiches are probably a little better now, because Cafe Sol brings consistency, and all of its ingredients are fresh. “They use local eggs, and instead of frozen potatoes, they use fresh potatoes,” Ruppe said. Nick Santos, who owns Cafe Sol along with Joel Kuxhausen and Craig Dobson, said having a wholesale license allowed its restaurant to take the job with Jitterz. He said the work requires about a half-dozen more hours each week for a Cafe Sol employee. “It’s going really well,” Santos said. “She gave me her recipe, and we basically just follow the recipe. … It’s a lot of food to do in that little hut without a full, proper kitchen, so I think it’s probably a lot easier for us than it was for her.” Not having to spend extra time making food each day during Jitterz’ off-hours is feeling pretty relaxing for Ruppe. “It’s been so nice,” she said. “The eye bags are slowly going away.” Monumental Coffee Co. Balding and his wife, Jackie, opened Monumental Coffee, 575 32 Road, on May 27 and started with an in-house baker. As much as they wanted to make that work, they realized the job would be better left to a business that specializes in baked goods, and Mountain Oven Organic Bakery, 395 Clark Ave. in Paonia, took over around the beginning of September. “The main reason for choosing somebody else to do the baking is we learned that in order to survive as a bakery, we would be a volume business, and we just weren’t able to keep up,” Landon Balding said. “We didn’t have enough volume in sales to make sense for the labor and the cost of ingredients and that sort of thing for baking in-house.” The Baldings discovered Mountain Oven’s baked goods at a store in Fruita and liked what they tasted. “We gave them a try for a couple weeks and really liked their product and decided that was going to be our transition into a new baking program,” Landon said. “One of the reasons that we really were excited with Mountain Oven is that they also use sourdough.” Monumental Coffee offers several Mountain Oven items each day. “We’re trying to keep fairly consistent with what we’re bringing in,” Landon said, “so we always have at least two cinnamon-roll-type options. We sometimes rotate between cinnamon buns, morning buns, pistachio cardamom buns and sticky pecans buns. So those are kind of the four. Pretty much always we have the cinnamon bun and rotate out the morning bun, the pistachio and the sticky buns. He added, “We’re always trying new things if they offer something new.” Mountain Oven also provides some savory items, such as a ham-and-cheese-croissant. Landon said Monumental Coffee will occasionally make a couple items in-house, “but we’re finding it easier to stick with Mountain Oven. And not that we’re trying to be easier, it’s just more consistent, and we like that for our customers.” New hours at Cafe Sol Santos said Cafe Sol changed its hours as of Oct. 6. Cafe Sol used to be open at 8 a.m. seven days a week, but now the restaurant opens on weekdays for lunch at 10 a.m. and closes at 3 p.m. On weekends it opens at 9 a.m. for brunch and closes at 2 p.m.
