In a time of expansion for locally owned, Memphis-area coffee shops, high-toned Germantown, of all places, has been left out. 

That changes now, with JoJo’s Espresso, which is set to open Friday, Nov. 18 in the Thornwood development. 

JoJo’s Espresso will be familiar to anyone who’s spent time around Thornwood over the past two years and change, as it was previously a coffee cart parked on the Thornwood property multiple days a week. 

Jojo’s Espresso to park at Thornwood

And if you want to claim JoJo’s already counted as a Germantown coffee shop, you could make a strong argument. 

Not only was the quality high, with well-composed lattes using locally roasted Vice & Virtue coffee and pastries from local home bakery Palmer House, but the design of the cart, with its raised overhang and subway tile backdrop, felt more shop than vehicle. 

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“When you walked up to the trailer, we wanted you to feel like you were in a coffee shop,” said Taylor Whiddon, who opened JoJo’s Espresso with his wife, Hannah Whiddon. 

If the JoJo’s Espresso trailer was designed to evoke a shop, the new shop will evoke the look and feel of the trailer, with the same tasteful white, black and brown color scheme and subway tile backdrop behind the coffee bar. 

The trailer — now retired and in the process of being sold — is remembered in a framed black-and-white photo in an array on the shop’s wall. 

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But that isn’t the first — or certainly most important — part of the Whiddons’ story featured inside the shop.

Just inside the front door, to the left, is a framed marker with three photos and a description. One photo is the Whiddons with sons Mason and Liam (now six and two, respectively) next to the JoJo’s trailer. One is Taylor, Hannah and Mason in a hospital room with Josiah, the family’s infant second son. The other is Josiah, against the familiar-to-parents backdrop of a hospital baby blanket. 

Josiah, as the display explains, was born in November 2018, with Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome, a congenital heart defect. 

As Hannah explains in a video on the shop’s Instagram account, Josiah was airlifted to Le Bonheur the night of his birth for an hours-long procedure to save his life. 

In the weeks ahead, he got an infection from which he wasn’t able to recover.

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The Whiddons had only seven weeks with Josiah, but have dedicated their coffee enterprise to his memory, the name “JoJo” what Mason, then two, called his brother when he couldn’t pronounce Josiah. 

They know the name will provoke a question — who’s JoJo? — and it’s one they’re eager to answer. 

The Whiddons — Taylor working as a stage designer and lighting director at Life Church, Hannah a nurse – grew interested in coffee half a decade ago, first upping their home game with an espresso machine, teaching themselves to make specialty-shop quality lattes in their own kitchen. 

Taylor wanted to replicate the salted caramel macchiatos you can get at Starbucks.

“That was my go-to-drink,” he said. “I was a sweet coffee drinker then. Once I grew out of the habit of that, I wanted something better. I was always inspired by coffee shops and coffee roasters and the flavor profiles that coffee gives.” 

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His go-to now is a cortado, equal parts espresso and milk, unsweetened.

“A month ago it was cappuccino, but now I want less milk,” he said. 

The Whiddons’ home espresso machine got an upgrade with their trailer and now another in the shop, which will feature a brand new La Marzocco espresso machine, handmade in Florence, Italy.

The menu will use Vice & Virtue for all espresso drinks, including specialty lattes using Vice & Virtue bourbon-barrel-aged cold brew and espresso. 

A smoked maple latte and peppermint white mocha are popular drinks from the JoJo’s trailer now available in the shop. 

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But JoJo’s may soon incorporate other local roasts for drip coffee. And Taylor foresees an afternoon “ambient hour” in the future to introduce pour overs. 

Hannah makes all of the shop’s syrups. The pastry-only food menu is mostly from Palmer House.

The space is a narrow, elegant storefront between Uncle Goyo’s Mexican Restaurant and a coming TCBY in Thornwood’s “Market Row,” where all three will share outdoor patio seating. 

While JoJo’s will close at 2 p.m. initially, Taylor hopes to expand the hours to 8 p.m. in short order, to fit in with the foot traffic from some of the development’s restaurants, offering visitors a before- or after-meal gathering spot. 

And if a trailer or food truck, by nature, suggests impermanence, the Whiddons, who recently moved to Germantown from Cordova, are ready to settle in. 

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“We would come up here and let (Mason) run around in the courtyard,” said Taylor. “Now we have a coffee shop here. We want to focus on this full time for the next few years, me being here full time. And then maybe down the road, maybe we open up another shop or add mobile again.” 

JoJo’s Espresso, 1730 S. Germantown Rd., Ste. 114, is open 7 a.m.-2 p.m., Monday-Saturday. Web: jojosespresso.com. Instagram: @jojosespresso.

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