New Café replaces Java Jo’s


Rebeca Oliveira


Gazette Photo by Rebeca Oliveira
Fazenda, at 3710 Washington St., will have a coffee bean roaster in store.

FOREST HILLS—Fazenda, the new café at 3710 Washington St., is expected to open this weekend, April 16, after buying long-standing Java Jo’s.

This will be the first storefront for the new owners—Fazenda Coffee Company—a specialty coffee distributor based in Needham.

“We’re working diligently to try to get open by [this] weekend,” owner Phil Schein told the Gazette last week. “There are a tremendous amount of details. We’re trying to do it right, so it takes some time, but we think it’ll be worth the wait.

“We wanted to have a retail presence,” Schein added. “This seemed like a good opportunity.”

For the last seven years, Java Jo’s occupied the space. It was sold last month.

“It just wasn’t doing business. It wasn’t doing very well,” Brenda Villa, the former owner, told the Gazette. Java Jo’s had been on the market for about a year, she said.

Fazenda will continue to offer sandwiches and pastries, like Java Jo’s, but will refocus in one aspect: “We’re going to do a lot in-house,” Schein said.

The new café will also boast a hot and rare item—an in-store roaster, like the one in JP Lick’s on Centre Street.

“We’re going to try to do a good job educating customers [about beans and roasts], if they want to be,” Schein said. “We source from all over the place, all fairly-traded coffee.”

While many farms cannot afford to become fair-trade certified, he said, Fazenda deals with those that treat their employees fairly regardless of certification. Fazenda works directly with coffee farms “that are doing the right thing,” Schein said.

Schein said he expects to host coffee tastings among other evening activities once the café is settled in.

Schein joked that he’s practically become a JP resident due to all the hours he spends readying the store: “I live at the café, trying to get it going.”

“Fazenda” is the Portuguese word for farm. Schein chose it as the name of his company to reflect his commitment to the farmers he deals with, many from Brazil.

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