ARLINGTON — A Winter Wishes Blend is just an example of what makes Joe 2 Go unique among espresso stands in Arlington.
A 2003 graduate of Arlington High School, Shauna Hannum bought the coffee stand in the NAPA parking lot earlier this year, and her Joe 2 Go is making a serious go at making the best.
“If we don’t have anything someone asks for, we’ll get it,” Hannum told The Arlington Times last week.
Hannum was crowned Miss Arlington by Mayor Bob Kraski in 1997.
Her mother was president of the Smokey Point Chamber of Commerce when she was in school.
She is just finishing her two-year degree in criminal justice and was thinking she wanted to be a cop, but after working 40-hours a week in security at Angel of the Winds Casino and experiencing an EMT program through the North County Fire Station, now she’s leaning toward being a firefighter instead.
With her entrepreneurial spirit, she might want to stick with business.
“We always have some kind of game or contest going on,” Hannum said.
She recently cut back hours from her 40-hour a week job at the casino to help staff the coffee stand.
Her staff of four have been holding down the fort. Before she bought the stand, she hadn’t even tasted coffee.
“I never had a cup of coffee in my life,” she said. But she learned how to make a mean espresso and taught her people well.
“I make sure they all know the language, what size cup is a tall and what is a skinny.” There’s no bikinis in her espresso stand, but there is a guy.
“I think I’ve got the only guy baristo in north Snohomish County,” she said.
She sells bags of coffee beans to benefit foster kids in Kids Dream of Snohomish County, and she always tops off every coffee off with sprinkles. She also makes baskets for her customers, with a bag of coffee and some other goodies for last-minute gift giving, and her mom sells homemade jewelry out of the Joe 2 Go hut, too.
“We’ve tripled our sales since we started,” said Hannum, the mother of three children, 6, 4 and 3-months.
“I was still in school when I heard about this opportunity,” she said, explaining that they got a deal they couldn’t refuse.
Since then, Hannum has learned how to make coffee and she will apply soon for firefighter training.
Her husband and his dad help take care of the kids, she said.
