A Conversation With… Scott Jones, Owner & Proprietor, Jitterbug Coffeehouse

Where the coffee’s fresh, and hot, and everybody knows your name

What a great looking coffee shop. Tell me about Jitterbug and about yourself—did you start this place?

I did not. I've had it for 10 years, but it was started by Cindy Spradlin, probably 18 to 20 years ago. So Jitterbug's been a Heber Springs staple for a generation now.

You've got a great location, downtown right on Main Street. I assume that’s free parking out in front—I didn’t pay.

You bet, free parking. And we added a parking lot in back because when we get really busy, there just aren't enough spots out front. Not everybody wants to parallel park, either.

But, yeah, we’ve been right here doing it for a long time now. We're open 6:30 in the morning until 5 o'clock in the evening. We're only closed on Sunday. I worked six days a week at first, but I don't anymore. It can consume you if you let it. I've had to learn how to kind of tone it down, because I’ve got a family now and other things to do too.

What were you doing before Jitterbug?

I had never owned or managed a coffee shop, but I did work in one. It was at Caribou Coffee in the Mall of America in Minnesota. It was that huge, huge mall—I think it had four Caribou Coffees and three Starbucks.

Are you from Minnesota?

No, I'm from Arkansas. Going up there was just an adventure. I wanted to try new places, because I'd not done a whole lot of traveling or anything. I was in Minnesota a couple of years.

I grew up in Searcy, and when I was a kid, my family would come to Heber in the summer and play around on the lake. So my parents ended up retiring here, and as they were getting older, I started looking for something to do in or around Heber Springs. And we found out that the coffee shop was up for grabs.

I’ll tell you, it was a big leap from just working in a coffee shop to owning and running one! I had a lot of learning to do. There were many nights when I wondered what I’d gotten into, but you learn from your mistakes and just keep on going.

I bet you have a pretty good regular clientele here.

We do, and in Heber we need our regulars to make it through the year. We get nice and busy during the spring and summer with lake and river traffic, so that’s great. But we rely on our local regulars through the winter for sure.

Was the shop called Jitterbug when you bought it?

It was, and I love the name. Jitterbug is cool. So the foundation of this business was here when I took over, and we’ve gotten a lot busier since. My focus is on friendliness and customer service, because I’ve been to some coffee shops that weren’t that friendly. So over the years we've just added to what was here and tried to make anything that we're doing better.

We have a good lunch crowd—the 12 to one lunch rush is our busiest time of day. We do soups and sandwiches, and a big salad. A lot of people will get the special of the day, half a sandwich and a cup of soup. We also have homemade chicken salad, grilled cheese, and hot paninis like turkey or ham or salami. Every now and then I roll out a hot roast sandwich that's been popular, but I don't have it all the time.

For the kids, we have things like PB and J—and ice cream, of course. We do that year-round. We still get Yarnell's ice cream out of Searcy. Dip cones and hand-dipped milkshakes and all that good stuff.

As for the coffee, it’s all fresh and locally-roasted—RoZark Hills out of Rose Bud, Arkansas.

I've worked at home for decades, and every morning I just make a regular old pot of coffee. So when my son in law talks about things like “flat whites,” I don’t have a clue. What do your local coffee aficionados mostly order when they come in?

Our number one is going to be the specialty drinks. That’s a fancy latte with your espresso shots, steam milk, whatever flavors you're getting. We do them hot, iced, blended. But we also have plain old coffee. You don't have to be fancy to come in here. We have something for everybody. We want everybody to feel at home at Jitterbug.

Speaking of that, I like your furniture. It looks homey.

Thank you. It's all kind of eclectic. We've just gotten things and put them together and it is kind of homey. We've got a regular coffee crew that’s waiting right when we open at 6:30, and that big table in the center is where they sit.

Are these regulars younger or older?

They're older. Most of them are retired, but some of them still work. They meet up for coffee every morning and hang out for an hour or so, and then they go on with their day.

Tell me about this “Pay It Forward” board on your wall.

You know how people going through a drive-through will pay ahead for somebody else? Well, this is our version of it. There's always money on the board for police and firefighters and maybe a particular person that somebody wants to buy coffee for. All that up there is just money on the board for people to use.

It's usually the regulars who use it. But if it's a police officer or somebody, we'll tell them they’ve got money on the board. The Pay It Forward board has been very popular.

Was it here before you bought the coffee shop?

No, it was just an idea we had, to provide the opportunity for people to give. At first, we just had a little board, but so many people started using it that we had to paint the wall and make it bigger.

So how about you—how do you like living in Heber Springs?

It's a beautiful place, and I've got my own family and my parents here. There’s lots of hiking trails, and we get out on the lake like we did when I was growing up. My wife and I have a 4-year-old boy now, and he and I often go try to catch some trout together.

I really like the small-town feel here. I live right on the other side of town in a quiet neighborhood, and the commute to work is just a five-minute drive. That’s hard to beat!