—Jonathan Harwell Jr.
For a guy who spends most of his day around coffee, Bongo Java master roaster Mark Johnson is remarkably calm. “I’m at my best if I just have two cups of coffee a day. More than three, I’m obnoxious to my employees,” he says. But that won’t keep him from selling you as many Immaculate Peculations—a signature Bongo blend—as you want. Mark understands and appreciates the allure of a good “cuppa joe.” “It’s a nostalgic, romancing beverage in its flavor and its preparation, and it involves some of the key times of day—when you’re waking or entertaining with friends,” he says. Mark began his service to the caffeine-addicted in the early ’80s as a partner in a small roasting company in Anchorage, Alaska. The roaster instruction manual and customer service hotline couldn’t teach him all he needed to know, so he started tinkering with the equipment and studying various effects on the roasting process. When his partnership arrangement didn’t work out, Mark took his expertise to the opposite end of the West Coast. In San Diego, he continued his work in the coffee business, selling espresso machines and even spending three years managing one of those corporate outlets with the star logo. Bongo owner Bob Bernstein met Mark at a convention in the java-Mecca of Seattle and, after some negotiating, convinced him to move east (all the way to East Nashville) to open a new store in 1998. Now thanks to Mark, many uninitiated Nashvillians are learning that there is more to a robust Colombian Supremo than Juan Valdez and his donkey.
