MASON CITY – A local coffee shop is getting an upgrade.
Jitters Coffee Bar Downtown > Outback in downtown Mason City is having a drive-up window installed at this time.
Owner Scott Elsbury tells NIT today that he finally cleared all the hurdles with city hall and thinks the drive-up will be a great addition to his business.
“Not sure when it will be ready,” Scott said. “But we think it will be great, and it is much-needed.”
Most coffee shops in town have drive-up windows already, and with the likely additions of new Starbucks and Caribou Coffee locations, Jitters is keeping pace.
City hall didn’t immediately respond to questions about any possible difficulties or red tape Jitters had to overcome to get their drive-up window.
Wednesday, workers from Mason City Glass Service were at Jitters measuring and installing glass in the drive-up.
The drive-up is the latest change to come to the long-time coffee shop. Late last year, Jitters announced it was moving from Southbridge Mall to its new location at 124 4th Street SW. The coffee shop seems to be flourishing there, and added a home-cooked lunch menu and shiny new signs on the building later in the spring.
Lets not blame the City workers for this, they have to follow the rules just like the rest of us do at our work place. I would guess all these rules and regulations were voted on my our elected officials so the employees are only doing their job and we should praise them for that.
If your pizzed at welfare city move to manly where we have higher property taxes and a city council friendly to their friends and relatives – more toilets being built every day by friends/relatives and free money -well not ALL.
City hall made it tough on a downtown bakery not long ago. Refused to let this business alter their sign. All the owner wanted to do was paint it and put it right back up, but city hall said shed be fined. Also heard some folks working on apartments downtown were put through the ringer by city hall. Not real conducive to a friendly business atmosphere as I understood it; I guess if you’re a chamber member or “connected” somehow things go a little easier. As you can see, city hall ignored our questions for this story. Kind of speaks volumes.
I’d bet Lala’s apartments had no trouble.
My parents wanted to relocate (taking down the old garage)there new garage on their own property and mason city wouldnt allow it. I got notice that my children’s kids pool that we kept covered tied off. They said that’s not aloud without a zoning permit:
I have heard that if have a swimming pool in (your) yard, you are required to put a fence around it. I guess to keep people out. But, at the north east corner of north Illinois and birch drive the owner built a large pond. While there is a fence there, I doubt that it will keep anybody out.
@Allen-I don’t think that is the rule for a kids pool. They are not considered permanent.
Good for Jitters. It is nice to see a business succeeding in Mason City.
All the hurdles…… care to elaborate?? Every business and home owner has to comply with building codes and secure the necessary permits. If something was unfair or unreasonable as implied, we sure would like to know the details?
It’s obvious that you have never applied for a permit to remodel/construct anything in this town.
The article states that Jitters finally cleared all the hurdles from city hall. Im asking a fair question…. what were the hurdles and were they reasonable or not? My experience is irrelevant to the information in this story.
I would guess not, but who knows, since city hall didn’t answer questions about this. Seems outrageous that as Jitters is a small locally-owned business they would have to battle city hall for something as reasonable as a drive up window, even as the council grants huge tax breaks and special deals so the “big chain” coffee shops can come in to town and pay $7.25 an hour. Just another example of how the common citizens are back-doored by the sleazies on North Federal Avenue and their puppets around the corner.
I can just imagine the trouble you had with the city, just to make your business better. They don’t mind collecting tax’s though.