For years, Barefoots Joe has provided a coffehouse on Union’s campus and a place for conversation and engagement with the arts. Over the past year, our team—Director Joy Moore, the leadership team and the barista team—has been preparing to open a new shop in the library. As the new library opens broader avenues for learning and growth, the new coffee shop, Modero, will cultivate a place to rest and reflect on the ideas a university and library make available.
The choice to give this shop a new name stemmed from a desire to differentiate between it and Barefoots Joe. We also wanted a name that could be understood by a broader audience outside of the Union community.
For this reason, we also decided to name the roaster Modero Coffee Roasters. The coffee produced in the roaster will be served in both coffee shops. We are pleased to continue to bring specialty grade coffees to customers, and further, coffees that rank in the top five percent of the world.
We chose the name Modero because it linguistically embodies what we want the shop to provide to our campus. The word modero means to check or slow down. Our desire is to serve the campus by shaping a place where our community can slow down and be restored. We hope the shop will be a place where people can take time to rest, whether that means enjoying conversation over a drink or processing material from a class lecture.
Modero will fit seamlessly into the library with a classic urban look and big city feel. Nearly everything in the shop will be hand-built including the tables, chairs and dishes. The coffee bar, shelves and cabinets will also be hand-built.
Modero’s mission states “To everything, there is a time: a time to work and a time to rest, a time to make haste and a time to pause. Modero exists to create interludes for our guests to recoup, reflect, savor a drink, and converse. We seek to cultivate space for the slow work of perspective and presence.”