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A Place to Chat
By Nancy Roberts

If an old school bus can make a great camper, then why not a coffee shop? This brainstorm came to Coleen Paixao a couple years ago when she and her husband Lee were looking to open a coffeehouse geared for youth in their central Virginia community of Waynesboro.

“We’d looked at storefronts, and it was so expensive to open one there,” Coleen recalls. “We have four teenagers ourselves and we just couldn’t afford it.”

Then her husband saw an ad for a used Blue Bird ‘88 in a trade magazine and said, “Wouldn’t that be great, to buy an old bus and use it for camping?”
“No, I’m not interested in becoming the Patridge Family,” Coleen recalls her quick response. “And then it just came to me in a flash, why not put a coffee shop in a bus?”

So they did, and it opened in August 2003. Now it’s even been featured on the Travel Channel. Lee renovated and remodeled the long, narrow space, about 30-feet-by-6-feet, including removing all of the seats. “When you walk aboard, it looks like a little café,” Coleen says, “with countertops, stools, kiosks in the back, the coffee machine, water, sinks, and so on. Everything fits in.” Photo collages of teenagers lend a cheerful decorative element.

The Chatter Bus—Coleen says she had the name in her head for at least three years—even has a motto: “A place to chat, not gossip.” Painted the color of coffee, it’s usually parked right by the local high school, where students treat it like their living room, along with a varied clientele from infants to nonagenarians. “Most of all, we wanted to provide a youth-friendly atmosphere where kids could come, because there isn’t much for teenagers to do in downtown Waynesboro (population: 17,000),” she says. Because the Paixaos had done youth ministry work for 14 years, they recognized the need for a coffeehouse geared for youth, something “with a wholesome environment.”

Now there’s even an adjacent gazebo for leisurely coffee sipping, as well as a second retired bus on the site that Coleen calls “a neat little hangout” with a fireplace, upholstered chairs and couches, coffee tables and bookshelves.

Because Lee did all of the renovations—gutting the place, building counters, painting, carpeting, adding lighting—overhead is low. It also helped that the couple renovated the bus as they could afford it, over a span of two years. “If you do a lot of the work yourself like this, you can start up for under $50,000,” Coleen says, “as compared to the typical start-up costs for a small store of $200,000 to $250,000. Even our insurance is cheaper than insurance for the typical storefront; basically with a bus you’re looking at insuring it like a mobile home, with liability, of course.

“The only expenses are, mainly, our supplies that we go through, and our sublease, which is very minimal.” So are prices, with a double latte going for $2.50, a 12-oz. coffee, $1, and a 16-oz. coffee, $1.25. The most expensive item on the menu is the $3.25 frappe.

Yet the Paixaos haven’t lost any money on the enterprise, and Coleen says the quality of the machinery in the shop is “top-notch, as good as any major coffee shop’s.” Little if any advertising has been needed; word-of-mouth has been sufficient to generate a steady stream of customers. “It’s such a different venture that everybody talks about it,” Coleen explains.
Busiest times of the day are mornings between 8:15 a.m. and 9:30 a.m.; then Friday nights, when entertainment is featured; and later afternoon, usually between 2:30 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. as school lets out.

“We could probably do even better in a more populated area,” she notes, “where there are more people walking around and what have you, but we believe this is where God wants us to be right now. So we’re not moving. We’re going to stay put and enjoy this—it’s a blessing, the number of just plain neat conversations that go on here.” It’s clear that the Paixaos derive a great deal of satisfaction from knowing they’ve made a difference in the lives of the young people in their community. Coleen herself still does a lot of substitute teaching; “I love being around kids,” she says.

One of the unique aspects of the bus environment: everything’s magnetic. So that means there’s magnetic poetry throughout the bus for patrons to fiddle with, along with all kinds of inspirational verses on the walls. Stereo music is available both inside and outside, weather permitting.

In mid-May, the Chatter Bus started opening in the evening, sponsoring entertainment outside. “We have all styles of music here, bluegrass and country, rock, praise music, soloists, open mike, even heavy metal, as long as the lyrics are appropriate,” Coleen says. “We say, no cussing, no negative messages.”

She laughs as she recalls a heavy metal band that played last year. “The band told us that it took them two weeks of practice to adjust their lyrics for us,” she says. “It was pretty neat; they were awesome, very respectful, happy to do this. They came in for their performance and announced to all the kids that there’d be no cussing or inappropriate lyrics. I was really touched by that.

“People like to sit out here, bring their lawn chairs and hang out outside for a while, come aboard to get a drink,” where they might sit on one of the six counter stools, Coleen mentions. It’s not unusual to find a larger crowd inside, perhaps gathered around a teenager playing the bus’ resident guitar.

Very occasionally, patrons might venture to the Chatter Bus only to find a handwritten note pinned in its place, giving its temporary location. Most of the time the bus remains stationary, on its site at the intersection of West Broad Street and Poplar Avenue, but it’s traveled to a few special events such as festivals, usually under 25 miles away. “We built it with the idea that it’d be portable like this. But we have lots of regulars, so we try to stay on location,” Coleen says.

Still, just in case, Lee starts up the bus weekly just to keep it in shape. It only takes 20 minutes to get everything ready to go, to unplug machinery, lay and tie down a few items, and let down the jacks underneath. “We try not to be gone overnight, though, because we’d rather be here the next day for our regular customers,” Coleen says.

The Chatter Bus serves Mr. Jay’s Bagels, pastries, muffins and biscotti, all locally made. “We don’t serve lunch or sandwiches, we keep it simple,” Coleen says. Coffee drinks are the most popular beverages, but 12 types of tea are also available, along with cider, hot chocolate and orange juice.

Coffee beans, including the Bus’ own “Chatter” blend, roasted in nearby Charlottesville, Va., have proven quite popular. Bottled syrups, the teas, bagels by the dozen and logoed T-shirts can also be purchased.

Coleen says it’s hard to find some time off; she’s usually there from 6:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. Lee helps out when he can, and their youngest daughter, Katie, 16, also pitches in. “But I want to keep it pretty much the way it is,” she says. “You lose that personal touch if you delegate too much to employees.”

But the most challenging aspect, she admits, was “just getting started, because no one had ever thought to do something like this, not in this vicinity, at least. It took awhile to get the concept accepted in the community, to get people to understand what we’re about. At first, they’d come aboard and look around and say, ‘What IS this?’”

The patrons are without a doubt the most rewarding aspect of the business, she says. “Our space is very small and quaint; you can’t get lost in a crowd here. So you get to know your customers. It’s like family here.”

Without hesitation, Coleen says she would encourage other aspiring specialty coffee retailers to “go for it. If you have a dream, you’ve got to follow it. I talked about doing this for years, opening a coffeehouse, and I never lost it in my heart and in my mind, I never stopped praying about it. If you really want to do something, you ought to go for it.

“It’s been a real blessing and an honor to do this for the community,” she adds. “After our story aired on the Travel Channel, I got calls from all over the country, people asking how they could go about this in their own communities. This is something we didn’t foresee, and it made us think, hey, wouldn’t it be neat to open Chatter Buses all over the United States? But I’m not going there right now.

“We decided, let’s just work with this one. And it’s been so much fun.”

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