Bill's Coffeeshop was once a kindergarten room

IF the original Bill's Coffeeshop were a classroom, it could accommodate a
class of perhaps 35 students. In fact, it was a classroom for many years.
North Hall, where the coffeeshop is located, was originally built as a K-12
school. It was the training school for student teachers at the University of
Iowa.

The third floor, where the coffeeshop is located, was the elementary school; the second floor was the high school. The room where the coffeeshop was located was the kindergarten room. The "cubbies" for each student are still here; though the doors for each are long gone.

It's not uncommon for graduates of the school to drop by and see the old place.
>From time to time, there are even reunions.

I remember one afternoon when two women stopped in to look around. At first, itappeared they were lost. They looked, they looked down, they whispered and they sighed.

"May I help you," I asked them. "Are you looking for..."

The older woman spoke before I was finished. "Oh no," she said, "we're not looking for anything. This was my grade school. I wanted to show my daughter."

She went on to tell a few stories about being in this room nearly 50 years ago. "We had so many young teachers," she recalled. "It was wonderful.

Coffeeshop slogans which caught our fancy

Here's a sampling of coffeeshop slogans we've collected recently:

Great java, no jive -- Dunn Brothers (St. Paul, Minn.)
A perk you deserve - Dark Canyon Coffee (Rapid City, SD)
Raven's Brew Coffee: the last legal high -- www.arizona-coffee.com
Shaky grounds -- Coffeeshop in San Francisco
Come for the coffee, stay for the atmosphere -- 8th Street Coffee (Escanaba,
Mich.)

Have you met Bill's crosstown cousin?

Uptown Bill's Small Mall, 401 S. Gilbert, in Iowa City is an outgrowth of the
original Bill's Coffeeshop. It includes not only a coffeeshop, but several
other small bsinesses owned or operated by individuals with disabilities.
Uptown Bill's is open seven days a week.