Jitter Bus Coffee Opens, Officially

While patrons celebrated the grand opening of Grand Avenue’s Jitter Bus Coffee, in the back corner of the café stood a framed coffee-stained page torn out of a notebook, tucked on a shelf.

​“This letter of correction serves to prove that Darlene A. Miconi sold a 1999 Chevy G30 Express to Daniel Barletta on February 6th 2015 for a sum of $3200.”

Barletta, with his friend Paul Crosby, turned that Chevy G30 Express into a New Haven staple: the Jitter Bus.

That letter marked the beginning of the journey that led to Sunday’s grand opening of Jitter Bus Coffee’s new storefront at 847 Grand Ave. The event, which ran from noon to 9 p.m., featured local artists and designers, live music (from Spit Take, The Problem With Kids Today, and Skating), baked goods, and food from the Taqueria Tlaxcala truck, the Jitter Bus’s — the actual bus — neighbor on Grove Street.

It was a family affair. ​“The emotions are unbelievable,” Josephine Crosby, stepmother of Paul Crosby and Coffee Director AJ Crosby, said. She’s watched the business come to fruition ​“from day one, when the Jitter Bus was a plan in Paulie’s mind.”

“I never thought I’d see the day,” added Allen Crosby, Paul and AJ’s father. ​“They borrowed every tool I owned to build this place.”

Niki Mangino, who used to work with Barletta at the Yale-adjacent restaurant now known as Maison B, was selling linoleum-cut prints and stickers at the store. She makes the prints in her ​“art basement,” which is divided between her studio and her husband’s glass-blowing setup. She’s a longtime Jitter Bus customer.

“I love these guys,” Mangino said. ​“I bring them a lot of snacks during the week” when they’re running the bus.

The store was packed and bustling. During the peak of Yale’s school year, AJ Crosby said, ​“It’s more or less like this, just less volume, more consistent.”

“Everyone’s fucking turning out,” Paul added.

The assortment of baked goods for sale came from East Rock Breads and from the Crosby brothers’ mother, Dina Corsi, who brought her dog Picolina — the store’s unofficial mascot, according to Corsi — to the opening.

“I knew it would be busy,” Barletta said. ​“It’s really nice to see everyone here.”

Jacob Curtis and Ash Segal, a pair of bus regulars who moved to New Haven from Australia last year, brought their dog Remi (named for a Melbourne-area rapper) to the opening. Segal, who lives nearby on Lyon Street, expressed her hopes that the brick-and-mortar store would be a ​“home for me to work in” and ​“watch life go by” outside its floor-to-ceiling windows.

Curtis and Segal are the customer base that Jitter Bus Coffee hopes to draw in with this new storefront. ​“We’re riding the reputation of the bus,” AJ Crosby said. In addition, they’re hoping the new location’s proximity to Wooster Square will draw in weekday dollars from the bus’s clientele at the Saturday CitySeed Wooster Square Farmers Market.

Out in the back parking lot, part-time barista and full-time skate brand designer Justin Gotthardt was selling his ​“Be Easy” merch. This included an assortment of skateboard decks manufactured by a wife-and-husband team in Alabama alongside shirts, hoodies, hats, and stickers. He started Be Easy in 2010, which is how Paul Crosby got to know him.

“Paul used to buy boards off me before I knew who he was,” Gotthardt said. Crosby would buy Be Easy products to sell from the Jitter Bus. The two met in 2021 at a skate park when Gotthardt moved to New Haven. Since then, he’s been a ​“friend first, employee second.”

For all the old friends, the grand opening marked a new beginning, and new menu items. The affogato — a scoop of ice cream served with a shot of espresso — was the star of the show on Sunday. The espresso is the Jitter Bus’s usual espresso; the ice cream is from Sweet Justice Creamery; and the caramel syrup from Pink Camel, AJ Crosby’s own brand.

Barletta said it took longer than anticipated to get the proper permitting from the city. It was a ​“slow process,” he said, but ​“that’s just the way it goes.” Regardless, the store is up and running. As Hamden resident and Jitter Bus regular Cora Hagens put it, here is a ​“beloved business making new roots.”