Who We Are
BUILDING THE JUNKIEZ BRAND
Coffee Junkiez was established in the late fall of 2005 by Jasan Julius. After attending a Coffee Expo in Seattle, Washington about a decade earlier; Jasan then moved forward with his vision of creating a brand that he saw as having a national potential based on serving non-alcoholic caffeinated beverages via small drive-thru operations. While he wanted to make sure that the business foundation was based on industry standards, he very much wanted to be different than the crowd and has definitely broken a few rules and created some new standards. While the business and brand have encountered many challenges, we have achieved many awards and recognitions in our home town of Kokomo, The City of Firsts, which have validated the vision of being one of the best in the industry, and doing it our own way!
The Mission
WHAT THE BRAND REPRESENTS
Our tongue-in-cheek purpose is to supply our junkiez with great food, beverages, and service, and we achieve this by procuring the best supply we can, and by being served by dedicated, happy, professional, and prideful Barista’s and Pie Builders!
Our mission that we take very seriously is to marry quality products with exceptional service, and to add value to our community by creating jobs and supporting and participating in local efforts to make the communities we exist in a better place! While coffee or great drinks are meant to stimulate the senses, we also see ourselves as serving one of life’s simple pleasures, and we strive to position our pizzas as comfort food, and not just another meal. We take great pride in serving our customers and community, and a cornerstone of our business is to continue to innovate and create new products that are not only delicious, but obsessively mouthwatering
The Founder
A MESSAGE FROM JASAN JULIUS
“After talking about the 2 brands I have birthed, with the help of a few, and nurtured with the help of many, I would like to say a little bit about my background and inspirations that lead me to taking a brain rattling idea into a real existence.
I am a blue collar guy that was raised by a very hard working blue collar father. I started working 40 hours a week in the food industry at the age of 14 and started my career at Chrysler at 19. I fell in love at 20 and she was a package deal that came with a one year old little girl that I am very proud to say is my daughter, and at the age of 21 we were blessed with twin boys. My father’s example of responsibility and work ethic has served me well over the years because creating responsibilities and working hard are all I know. At the end of my career at Chrysler I was an elected Union Rep and at the same time also endured losing one of my sons to a 3 year battle with cancer, so serving people and caring for family is second nature to me.
I lost my son in the spring of 2005 and created Coffee Junkiez in the late fall of that year, and while many people want to believe that most creation is out of inspiration, mine was out of necessity. I created Coffee Junkiez knowing that if I didn’t do something new with my mind that I could lose it out of grief. The inspiration came after, when I started thinking about brands and logos and colors. My son’s names are Cole and Connor so Coffee Junkiez seemed fitting and my personal favorite color is blue, which is the same favorite color as my son Cole. But Connor’s favorite color was always Red, and out of everything we do we try to do it with red! Red is the color for passion, the color of blood, and the color that always makes me think of my son in heaven. I left a 13-year career at Chrysler after starting Coffee Junkiez to pursue building something that would out live me and make my own little dent in the universe. In 2014 I created Pizza Junkiez, and I did so with the desire to take all the lessons I had learned in business developing Coffee Junkiez and apply it to a new business and brand, and in 2016 I married the brands together under one roof to see if they would complement each other, and truth be told, they are a match made in business heaven!
Now more than ever I firmly believe these brands are destined for national development, and what I intend to spend the next decade of my life building and nurturing. I wake up every day reminding myself that quality is long term viability and that exceptional service is the only way to compete and win in the hearts and minds of the people we serve. I take great pleasure in the creativeness of these brands, and that is on full display in our menu and the specialty creations in both brands. While I very much care about the respect that comes with knowing I have developed a legitimate successful business, I am forever in awe at the love that I see that others have for our brands and children I have created!”
JASAN R. JULIUS
CREATOR & FOUNDER