Jenna’s Café in Johnson Relaunches Under Recovery Nonprofit

The daytime café at 38 Main Street in Johnson, formerly known as Jenna’s Coffee House, has relaunched as Jenna’s Café with scratch-made baked goods and a weekly “Grandma’s dinner” comfort-food special. The café is one of three enterprises in town that provide work experience to participants in the nonprofit Jenna’s Promise, a comprehensive substance-use disorder recovery program. The others are JP’s Promising Goods, a retailer of overstock products and appliances, and coffee roastery Jenna’s Promise Roasting.

For its first four years, the café operated in partnership with Two Sons Bakehouse of Hyde Park. As of the October 14 reopening, Jenna’s Promise manages the café directly with operations director Sarah Williams at the helm.

The nonprofit was founded in 2019 by the family of Jenna Tatro after she died from an overdose. “She had a last wish to help other people who were struggling,” said her brother Gregory, 39. Jenna’s Promise offers women coming out of treatment an integrated program of supportive housing, workforce development, and health and wellness services for up to 15 months. It has supported more than 100 women and has a 70 percent success rate of helping them transition to independent lives, cofounder Dawn Tatro, 62, said.

Williams, 45, has experience working both in café-bakeries and mental health. She will manage a team that includes locals, students from the town’s Vermont State University campus, and Jenna’s Promise program participants and alums.

The interactions between people in recovery and café customers break down stigma, the Tatros believe. “It humanizes them,” Williams said. “They’re more than just statistics in the newspaper.”

The café space has been refreshed with new paint and flooring. In addition to breakfast sandwiches on housemade biscuits, the menu includes burritos and bagels from the Bagel in Stowe. Vegan meat options are made in Hardwick by Mighty Mudita. Beverages include a full range of espresso drinks and Free Verse Farm & Apothecary herbal teas from Chelsea.

Baked goods range from “big, juicy, wonderful cinnamon buns,” Williams said, to vegan chocolate chip cookies and gluten-free pumpkin-chip bread. Lunch might feature chili along with sandwiches and salads. Every week, the kitchen will make a “Grandma’s dinner,” such as lasagna or chicken pot pie, served plated or packaged to go.