Jo Jo says farewell
By John Joyce
Published in News on August 27, 2015 1:46 PM
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News-Argus/CASEY MOZINGO
JoJo Morris and Tim Lippold sit at the bar at JoJo's Bar and Bistro on Tuesday at lunch. Lippold recently purchased the popular downtown restaurant.
When Joanne Morris moved to Goldsboro in 2012, the only people she knew were family.
She left a stressful job in the U.K. and moved to the U.S. for a change of pace.
She and her mother, whom she calls "Mum," decided to open up a small coffee shop in town.
"I just wanted a little coffee shop. Just me, Mum, maybe one other or two others; to go home at 3 every day, Monday to Friday," Jo Jo said.
She ended up with much, much more.
Within two years, the little coffee shop became a full-fledged restaurant and -- after knocking out a wall, expanding into the neighboring space and tacking on a bar -- a destination spot downtown.
Tonight, at Jo Jo's Bar and Bistro, 120 E. Mulberry St., more friends and well-wishers than she can count will stop by to tell Jo Jo thanks and farewell.
She has decided to move on. Jo Jo's has been sold to new owners.
Jo Jo's Bistro opened its doors in March 2013 and has since become a staple in downtown Goldsboro, winning a Downtown Goldsboro Development Corporation Business award for marketing in 2014 and is again up for a 2015 award for best investor.
The spot is equally popular among the downtown business lunch crowd and the 20- to 30-somethings who pack the house until closing on Thursday nights when live music pours out the back door. Downtown residents know to find their friends sitting out back smoking cigarettes under the flashing neon "Open" sign.
The back of Jo Jo's opens up to the parking lot shared by The Flying Shamrock and is in proximity to Torero's, Ed's Southern Food and Spirits and The Railhouse, making it perfect for bar hopping.
None of that is going away, Jo Jo said, and neither is she. "Not straight away," she said.
Jo Jo will stay on for a time after the transfer is complete to help with the transition. She said the name will remain, her staff is being kept on and -- for the most part -- the menu will remain the same.
"I'm still going be involved for a little while, my name is still going to be on the business for a while, but I just won't have to be here," she said.
She instead will spend more time with her wife -- the couple married just this year, and she will consider her plans for the future.
"I wanted a coffee shop. And that is all I wanted, and it has just grown and grown and grown and I don't have the capability or the energy to help it grow anymore," she said.
She didn't outgrow the business. Quite the opposite she said.
"It's being held back on a leash by me because I don't have the ... so it's time," Jo Jo said.
A couple she knew were interested in owning a restaurant downtown frequent the bar and bistro. She sat with them one day at lunch and tossed the idea out about selling.
The couple -- Timothy and Jacqui Lippold -- jumped at the opportunity.
"I approached them. They were in here for a lunch one day, and because (I knew) they were looking at buying the Matchbox last year when that closed, and that didn't quite happen, they came in here and I started chatting to them and asked them if they were still trying to get into the restaurant business," Jo Jo explained. "And they were like, 'Yeah, always." And I said, "OK, well, I might have something you could be interested in or not, and they were like, 'Yes. Please,'" she said.
The Lippolds own Brighten Academy, a day care in Goldsboro, and said they have extensive restaurant experience having owned and operated businesses in Fort Meyers, Fla.
Jo Jo will stay on for a time after the transfer is complete to help with the transition. She said the name will remain, her staff is being kept on and -- for the most part -- the menu will remain the same.
"There will be some changes, there will be expansions on the menu. The first thing we're going to do is open Thursday, Friday and Saturday for dinner," Lippold said.
"Diners will have another option downtown on the weekends. We're going to have live music on Thursdays and Saturday nights. We'll start that about 9 or 9:30 when dinner is wrapping up," he said.
Change is inevitable, and as the business becomes more their own, the Lippolds may look at additional changes down the road. As for Jo Jo, what comes next is not quite clear. But she has options. One of them -- buying an RV.
"I did a small road trip in 2012. I did 16 states in 17 days and I met a lot of interesting people. A lot of interesting people," she said. She is also tossing around the idea of documenting her journey.
"I said to my wife, if we do it I want to do a blog. I don't know how to set up a blog or what it involves, but I'm sure it isn't that hard."
She said she wants to spend some time in Arizona, in Nevada and in Colorado, maybe in Alaska.
"Because I prefer the dry heat. And there's no allergies, no humidity, no trees no grass," she said.
Jo Jo is looking forward to the unknown, but over the next few days she said she will look back over how far her establishment has come. She said it sometimes feels like yesterday; other times it feels like forever.
"I was a nobody that came into this town not knowing anybody, not knowing anything, and I have had a lot of help from the community, from the people of Goldsboro, from the city from the DGDC," she said.
"I don't know why you would open up a business anywhere else. There is so much help available here."