What is JOJO Coffeehouse?
JOJO Coffeehouse has been two different places at the same address. When Mike Melton quietly opened it in December 2018 on Scottsdale Road near Second Street, it was a dark, wood-trimmed room built around a fireplace, a long community table and a pair of couches facing a small stage, with twelve coffee and beer taps behind the bar. Melton named it after his son Jordan’s nickname, and he told ABC15 he took the word “coffeehouse” literally: a room that feels like a house.
The hook from the start was the flight. JOJO served five-sample boards of mimosas, coffee drinks, beer and wine, the selections chalked on the side of the board, at a time when a mimosa flight at a coffee shop was a novelty in Old Town.
Then brunch took over. Melton noticed his sales were soaring in the brunch hours, and he used the COVID-19 shutdown to start a nearly two-year renovation, adding skylights and turning the cozy coffeehouse into a bright, beachy brunch room that seats 120. The menu grew to match: breakfast tacos, cinnamon roll pancakes, bananas Foster French toast, burritos and scrambles.
Today JOJO calls itself a restaurant, coffee shop and “community connector,” and the formula holds: coffee and a flight, a big breakfast and, on weekend mornings, live coffeehouse music.
How to brunch at JOJO
Come early on weekends. JOJO is a morning-and-midday place, and the Saturday and Sunday brunch crowd fills the room. Arrive soon after opening for your pick of seats; by late morning, expect a wait.
Order a flight, or two. The coffee flight shows off the house blend in several preparations and is the right call for the undecided. The mimosa flight is the one to share, and there are Bloody Marys and seasonal cocktails for anyone who wants a single glass.
Go sweet. The renovation was paid for by brunch, and brunch here runs sweet: the cinnamon roll pancakes and bananas Foster French toast are the plates people photograph. Breakfast burritos and scrambles are there for balance.
Sit by the doors. Two garage doors face Scottsdale Road and roll open in the warmer months, and the bar seats in front of them are the best in the house. Afterward, walk south to Brat Haus and Goldwater Brewing, or north toward the Brown Avenue blocks. For more Old Town mornings, see our brunch guide and coffee shop guide.
A coffeehouse that became a brunch spot
JOJO arrived in a busy moment for Valley coffee. Phoenix New Times’ January 2019 roundup of new coffee shops opened by noting that Vogue had asked, in 2017, whether Phoenix was the coffee capital of the Southwest, and that Cartel and Press dominated the scene. JOJO’s angle was different from the third-wave roasters: less about the bean, more about the room, with open mic on Sunday mornings and music through the week.
The pandemic changed the plan. With the dining room closed, Melton took the time to gut it, and the room that reopened was built for the business JOJO actually had, brunch, rather than the late-night coffeehouse it had imagined. That is a familiar 2020s story in Old Town: places that survived did so by following the customers, and the customers wanted mimosas at 10 a.m.
The block it sits on has seen its share of turnover. Salty Senorita, a few doors north at 3748 N Scottsdale Rd, closed in 2023 after two decades, while the brunch room at 3712 kept filling. A few doors up at 3720, Sizzle Korean BBQ and the ShinBay counter upstairs brought serious dinner kitchens to the same stretch.
Honest assessment: JOJO is not where you go for the Valley’s best espresso, and it does not pretend to be. It is a cheerful, bright, busy brunch room with good flights and a real neighborhood following, and on a weekend morning on Scottsdale Road that is exactly what most people want.