Coffee house owner Joe Carabetta
Managing an institution isn't easy. In five short years, the Muddy Cup has become more than just a coffeehouse. It's become a meeting place, art gallery, study spot, and music club all rolled into one.
Even institutions evolve, however. In the course of one year, new owner Joe Carabetta has introduced liquor and beer sales in the back room, new furniture in the front room and new hours. It wasn't until this last weekend, however, that he introduced the most radical change so far: Taking the "muddy" out of The Muddy Cup name and rebranding the place as, simply, The Cup.
"We want it to be gradual, something that wouldn't throw people off," says Carabetta. "Sort of like how Madison Square Garden is now just The Garden."
Recently, Looking North took a moment to talk with Carabetta about business, his life as a Staten Islander and the future direction of "The Cup."
Looking North: So let's get this question out of the way first: Do you own the Muddy Cup or are you just managing it?
Joe Carabetta: Yes, I'm the owner now.
LN: Since when?
JC: Since March of last year. A little over a year.
LN: So the story of how Jimmy and Robb started the place is pretty well known. The same goes for Jim and his new partner Brian, both of whom have since moved upstate to create an entire family of Muddy Cups. How did you come into the picture?
JC: [Jim and Brian] decided to open up a couple new locations and so that left the Staten Island one open. So last year I came in, purchased the Staten Island one, and now we're trying to move forward, make it more of a lounge. Bring some different acts here. So far it's been very successful.
LN: The place has become a community hub thanks largely to its uniqueness. To that extent, was there anything that you've rejected in your attempts to "move forward" simply because it wouldn't fit the image or atmosphere already created?
JC: I wouldn't say rejected, more "tried to expand." When one expands, one takes a roll of the dice to see what works and whatnot. Of course, a lot of different acts wanted to play here but for some reason weren't playing in the past. For what reasons I don't know. When I came in, we tried to do it again.
We've had bands. Recently, we had a couple members from Dizzy Gilespie's band were here. James Brown's drummer played. A very great group that played recently...they had a member of the Temptations and also someone else. It was an understudy for I think it was like the Platters or somebody like that.
And these are people that never played here before. We've had some bands here. When I talk bands, I'm not talking so much school bands...[we've had] those, too....however, a lot of bands that some guys that got together and have bands that played on different parts of Staten Island and they want to play here.
We're fortunate in that a lot of people want to play here. And now they're getting the opportunity.
LN: Did you have to get a special sound permit? I remember two years ago it was just all acoustic.
JC: [Exhaling] No. By and large I don't like it very loud myself. However, with getting bands you have to take some and give some so to speak. If I hear something that's really loud and I know that's kind of noisy, chances are it probably won't fit in here.
We've been fortunate enough in that we've had some pretty big groups play here and they drove in big crowds. So it's a whole new thing there. We also are still very friendly with a lot of people who've played here in the past. We're fortunate enough to have Caroline Cutroneo. She plays the first Saturday of every month, and she's very popular in this area. She's basically, for lack of a better phrase, our house band, her and her guys and all.
LN: Yeah
JC: We've been trying some different things and it's been working out pretty well.
LN: Let's take a step back...Where did you grow up?
JC: I was born in Flushing, Queens. I remember as a kid we used to walk to Shea Stadium. It was that close to the World's Fair and all. When I was about 12 years old, we moved to Staten Island, Concord-Dongan Hills area.
I went to [I.S.] 49, Dreyfus, for junior high school. Then I went to New Dorp [H.S.] and graduated in '77. And I've lived on Staten Island, jeez, for some 20-odd years or so.
LN: What was the island like when you got here?
JC: Ah. It was really different. There was actually a place right down the block from me -- I think it was called the Reliable Market -- that actually used to close for lunch. They were a deli. They used to be open and then they'd take an hour off. Just close its gates and say "We'll be back later on."
LN: Kinda like in Italy or something.
JC: Yeah, it was pretty interesting.
It was obviously not so much traffic. The bus lines were a lot different. I guess I could say, you know, a lot more room. You didn't see so many houses. And I'm only talking about 1972. This is a little over 30 years ago. My house had a back yard to it. We moved in brand new. I didn't realize at the time that that was very unique. My backyard would probably take up three backyards of the houses that are around here now.
So the uniqueness, I think, is gone a little bit on the island and stuff.
LN: So coming from Flushing, did you think that you'd moved to the sticks?
JC: Yeah, I kinda did. People were very nice. People knocked on my door. We had next door neighbors welcoming us around and all this. It was pretty interesting. My next door neighbors, they went to Curtis [H.S.]. They were going to Curtis at the time and whatnot. They told me about 49 and Curtis, New Dorp and all that. So it became interesting. It was nice.
LN: So you graduated in '77. Then what?
JC: That was in June of '77. In July of '77 I went to work on Wall Street. My uncle was a senior vice president of a place called Pershing & Co. And I worked there from July of '77 up until 1980. I learned a lot. I was real fortunate to meet a lot of front office people there, and I never had a lack of words dealing with people. Someone said, "You'd be good on the trading desk" and whatnot.
And then in 1980 I went to a firm called Kidder Peabody, and I ran the retail desk there.
LN: Wow.
JC: That was a big deal at the time. People tell me, they says, "You're running the retail trading desk which is a big deal." It's funny, because the guy who was the quarterback after Doug Flutie for Boston College used to for me, so Monday morning he used to call up all these players who made it to the pros...Y'know...I'm talkin' to a guy from the Chicago Bears, from the Green Bay Packers, all these guys. And I was like, Wow.
One of the guys who worked for me...Dr. Cox [John C. McGinley] who plays on Scrubs, his twin brother used to work for me, so I met a couple movie stars when they were filming things down on Wall Street. That was pretty interesting.
LN: The first place was called Pershing..shing...like the general?
JC: Yeah. It's called Donaldson Lufkin now. Pershing was a division of DLJ. They merged around 1978 or so.
That was my beginning. That was good. I mean we all were the same age. We all, back then, made about the same amount each week, and it was the back office. Three years later I went to the front office and noticed a dramatic change with the business and politics. How to speak to people and things like that.
LN: Well, this was when the bull market started.
JC: Absolutely. It sure was. I ran the retail desk in 1987, during the Crash of '87. That was a whole different thing there.
LN: How was that?
JC: That...that was pretty interesting.
LN: (Laughs)
JC: It was not computers the way it is today, of course. Y'know, you put in a trade, press a button and you've bought a thousand shares. Back then an order came on the conveyor belt through the teletype through the sales office. Literally...take one of those big Webster's Dictionaries and see how it's, I don't know, eight inches high... [laughs]That was the amount of orders that were coming down every 20 minutes.
LN: And they're all saying, "Sell?"
JC: You couldn't get anybody on the phone. You couldn't...it was pretty much chaotic.
But it was a time...you wouldn't see something like that again. Now it's all computerized and things are a lot different.
LN: Did you come of that OK?
JC: Yeah, I came out of it OK. I never really rolled the dice too much. I was always in and out, in and out sort of thing. But yeah...things worked out OK. Later on things went into the Internet phase and these other things. You go back to days like that knowing you can get through things like this. It's because you've gone through this and it's just another phase. And sooner or later another phase will kick in. That basically is the cornerstone of life with things, too.
I found out with life you're either in a problem, coming out of a problem...
LN: [Laughs]
JC:...or heading into a problem.
LN: It simplifies things when you look at it that way.
JC: Yeah, exactly, so now that we know this is supposed to happen it eases things up.
LN: So what were the '90s. What were you doing then?
JC: Nineties...In March of '93 I started the retail desk at a place called Gruntal, and every once in a while back then in the '90s you'd see a guy named Joe Battipaglia on TV, on CNBC. They used to film that right next to me.
Starting that desk was actually a lot of fun, because you started from scratch. And the people there were extremely nice, some of the best people I've ever worked with since I've been in business.
That was easy for me. It was a great job. It was a great career of course. That went on to about September, 2001 or so.
LN: Were you trading stock,
JC: Sure was.
LN:...bonds, what?
JC: Nasdaq.
LN: Nasdaq was the focus?
JC: Anything with four symbols.
LN: So how do you go from that to runnin' the Muddy Cup?
JC:Well, let's see. In 2001 the stock market went to decimalization. So that would be the end of fun and games as we all knew it. Things were getting just too computerized. Different laws that weren't advantageous to the trader.
So I said to myself that this will probably be the last year and I'll go do something else. So I teased around a bit, saying, "Maybe I'll go bartend on the beach in Florida or somewhere."
And then on my birthday...my birthday's Sept. 11...I'm buying CDs at the World Trade Center at about 8:30 [a.m.], and I came out of it watching a plane head toward the World Trade Center. I mean I'm actually watching it, Flt. No. 11 American Airlines, and I'm looking at it going, "Wow. What is that? The Concorde?"
And just watchin' a huge fireball, right above me, many stories above me. I turn around and said, "You know what: Run. Just run." And that was about it.
Our division of the firm closed down a few weeks later, and I said, you know what, I needed some time. A few months later I went to Florida. I managed a country club down there called the Beachview Steakhouse. That was fun. I mean, I managed a tiki bar and whatnot.
Then I went to work with my brother in Dallas a year or two after that. My brother, he's a Staten Islander also. He owns high powered night clubs there. I met Dallas Cowboys. I met Usher. Who else? Ashley Simpson.
My brother's like a little mayor down there. He does an excellent job of running things.
LN: What's your brother's name?
JC: Frank...What else? A friend of mine told me that the owners here were going to move upstate. And he pursuaded me to come down.
I'll tell you the truth: If it wasn't Staten Island, I wouldn't have done it. You know, 'cause I remembered the Staten Island growin' up, all my friends and whatnot. And I came down and I've been here since.
LN: What's it like making the shift? It sounds like you were already kind of moving in an entertainment/hospitality direction.
JC: Yeah, but to be honest, this was actually more work than I thought it would be. I mean people can say, "Oh, it's [only] a coffee shop," but it becomes a great deal of work. I mean, straightening things out, cleaning things up, gettin' new furniture, managing things, trying to create new things.
[blaring car horns from the street]
Making people happy, because a lot of people don't like to see things change as much as they say "Change is good." You know. It was a lot of headaches. Still is. So I've been fortunate enough that I have a lot of people in my corner. I have a woman who works here, Amy, she does a great job for me. She takes a great load off me. She helps with the venues.
It's just getting acclimated to different rules and cleaning the sidewalk and keeping these clean and trash and then someone comes buy and throws something on it. Basically, if someone drives through the light here on Van Duzer and goes through the red light, the police will hand them a ticket. If they park their car and come in here and smoke, I'll get a ticket. These are the things you learn and no one tells you this.
LN: What was your strategy when you came in? I know you quickly got the liquor permit going. Was the sale contingent on being able to get that permit?
JC: That's a good point. That had something to do with it, because the back room really is the Muddy Cup...It's the business here. It supplies y'know the cashflow and all.
As you see during the day, we have different people come in here and whatnot and it's a coffee thing. However, in the back lounge, that's our acts. That's our music. That's where we have it. That's where we have our rentals. That's where it goes.
You know, food and alcohol are the two biggest money makers in the restaurant business and we don't have food. Not food as you know it, of course.
But the crowd we have is a very collective crowd. It's not like the rowdy crowd that you get at bars and whatnot. We don't stay up that late. We stay up until about 12:30 a.m. on the weekends. Everybody here, there a very good group of people that come to visit us. We're very fortunate.
LN: There was a story on Slate a few months back about a husband and wife starting a coffee house and how they were just miserable. That's because they find out too late that it isn't a bar but a food service operation where the only food you sell is the occasional brownie.
JC: You're so true. I have people come in here and say how do you make money selling things for $1.50 and $2.50. You have to sell a lot of 'em and it's tough. It's not like you're buying these things at a quarter. It's pretty expensive, too. And with the cost gasoline, everything's rising. Just for their bakery to receive them, they're being charged more, so naturally they have to raise their price. When they bring them here, they raise the price to us. It's a domino effect. And a lot of people I don't think realize that. It's like they come in and they think this price is going to be like that all the time. Forever. Gas prices are changing daily.
LN: Yeah
JC: It's sad sometimes. This stil is basically a mom and pop place, and there are not many mom and pop places anymore. You've gotta move forward if you want to survive.
LN: But that's sort of the charm. You can only bend a business like this so much before it breaks.
JC: Exactly.
LN: As a business owner, if you had Alladin's Business Lamp, what would be your first wish?
JC: Ah, that's a tough one, because when you have an old building, you'd like to have part A, B and C to it [laughs].
LN: I'll let you have three wishes, but I just wanted to know which one came first.
JC: The problem is it's an old building and a lot of things can go wrong. You have...we have the bathroom. I'd like to expand it. I'd like to put in a kitchen, but there's really no room to do these sort of things. You have to break down brick walls to do that. Then you're making it sort of a different place. And yet you need those things in order to go forward.
It's really tough to think about going forward without changing things around.
In the market of business, things get priced out. They get moved out. It would have been nice to come in if there was a backroom and a back kitchen. That's something that would have been nice.
LN: I know that Jimmy has since opened two new places under the Muddy Cup name and there's talk of a third new store in the works. Has there been any thought to treat this as sort of like the original McDonalds and open up another place on another part of the island where you could have all those things you wanted originally -- a kitchen, for example.
JC: It's an idea, and some people have asked me about that also. The one big problem int his neighborhood is that you don't have building someplace out...perhaps near Tottenville, but you really don't have any sort of buildings for this. Yeah, it's a thought if you want to do it on the other side. The good news about here, though, is that you get people coming from Manhattan for the ferrry, where I think this area is poised for a breakthrough, someday soon.
So yeah, I would think about it if it was like a Tottenville or someplace like that, but right now I still have to go forward with things here. It's nice. It's comfortable, and it's cozy, too.
LN: On the topic of the Muddy Cup name, I notice that the sign outside no longer says Muddy Cup. It just says "The Cup." Is there a reason for that?
JC: That's what we're gonna call it. We're gonna call it the The Cup. Everybody calls it the The Cup anyway. Madison Square Garden doesn't call itself Madison Square Garden. It's The Garden. You can call this The Cup. That's gonna be our name now.
LN: Now, Jimmy always seemed to take pride in being a business operator. I got the sense that he was trying to do an alternative to Starbucks model, talking about putting a Muddy Cup in Manhattan, a Muddy Cup in Red Hook and have it be less like a packaged product and more like what you see here. There was a definite sense I got that the Muddy Cup was supposed to be a brand name not just a coffee house name. Do you lose anything by moving away from that name? People won't say, "Oh, this is Muddy Cup. Part of the chain of Muddy Cups."
JC: Nah. If Yankee Stadium tomorrow changed its name to, I don't know, Motorola Stadium, and if I you told you, "Meet me at Yankee Stadium," You'll know where to go." People got used to the change from a 212 area code to 718 to 646 to 347. Y'know. So basically it's the same thing. It's called The Cup. It's not called the A&G Coffee House or nothing like that. It's called The Cup which is what everyone calls it anyway. It's more of ...almost a cool thing. We made ourselves a cool name and whatnot.
To call it Muddy Cup would cost me and the people who come in here more money.
LN: Why?
JC: 'Cause we'd have to pay for that name.
LN: Like a franchise deal?
JC: If you want to call it that. Right. So that means more money going out. So I'd rather keep the people from Staten Island in. Call it the Cup.
LN: Last question: How do you find the neighborhood and the island in terms of being supportive to local business?
JC: To business in general or to this place.
LN: Everything from the red tape to the amount of people coming in and directly supporting you.
JC: We've been lucky so far. We haven't run into many red tape problems. The neighborhood's been very nice. There's competition with everything, but I spent 30 years on Wall Street. I know a little bit about competition. Y'know. At different levels it's different things. What I thought would be a lot easier is a lot harder. Sometimes it's a little frustrating. By and large, it's time for this neighborhood to go forward and to be what it wants to be.
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