Interview by Abernathy Cochran interns and Gainesville High School seniors John Jessup and Anna Kate Embry
Meet JP McKenzie! JP is the owner of Meadowlark Coffee on Bradford Street in downtown Gainesville. Meadowlark specializes in coffee, tea and pastries. JP is married to Summer and the couple has one daughter.
We want to thank JP for spending time with us recently and telling us more about his life and love of Hall County.
Q: Please tell us a little bit about your family.
A: “I have a wife named Summer who grew up in Gainesville, and we have a two year old daughter named Larkin, who is so much fun and so incredible. I could not do what we do without both of them…Summer is massively influential in running this coffee shop with me and it’s been a ton of fun.”
Q: Please tell us about your current career. What do you love most about what you do?
A: “I work at a coffee shop called Meadowlark, and what I love most is seeing and interacting with people and getting to know the community of Gainesville better. It’s been really fun having a staff of people who are incredibly quick and are incredibly hard workers and also getting to meet and interact with all of our regulars. My wife and I moved back right before Covid and I think both of us kind of felt like even though she’s from here, we moved back to a place that felt unfamiliar to us. And I know for me, coming from Atlanta, I was really looking for that community aspect. It’s been really cool being plugged to such a wonderful place like Gainesville through our little 400 square ft. coffee shop. And that’s been my favorite part.”
Q: How long have you had the coffee shop?
A: “We opened October 28, 2022 at this location. We were doing a small pop-up before with our friend, Ginny Early, over at Enemies of the Average and we did that for a month and a half before we were no longer able to do that.”
Q: What are a couple of your favorite restaurants in our community?
A: “I would definitely say Consuelo. The food is so wonderful and the people are so great. We also love The Inked Pig and The Chattahoochee Grill. And our hidden gem is Eat At Thai which is massively popular, but I’m surprised at how few people know that we have one of the best Thai spots in the world in Gainesville.”
Q: Who is the most interesting person you’ve met here in our community?
A: “We have a lot of really wonderful people. And I think the cool thing about having a coffee shop is you get to see a lot of people really regularly and you get to slowly pick apart, like layer by layer, and understand more about their life in these little three minute increments. I think that if I had to choose one it would be Phil Bonelli with Hopewell Farms. There’s always some interesting factor that comes out that I am like, I should have assumed that you did this, but I had no idea. And it always surprises me, he’ll just randomly in major function, bust out a guitar and sing a song in front of like 500 people. It’s always very funny.”
Q: If you could travel anywhere in the world right now, where would it be and why?
A: “I really want to go to Denmark or Italy would be wonderful and we planned on going to a lot of European countries, but Covid has kept us from traveling to a lot of those places. It would be really fun to get over there and experience all of the culture that is provided. It seems so cool over there and it just looks beautiful plus there are a couple of coffee roasters over there, a couple that we carry that I would love to get to visit in person.”
Q: What is one of your favorite movies? TV shows?
A: “‘Lord of the Rings’ has always been my favorite. I really grew up on that and I could go back to that at any point and just be so thrilled.”
Q: What advice would you want to give or leave with people?
A: “One of the biggest things that I’ve hit on the community a lot, but we really couldn’t do this without Gainesville and all the resources that it gives to people. And so for me, whether it’s opening a business or pursuing anything in your life, reaching out to people or to a support system can help you reach further than you can on your own. And it’s just so important for us to be connected with each other through everything.”
Q: If you could choose anyone that’s alive today and not a relative, with whom would you love to have lunch. And why and where locally would y’all meet for this lunch?
A: “Justin Vernon of Bon Iver. He’s my hero and he’s so good. I’ll take him for lunch at ‘Consuelo.’”
Q: What is your favorite thing or something unique about our community?
A: “Especially now that we’re getting to the warmer weather, I really love all of our parks. One of the things that I did last spring, summer and fall and we even got to do today, was take our daughter over to the park over Midland Greenway.”
Q: What’s something you hope our community has or does in the future?
A: “I think that we have a lot of really incredible people within our community with really great ideas and I look forward to when we have a better support system for everyone to have their voices heard.”
Q: Where do you see yourself in 5 to 10 years?
A: “ I love our downtown spot and I want to keep that forever because I love the feel of our downtown. And I would really like to have a secondary location that is larger with a wider variety of things for people and more seating.”
Q: What is something on your bucket list?
A: “I think go to Europe with my family would be really great, and feels like one of those easy to attain goals that keeps evading us.”
Q: What’s something you’ve been proud to check off on your bucket list?
A: “Growing up, my dream was to get to play music and we toured for six years across the U.S. and that’s really cool. Our band was Family and Friends and it’s in the Folk Rock genre. We’re on Spotify and the like. I graduated from UGA just in time for our first six week tour. I would not have been able to do school and play music at the same time. It was just everything I wanted it to be and a bucket list thing. It was very fun.”
Q: What’s your favorite place where you did perform?
A: “We got to play to some really fun festivals. It was a miraculous thing, there’s a city in Wisconsin called Cedarburg and it’s really tiny town. The whole city comes together and puts on a festival downtown and they shut down the whole city for the night of the concert. They do it every single weekend and so we played up there two or three years in a row for this summer series concert.”
Q: What is your go to band when you cant decide what to listen to?
A: “Bon Iver is probably gonna be my answer for that. His songs always hit me so deeply, but you can listen to them very easily. He is a big musical inspiration across the board.”
Q: What is the most beautiful place you have ever been?
A: “My wife is a wedding photographer and we’ve done that full-time since 2016. We shot a wedding out in Glacier National Park. That was amazing and stunning.”
Q: Favorite month? favorite holiday? Best single day on the calendar?
A: “I think Christmas is my favorite holiday and really love the cold. I just really love all of the joy that surrounds Christmas. Normally we try to go up to Chicago for the Christkindlmarket in December. It’s always really fun and seems so special, especially with our daughter this year, finally being able to interact with all the Christmas things. She likes singing The Grinch songs, Deck the Halls, etc.”
Q: What actor would you want to play you in a movie about your life?
A: “All the actors are so much more handsome but I’ve always had a crush on Ryan Gosling…so insane! He’s just so charming. But Summer got me how to become Ryan Gosling kit one year.”
Q: Who inspires you to be better?
A: “I would say Summer. She’s definitely the best person I know. I think any good marriage should be just constantly pushing each other to be the best version of yourself. And she does that.”
