Order up a little connection to Hollywood at this out-of-the-way cafe

"Oh baby I hear the blues a-callin'..." (but for coffee, not scrambled eggs!)

This week we’re taking a little detour, a few hours down south of the Quad Cities, to my rural hometown of Carthage, Illinois (population 2,475), where the opening of a new business is the most exciting thing to happen since Abe Lincoln came to town. (Well… maybe.)

Consider this:

As I’ve mentioned previously, Carthage was once considered to be so remote (cut off from funding for transportation and infrastructure projects )that it was dubbed the “Republic of Forgottonia.” In fact, in the 1960’s, a once-thriving liberal arts college, facing the increasing challenge of recruiting students from Chicago, actually packed up and left town (and relocated to Kenosha, WI, where it remains).

And while it’s true that things have improved in terms of the ability to get to and from Carthage over the years, there are persistent challenges due to dwindling population. Part of what people (including me) love about such a small town is that everyone knows each other, and it seems like nothing ever changes. (That’s also why I found it suffocating once I hit high school age.) Unless you’ve got a high school sporting event to watch, or something going on at church, it could be argued that there isn’t exactly a whole lot to do in town. (When I told a lifelong friend, who now lives in California, about this development in our hometown, she said, “Can you imagine what it would’ve been like if we’d had a place to just… hang out?” By which she meant a place other than the tables at the back of the Ayerco.)

And so a coffee shop opening, let alone one that sells actual coffee — no disrespect to the Hardee’s at the 4-way stop where my father and fellow farmers have gathered for 30-plus years — is a huge deal on its own. (A new business opening at all is big news in the county, even if it’s a Dollar General.) It’s rare to see new construction on something that isn’t an outbuilding or cluster of steel grain bins.

So a brand new building and one built just for gathering, for enjoying a warm drink and listening to live music, is like a dream come true. And then to top it all off, it’s got a cool name with a story behind it: Mahoney’s Coffee. It pays homage to a famous actor, one who was born in Britain, but who, believe it or not, has Carthage ties.

photos: Mahoney’s Coffee Facebook page

no offense to Dollar General ...but this is is a BIG DEAL

John Mahoney as Martin Crane. photo: The Arts Desk.

The name honors the late John Mahoney, the actor many will remember as the father from Frasier. Yep, the guy with the recliner and the cane. (And to us Gen Xers, the dad from Say Anything…)

While he depicted a gruff Midwesterner on the beloved sitcom, Mahoney actually spent his early life in England, where his family had to evacuate Manchester in WWII. (Read his New York Times obituary here). And it’s true that the Steppenwolf Theatre-trained Mahoney, who died in 2018, would consider Chicago to be his adopted hometown later in life. But keep in mind that Chicago is about five hours north — and many, many miles of cornfields away — from Carthage. So why would the owners of this new business in a town that’s just a tiny dot on the map choose the name?

Well, if you read that obit I linked above, you’ll notice a mention of a sister who lived in Illinois. She’s not named in the article, but I know the reference was to Vera Jones, who I used to wait on when I was a checkout girl at Bill’s IGA.

Vera had come to the U.S. as a “war bride.” And though I never had a clue she had a famous brother, she was the one and only person I ever knew in Carthage to have a British accent. (Mahoney may have seemed to have lost most of his accent, but he never fully did. “There are words every once in a while that still give me away,” he said.)

The obituary also mentions another sister, Rita, as (at that time) his survivor. That sister came to Illinois at age 18 to visit Vera, and would eventually go on to become Rita Mahoney Sullivan, a local matriarch of a well-known clan that included 11 children. Among them is Dan Sullivan, who, (along with his wife Kacey), is a proprietor in the business. A third partner is Jared Murphy, whose wife, Shannon (nee Sullivan), is the actor’s great niece.

If the Tony-winning and Emmy-nominated Mahoney ever set foot in my hometown when I was growing up, which I’m sure he probably did, I wasn’t aware of it. (The Sullivan clan is more known in the region for their auction business, not to mention having an Illinois state senator among their ranks). But I learned of his connection to Carthage (including that Vera was his sister) at some point in my adult life and have always been kind of fascinated by it.

And like I said, everyone in town is connected to each other — as was evidenced when I stopped in over Thanksgiving weekend for an informal interview with Jared.

Where everybody knows your name…

Even though my mom had already told me Mahoney’s was impressive, I was still somewhat astonished to actually see the business, which features a drive-through, cozy fireplace, and warm and inviting atmosphere. To see a beautiful new place in such a deeply familiar old setting, and to see it hopping, was actually kind of surreal. (I kept turning to my parents and saying, “There’s a line forming! A line! In Carthage!”)

In addition to his professional roles with the family business, Jared is a musician who writes his own music, and there's a beautiful piano inside the coffee shop ready to be played. Near the piano, I noticed a framed print, a playbill and ticket highlighting one of Mahoney’s many stage credits, yet to be hung. When I got a chance to chat with Jared, he explained that the shop will eventually feature more tributes to Mahoney on display. (My visit was technically during the soft opening.)

The youngest of three brothers, Jared was behind me in school, but I grew up with his middle brother, and my sister grew up in the same class as his oldest brother, and wait, there’s more, our moms were teachers at the high school for decades.

Jared Murphy, one of the three owners with family ties to John Mahoney

I asked him about the family’s inspiration and goals for the business. I remarked on the fact that I was so happy to see the place full, and that I couldn’t believe the fact that so many of the faces inside were ones I didn’t know.

“We just thought, ‘let’s open up a really nice, classy place and see what happens,’” he said. “That’s actually one of our goals, to draw more people to town. We want to have as much as half of our business be from people outside Carthage.”

After we chatted, a family friend (who also happens to be my former P.E. teacher) arrived, pulling up a chair and joining me and my parents. By the time we’d finished our coffees and teas, I’d run in to a classmate, Heather, with whom I’d attended school from the first day of kindergarten through the day we graduated.

And then, when I returned to the line to order one for the road, I realized with a bit of a shock that the guy next to me was someone I’d befriended in high school — and, I calculated as we chatted — hadn’t seen since.

Never mind the fact that it messes with my mind to think I’m old enough to not have seen someone in three decades. The real point is that this friend and I grew up just a mile or two apart, out in the country where I believe he still lives, and in all those years that I’ve been back on visits, we’ve never once crossed paths, never in all my returns for a reunion or a Christmas or a 4th of July. It was coffee, being served in a warm and lovely place to gather just for the sake of gathering, that brought us back together.

I snapped this pic from the car because it was snowing and I didn’t want to get out. NOTE: Mahoney’s stands on the grounds of the former Carthage College.

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