(Image: Mt. Joy)

(Image: Mt. Joy)

With reporting by Cormac Wolf, CHS intern

When a “pasture raised” chicken sandwich chain startup comes to the street and chooses the fenced-off parking lot where a global coffee giant shuttered a neighborhood cafe in a nationwide tiff over public safety and labor, the first question to ask in 2023 is about workers.

Tech entrepreneur and now aspiring chicken sandwich magnate Robbie Cape tells CHS he wants his employees to feel enriched enough that they don’t need a union, but acknowledged demands may come regardless.

“So unions will come in,” Cape said. “And some people have asked me ‘what would you do Robbie?’ I’ll be like ‘you know what? i put my arms around you..’ if we can fix it, let’s do it together.”

Cape was in the parking lot of the boarded-up, fenced-off E Olive Way Starbucks last week where Mt. Joy is launching its chicken sandwich efforts with an ongoing pop-up in the former “Gaybucks” parking lot.

CHS broke the news here in December of 2022 on Cape’s plans to team up with prolific Capitol Hill and Seattle-wide restaurateur Ethan Stowell to launch Mt. Joy with the first of what could be a 1,000 or more chain of the new chicken sandwich chain shops at 11th and Pine.

While the first restaurant is being prepared, Mt. Joy announced it would park its food truck in the E Olive Way parking lot of the now infamous former Starbucks location.

Mt. Joy has few hourly employees now, but the food truck workers said their wages start at $22/hour, below median income for Capitol Hill but above the starting wage of competitor Dick’s Drive-In and other local food chains. Representatives for the company have previously said they hope to open hundreds of stores, though in the midst of opening his first location Cape stressed the importance of getting their first steps right.

“In tech it’s just about growing as fast as you can. There’s no cost,” Cape said. “In restaurants consistency, quality, and experience are more important.”

Cape, Mt. Joy’s CEO, said that he used to live on Capitol Hill when he worked at Microsoft, and that he admires the progressive spirit of the neighborhood.

“I want us to be associated with progressive values,” Cape says. “The roots of our brand are doing good in the world… and these are progressive liberal concepts at the end of the day.”

He added that “the people who live in Capitol Hill are the kind of people who would get excited about being brand ambassadors.”

The E Olive Way Starbucks has been closed since 2022. CHS reported here as the expensive and hard to maintain cafe was boarded up as political, real estate, and labor factors drove the closure of the shop and a handful of other locations around the city that Starbucks claimed to be closing over crime fears. The company has been embroiled in ongoing legal battles with its unionizing workers and cited for illegal tactics in trying to shut unionization efforts down.

The E Olive Way property’s ownership later surrounded the lot in barbed-wire to cut down on trespassers and taggers.

“Our truck is only Phase 1 of Mt. Joy’s mission to heal the planet and food supply chain through regenerative farming. Next up, a brick-and-mortar location on Capitol Hill is coming this Fall where people will have a more immersive experience, get a chance to learn more about our food sourcing and the village that we’re creating,” a Mt. Joy spokesperson told CHS about the pop-up and Capitol Hill opening plans.

As for the security fences, plywood, and barbed wire, they’re staying up. Mt. Joy said the plan is to add “a very wide gate on the Olive side of the parking lot for foot traffic to walk into the site during open hours” while the “large gate on E. John” will remain open.

And, while Mt. Joy says its focus is on 11th and Pine, it appears possible Starbucks might be gearing up to reopen the cafe. In spring, construction permits for electrical work were updated for the address including one related to an “on-counter brewer swap from existing Bunn Brewer to the new Clover Vertica, using existing plumbing and electrical.” 

Mt. Joy’s focus is on chicken. Cape’s says Mt. Joy was hatched after he watched a documentary, Kiss The Ground, about the benefits of pasture-raised chickens for the chickens and the environment.

The hens at Hungry Hollow Farms (Image: Mt. Joy)

Mt. Joy says it sources the bulk of its ingredients from within 200 miles, and all of its meat from just five local farms. Grant Jones of Hungry Hollow Farms, a Mt. Joy co-founder and the farmer charged with sourcing more chicken as they expand, says their biggest challenge is finding people to process their birds.

“There is a very small venn diagram of people who pasture raise chickens and are willing to kill and process those chickens,” Jones said.

“Pasture-raised” is an informal designation in animal husbandry. Mt. Joy’s chickens are rotated to a new field each day and feed off the land, rather than being kept indoors or fed artificial foods. Jones’s farm is planning on upscaling from 20 to 60 thousand chickens in the next two years. His farm keeps only the Freedom Ranger breed of chickens, which Jones says are slower growing and healthier than the industry-standard factory-farm breed.

The restaurant was co-founded with Stowell, the Seattle restaurateur with over a dozen eateries in the city, though he did not attend last week’s launch of the pop-up truck.

Mt. Joy’s menu was designed by chef Dionne Himmelfarb, a veteran of Stowell’s restaurants and another of the company’s six co-founders.

Mt. Joy’s spicy and “classic” sandwiches are $13 for light and $15 for dark meat, $6 for shakes (vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry) and $4 for fries.

Of the looming shuttered building, Cape said Mt. Joy had a use agreement with Starbucks, who still holds the lease for the property.

In addition to its time as a Starbucks, the property has a colorful history of Capitol Hill food and drink including several large chains over recent decades including Red Robin and a Boston Market.

Mt. Joy’s pop-up continues in the parking lot at 1600 E Olive Way. Its first restaurant is set to open later this fall at the corner of 11th and Pine. Learn more at mtjoy.com.

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