Bongo Java opened on March 28, 1993 at 4pm.

Bongo opened a time long before Nashville was cool and cold brew was hot. A homemade sign hung between two pillars on the front porch of the 80-year-old house turned café attracted a line of folks eager to experience the coffeehouse atmosphere that was big in other cities.

“Bongo Java.  Open Sunday 4pm.”

A few months later the Bongo crew got around to cutting down the "Sunday 4pm" part of the sign.  The remaining part lasted about three years before the café repurposed an old gas station pole sign into a “real sign.”

Bongo has been around so long we are only half way to being as important to the Nashville coffee lore as the slogan: good to the last drop which was also created here.

As Bob got bored of reporting on the silliness of the state legislature and tired of the pressure of deadlines, Bob started thinking about the good old days when he’d hang out at coffeehouses writing moody stuff in his journals and making poor attempts at his Great American Novel.  

Nashville, a place full of songwriters, musicians and even a few employed people, could use a coffeehouse, Bob thought. And furthermore, he convinced himself that he could open such a place.  After all, he had worked in fast food joints and restaurants since he was 14 doing everything from flipping burgers to poorly waiting tables at a San Francisco seafood house.  He had done everything but manage or own.  And how hard could that be? he thought.

Bob quit journalism a few weeks before his 30th birthday – responding to a self-imposed deadline – with a very sketchy idea of opening a coffeehouse.  After a couple of months using up whatever savings a journalist could possibly have, he moved to a friend’s couch where he quickly wore out his welcome.

Facing a new deadline – the threat of having to get a job -- he got more serious about the project.  He took all the notes that were running through his head, taught himself how to use Excel and created what he thought was a business plan.  Bankers, however, thought of it more as a comic book since 1) it was filled with photocopies of Far Side and other cartoons about coffee;  2) they thought it was funny that someone would want to compete selling “coffee and donuts” against Krispy Kreme – their idea of a coffeehouse; and 3) they pointed out that a journalism master's degree (even from such a prestigious place as Northwestern U. wasn't much of a credential to run a cafe.

Bongo's success got Bob and his investor team thinking of expansion. 

Fido & Bongo Java Roasting Co.

A space in Hillsboro Village (the one cool neighborhood in Nashville at the time) opened up and Bongo scooped it up.  At first it was to be called Bongo 2go, with a coffee roasting operation in back and drinks to go in the front.  When the pet shop next door unexpectedly vacated its space, Bob agreed to expand his original plans for store #2.  Instead of a to go business, the space became a coffee roasting café. 

The operation opened in October 1996 also got two names:  Bongo Java and Fido. 

The cafe name was a tribute to two histories. First, it recognized that the space housed a pet shop for 50 years.  Jones Pet Shop left behind a cool neon sign that had a caricture of a dog coming out of a doghouse.  

Also, a dog played an important part of coffee history. Many people and coffee places credit a goatherder named Kaldi for discovering coffee. Bongo's careful study proved inconclusively that the true hero of the story was Kaldi's dog - who was named Fido. He was the one who led the hungry flock further into the forest than anyone had ever gone and found a strange looking cherry that nobody had ever eaten. (coffee beans are the seeds inside this cherry). Fido was named after the dog that discovered coffee who history has often overlooked.