Inside Sheridan's Java Moon Coffee Shop Where Mooncakes Are King

What most people know about the Java Moon is that it has delectable and out-of-this-world Mooncakes, pies, monster cookies, great coffee and one of the best lunch counters in the Sheridan downtown district.

Behind all that deliciousness, though, is someone who might not be what anyone expects. That’s because Java Moon owner Megan Cook’s first career was as a financial guru. She was the one who helped others make their dreams come true.

But all the while, she had her own big dream — one that she’d jokingly expressed during her college days, when she took all that financial training. 

She’d had a restaurant job at the time, and she loved it. All that jovial small talk with customers was a delight, it was fun.

“Give me good hours, and I could absolutely do this for the rest of my life,” she remembers saying.

It would be like having her own little corner of the world, a community that she herself would build. 

When the chance finally came along, though, she had a relatively comfortable job, with lots of training under her belt. It was then she realized that this was her now or never moment. She could continue in a relatively comfortable life, never risking a thing. Or she could take a chance on a straight-up moonshot. 

“I was at a point in my life where my kids were a little bit older, yet I was still young enough to have the energy to run a busy restaurant,” she said.

Things, she realized, were never going to get more perfect for this dream.  

“So, it was scary, but I made an offer, and I quit my job, and I took over the Java Moon around December 2021,” she recalled.

Buying an established staple in downtown Sheridan that’s been a hot spot for the past 25 years was a smart way to make her dream come true, she believed.

It was so popular; how could she possibly fail?

A Series Of Not-So-Fortunate Events

But moonshots are never so simple, especially when they involve real life. In reality lots of things can go wrong, even when buying an established business. 

In fact, statistics from a variety of sources show many new business fail within the first three years.

Cook can look back now and see why that is, even when the business is established.

“So, when I bought it in December, within two weeks, I lost all of my kitchen staff for various reasons,” she said.

That forced her to learn not just a few new tricks, but a lot of new tricks, all at once.

“Fortunately, my daughter had worked here before I purchased it, so she like, knew how to bake everything in the kitchen,” Cook said. “So, the first three weeks, me and my daughter baked in the kitchen, learning everything from the ground up.”

From that experience she learned that the bakery’s pizza ovens are really old, and quite cantankerous. They have their hot spots — too hot spots. And they have their cold spots, too, where nothing will so much as even rise on a chilly January day.

Once she had the kitchen mastered and a new bakery manager in place, her trials as a new owner weren’t over. Not by far.

“I then lost a lot of my staff up front,” Cook recalled. “So, I worked up front. For probably the first year and a half, maybe even two years, I had to just really work the business.”

It was all harder than she’d thought it would be.

“Like, I didn’t know how to make coffee, even though I love to drink it,” she said. “I had no clue how to make it, and I had no clue how to make cinnamon rolls.”

In the short-term, she took lessons from the baristas she had left, often pulling back-to-back double shifts with employees who were working a double themselves. 

If that wasn’t enough trial by fire, she also lost equipment during that timeframe, which forced her to learn a bit more than just how to be handy with a screwdriver. The existing staff couldn’t necessarily help her there, but there’s always YouTube and the occasional friend. 

“I have some stories I could tell about that …” she said. 

About Those Mooncakes

The Mooncakes are one of the things that Java Moon is well known for. 

They come in several flavors, but, back in the kitchen, Cook said they always start with the chocolate. Those are the most popular.

The base is devil’s food cake just like your grandma would bake, cut into half and full-size rounds. 

“Then we make fresh whipped cream that goes in the middle,” Cook said. “So that’s heavy whipping cream and sugar and all sorts of yummy stuff.”

The whole then gets iced with a mixture of chocolate and cream — ganache in chef lingo. It’s one of the world’s most popular icings, not just because it’s so wonderfully smooth and melts in the mouth, but because it concentrates the chocolate flavor.

“That can be a little bit tricky to get the right consistency,” Cook says. 

The last step are fun sprinkles on the top of the cake, which gives them a festive feel. That makes them perfect for a personal celebration, no matter the occasion. 

Moonshot 2.0 On The Way

Once Cook had all her Mooncake making skills and her staffing issues sorted, she started to take a longer view for her business. There were lots of things still that she didn’t know, she realized. Things that she absolutely needed to know.

“I did end up going to a Seattle coffee school for a week,” she said. “And I really started to hone in on my skills, like learning about truly great coffee and getting the right equipment, and using the right procedures.”

From that she learned how the tiniest of changes in procedures can have a massive effect on the outcome of a cup of coffee. The class also helped her assess whether she had the right machines, and if she was getting the absolute most out of them. 

She didn’t stop there though. She also signed herself up for a master business class called SBA Thrive.

It’s essentially a six-week MBA program that looks at everything from accounting to inventory and customer service.

Part of the class included writing a detailed business plan. And so that is just what she did, and it’s yet another moonshot for her. She wrote the business plan around the idea of opening a second Java Moon store in a former donut shop on Coffeen Avenue in Sheridan.

Cook is marveling at how she once had to talk herself into quitting a perfectly good, safe job to take that first moonshot. Now, though, you’d be hard-pressed to talk her out of this second one.

She’s not thinking about what could go wrong anymore. All her energy is focused on making things go right. Because making dreams come true is all about the chances you do take, and the never-quit attitude that either gets you there — or teaches you what you need to know for next time.

That makes the journey — and the mooncakes along the way — worth it in the end, win, lose or draw.

Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.