Ramblin’ Joe’s Coffee in East Memphis makes water pumping system using bottled water to keep serving customers

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (WMC) - While the city was under that boil water advisory, some businesses got creative to serve their customers.

Ramblin’ Joe’s Coffee, formerly known as Ugly Mug Coffee, at the corner of Perkins Extended and Poplar Avenue has been running their store solely on bottled water to keep the coffee flowing!

Before a six-day precautionary boil water advisory in Shelby County was lifted, the beloved East Memphis coffee business brewed up a new way to provide coffee-loving customers with their cup of joe.

“We developed a pumping system and shut off the city water and ran waterlines and now we are running the entire store off of 5-gallon bottled water, which allowed us to be open,” said the President of Ugly Mug Coffee and Ramblin’ Joe’s David Lambert.

President of Ramblin’ Joe’s, David Lambert says he installed the system on Christmas Eve, the same day MLGW’s boil water advisory went into effect.

The coffee shop’s parent company had stockpiled water already, giving them the key to making their system work.

Since then, Lambert says business has perked up and they’re 50 percent busier than normal and customers have taken notice.

“It makes sense, now I know that the line was so long the day came through the drive-through,” said customer Julia Hamilton.

Lambert also says the store has been going through about 120 gallons of water a day.

“Our staff here has been doing a great job with the added workload but it’s been a tremendous amount, that we’ve done in the last couple of days about 400 gallons of water,” said Lambert.

The 20-year-old coffee business continues to show their passion and grind for their customers.

“I think it goes to show that small businesses are willing to go the extra mile to serve customers, especially on the holidays, they could’ve easily just stayed home if they wanted to and that would’ve been fine but it’s amazing they went the extra mile,” said customer Neena Wang.

Ramblin’ Joe’s setup saw them through the crisis but now that the order is lifted MLGW wants you to know if you had any ice made during the advisory, you should throw it out and run your faucets for two minutes to clear the line.

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