Jitters Java Cafe offers gourmet coffees and more
By Carol Stender
cstender@agrinews.com
Date Modified: 07/09/2012 3:10 PM
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Jitters Java Cafe
Location: 403 Main Street South, Sauk Centre, Minn.
Hours: Monday through Friday — 6 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturday — 6 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Sunday — 6 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Customers' favorite: The chicken wild rice salad. The salad is a blend of wild rice, chicken, apples, grapes, celery, cranberries, cashews and Jitters' special dressing.
Contact them: (320) 352-1390
SAUK CENTRE, Minn. — Jitters Java Cafe in Sauk Centre offers a host of gourmet coffees and specialty drinks along with unique sandwiches and wraps, sumptuous salads, flat bread pizzas and soups.
The cafe is a dream come true for Jitters owner Tom Oschwald.
Oschwald, the youngest of seven children, often helped his mother prepare meals for the family. He enjoyed cooking and has taken that enthusiasm to Jitters' kitchen.
He hasn't always been in the food business. Oschwald has a college degree in electrical engineering and, when the couple moved to Sauk Centre, he worked with his wife, Kathy, at her specialty gift store. It was there, while talking to two Twin Cities customers, that he got an idea for a new business when they said the town needed a coffee shop.
Sauk Centre had fast food restaurants and supper clubs, but lacked a place offering unique, specialty meals, he said. A coffee shop offered Oschwald the vehicle to provide gourmet coffees and the type of foods he loves to prepare.
He purchased a vacant co-op building across the street from the couple's gift shop, stripped the cement block structure of all paint and remodeled the office and store area into a kitchen and coffee shop. The project took him a year and a half, he said. Over the next two years, he renovated the old service bay into an overflow room.
While the decor offers a comfortable ambiance, it's the food and drinks that's the talk of the town.
Jitters Java Cafe offers weekly meal features including the chicken lettuce wrap with Asian chicken served with dipping sauce, a roll and fruit.
All sandwiches are $5.99 served with potato chips, potato salad or seasonal fruit. The buffalo chicken wrap includes grilled chicken breast mixed with Jitters' spicy buffalo dressing, lettuce and celery in a tomato wrap. The turkey bacon ranch wrap features smoked turkey and bacon, cheddar cheese, tomato and onion, lettuce and ranch dressing in a vegetable herb wrap.
The bistro turkey sandwich has smoked turkey, provolone cheese, roasted red peppers, tomato, lettuce and pesto mayo on toasted ciabatta loaf. The chicken cordon bleu offers chicken breast, sliced ham, Swiss cheese, Dijon mayo, tomato and lettuce grilled in sourdough bread.
The three cheese and tomato panini brings cheddar, provolone and Monterey jack cheese, tomatoes and pesto mayo together and grilled hot on Jitters' sourdough bread.
Jitters' unique salads are a meal in themselves. The Berry Blue Salad has grilled chicken breast, Romaine lettuce, cranberries, toasted almonds, bleu cheese and Jitters' own poppy seed dressing. A customer favorite is the Chicken Wild Rice Salad with a blend of wild rice, chicken, apples, grapes, celery, cranberries, cashews and the cafe's special dressing. The salads range in price from $5.99 to $7.99.
Or try the flat bread pizza. The Pizza De Napoli is topped with sun-dried tomato sauce, basil, red onion, black olives, roasted red peppers and Provolone cheese grilled on pita flatbread.
The "Anytime Breakfasts" include quiche, and a host of breakfast wraps, croissants, paninis, bagels and English muffins.
Since 2006, Jitters has also served wine and beer. Oschwald plans to offer a wine bar on Friday through Sunday evenings.
— Carol Stender