Coffee shop, psychic moving to new site
By MEL TOADVINE, “mailto:mtoadvine@breezenewspapers.com”>mtoadvine@breezenewspapers.com
If you’ve ridden down Lee Blvd., heading west from Leeland Heights Blvd., you may have noticed that the Spiritual Coffee Connection at 904 Lee Blvd. has closed.
The coffee shop had become a popular place for locals to meet and have a cold or hot coffee and to meet with Jackie Decker, a psychic, who attempts to contact loved ones who have departed.
Decker said the state forced her and her daughter to shut down the coffee shop two weeks ago after they ordered them to add two more sinks and to change their ceiling tiles. What Decker doesn’t understand is how the family was given a permit to open the business there two ago without orders to change the kitchen area. “The costs to change are just to much for us right now in these hard times,” Decker said.
But Dicker and her daughter and the coffee shop is not dead, pardon the pun.
They have moved to what might be a better location anyway and are planning to open by Dec. 1 at 205 Lee Blvd., in the massive lobby of the Chad Troung Business Center, formerly the Admiral Lehigh Business Center.
The building is owned by Dewey Tyler, a grandmaster in the art of Tae Kwon Do.
Behind the lobby is a first class gym filled with equipment. The gym is a popular place for local people who want to work out during the day or after work in the late afternoons or early evenings.
“I have all this room in the lobby and I have the proper permits for serving hot and cold drinks, so what better match than inviting the Spiritual Coffee
Shop to join us,” Dewey said.
“We have the counter and the sinks and all that is needed,” Tyler said.
Sweda, who also reads Tarot cards for customers and serves the hot and cold coffees and smoothies, is looking for café tables and chairs to put in the lobby. There is already a comfortable leather sofa in the lobby.
“It’s a perfect match,” Tyler said. “And besides, those who come to the gym may want a healthy smoothie after they work out, or they want a really nice brewed coffee.“
Decker, says she has has been ordained by a church of humanism will continue to be available for people who want her to do “readings.” She will use a room down the hall from the coffee shop, which will be private.
“We’ll have comfortable furniture in there and people can come in just to talk or ask for advice or to see if a departed loved one can be contacted,” Decker said. She makes tape recordings of all readings and gives it to the client who has paid for the reading.
Decker also holds group sessions for five or more people at night or during the day, to show them that many people can develop the same skills she says God has given her.
She calls herself a devout Christian and believer in another life after death. She said she hopes her work will lead people to follow Christ and realize there is the hereafter.
Decker has been the subject of local news stories and has also been on local radio and TV stations where she was able to contact those who have departed.
“I made a believer out of one of the local DJs on a morning talk show on WINK,” she laughed. “He had been very skeptical of my work so he invited me on the air to do a reading for him,” she said. “He admitted that a loved one had joined them through me,” she said.
She has also appeared on Fox 4 and did a reading for popular news anchorman Patrick Nolan.
Decker’s daughter said that as the weather warms, they might even put tables outside where people can come together to enjoy a hot coffee or a cold iced coffee.
“We have all kinds of flavors and we can mix any kind of smoothie,” Sweda said.
Decker is a native of the area and has been doings readings for about eight years. Prices, she said, begin at $50 and group rates are available for parties where she teaches people who may have what she calls “a gift.” You can contact the new coffee house at 368-7470 and leave a message if the phone is not answered.