A stovetop coffee pot became a restaurant on South Tacoma Way. The Tacoma historic-register nomination dates the Coffee Pot Restaurant to 1929, naming local veterinarian Otis Button as designer and builder, with artist Bert Smyser assisting. Its sections were made on the Tideflats and assembled at the site.[2]
The form did the advertising. A vessel ordinarily held in one hand became a place to enter, making coffee visible at the scale of a building. The joke was direct enough to survive later changes in the business.
Robert James Radonich purchased the establishment around 1955. His wife, Lylabell, gave it the Java Jive name, drawn from an Ink Spots song.[2] The coffee pot acquired a second vocabulary: its name now evoked music as well as a drink.
The Library identifies Margolies's subject as Bob's Java Jive on Route 99 in Tacoma; the official LOC Flickr description dates the photograph to 1979.[1][3] By then, the later name had become part of the building's identity.
The municipal nomination records further episodes of repair and adaptation. A fire damaged a rear addition in 1996; artists worked on the property and decorated it in 1999.[2] The recognizable vessel remained the anchor for a place that continued accumulating changes around it.
Java Jive illustrates how a roadside building can outgrow the simple message of its original shape without losing it. The coffee pot offers instant recognition, while the name and the history invite a longer acquaintance. Its silhouette belongs to advertising; its later chapters belong to the social life of a particular Tacoma address. Neither is merely decoration for the other.
