Connecticut owner of Mountain Mudd kiosks continues on [Billings Gazette, Mont.]

Sept. 29--Two years ago, Phil Penn's company, PJP Coffee Enterprises Inc., purchased nine Billings coffee kiosks and one in Laurel.

He also opened the first Mountain Mudd kiosk in Burlington, Conn., where he lives, the first of 30 he bought the rights to open in that state.

The Laurel kiosk was moved to Shiloh Road and Central Avenue. Penn closed three kiosks in Lockwood, Main Street in Billings Heights and by Gusick's Restaurant off King Avenue West, but plans to reopen them when he can find better locations.

Penn now operates eight coffee kiosks in Billings, plus a coffee shop at MetraPark.

"There's a right side of the street for coffee and a wrong side of the street for coffee and we're still trying to figure that out," he said.

In early September, he received a telephone call and then a short

letter from Betty Hawkins, president of Mountain Mudd Espresso, saying her wholesale company that supplies Penn's coffee and other products had ceased operations.

That led to some sleepless nights.

"It was as if McDonald's all of a sudden said they were closing the corporation, but the individual restaurants are still in business," he said.

Penn quickly established direct relationships with suppliers, so Mountain Mudd coffee fans wouldn't be impacted.

"I think we've got it 95 percent covered and we're working off the other five percent from the inventory in the Billings warehouse," he said.

After sharing office space with the manufacturer at 2120 Third Ave. N., Penn also has to move his Billings office, but said he will be staying downtown.

Penn's background is in finance and he worked with a large insurance company before starting his first business.

"I was passionate about coffee and I wanted to do something different from what I'd been doing before," he said.

Penn said he'll wait to see how "things shake out" after the liquidation sale of the separate Mountain Mudd Espresso manufacturing and wholesale business before deciding on keeping or switching names.

"The Mountain Mudds I operate here in Connecticut, people see as something completely new," he said. "It doesn't have the same 17-year history it has in Billings."

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