At Jem’s Bottle Shop and Cafe, ring the bell for an egg sandwich

East Baltimore residents have spent years watching the transformation of an old liquor store at Fayette Street and North Collington Avenue down to its bones.

At some point, a sign and striped awning went up for Jem’s Bottle Shop and Cafe. Then last month, a takeout window opened, where walk-up customers could order egg sandwiches and iced coffee with just the ring of a doorbell, like a drive-thru for pedestrians.

And Baltimore is eating it up. Lines at the shop have been so long they’ve drawn online comparisons to viral bakery Café Dear Leon. “Everyone’s talking about it,” Baltimore influencer Annie Demm said in a video. The shop regularly sells out of food, including their egg sandwiches with blueberry jam and homemade chicken sausage, said co-owner Jeryl Cole, who opened the business with his wife, Ty.

Not that the couple planned any of this. They intended to open the cafe and bottle shop a year ago, but ran into delays in permitting and construction. “This project has tested us deeply,” Jeryl Cole said. The takeout window was just a stopgap measure to get the business going, and yet it worked out beyond their wildest expectations. “It’s been rocking and rolling ever since.”

Cole and his wife are serving up the foods and drinks they and their four kids enjoy at their home in Patterson Park. Jam goes on egg sandwiches because “that’s how we like it.” It’s optional, but should be mandatory: it’s delicious.

Another popular choice is their brown sugar shaken espresso on ice. “It’s literally my favorite drink,” Cole said. “It’s intense, it’s sweet, it’s flavorful.”

Even the name of the business is deeply personal: Jem is the name of their youngest son, and also an acrostic of their other three boys’ names.

Jem’s is the first cafe for the Coles, Patterson Park High School and Coppin State grads who also own wine, beer and spirits shop Off the Rox in Highlandtown and The Beverly House bottle shop and tasting room on Harford Road. With Jem’s, they’re returning to the East Baltimore where they live and where Ty grew up (Jeryl was raised in Northeast Baltimore).

But Jem’s is unlike anything they remember from their youths. Jeryl Cole recalled seeing stores with bulletproof glass, where owners rarely lived in the neighborhood and seemed to regard patrons with suspicion. “We want to treat people with respect and grace,” he said. “We push customer service, we push being polite, we push just listening to someone.”

The shop is on podcaster Rob Lee’s route as he does his morning exercises, and he has watched progress on the building at 2200 E. Fayette St. since a sign went up last year. “This is going to be good,” he remembered thinking. While there’s been construction on new housing in the area, Lee said, there haven’t been many new places to shop or get something to eat. “My belief is that a coffee shop opening up in a neighborhood is a sign of a healthy neighborhood,” he said.

Jem’s will eventually be a wine, beer and spirits shop, too, carrying mostly labels from small, family-owned vineyards around the world. And soon, Cole said, he and Ty intend to open up the doors of the cafe so customers can come inside, too. They’ll expand the menu to include deli sandwiches.

For now, Cole loves seeing the community that develops among people outside as they wait along the sidewalk for their orders. “It feels like a great vibe,” he said. And it’s totally unexpected.