Faces of Rochester

The Coffee Lady

By Megan Malugani

Many coffee shop workers can match a customer to their regular order at first glance. Lynn Wong, co-owner of Rochester’s two Dunn Brothers stores, can do it at first sound. “I can recognize peoples’ voices on the [drive-through] microphone,” says Lynn, who has been memorizing voices (and faces) from behind the counter at Dunn Brothers North (and its predecessor coffee shop, Java Café) for almost 13 years. Lynn is on a first-name basis with many of her regular customers—not to mention their kids and their dogs. “I love the people I get to meet everyday,” says Lynn, who counts judges, schoolteachers, businesspeople, clergy, and parents of area school-kids as just some of her regulars.

Lynn, a St. Paul native, moved to Rochester in 1982 when her husband, Dennis Wong, returned to his hometown to help run the old Wong’s Café. After their third child was born a few years later, “we realized we were here for good,” Lynn says, noting that “the school systems are wonderful down here.” Now, Lynn and Dennis are entrenched in the community—they hang the work of local artists on their store walls and support causes like Habitat for Humanity—and it’s gotten to the point that the Wongs are as recognizable to customers as customers are to them. According to Lynn: “If I went to a grocery store, I’d probably spot at least six people I knew.”