Springfield Couple Buys Well-Known Coffee Shop

Written by Tom Sunnergren

Mark Roy, when asked what changes he intends to make to the Ardmore cafe—formerly MilkBoy—that he will officially take over on Thursday, is refreshingly practical.

“You don’t play with a good thing,” the Springfield resident said, adding, “if it aint broke, you don’t fix it.”

Roy, in other words, plans to keep the iconic space more or less as is, at least in the initial stages of his ownership.

The name will change, of course—Roy and his wife, and co-owner, Cathy have opted for Melodies Café—but other than that the coffee house will remain remarkably familiar to the loyal customer base its predecessor earned.

Open mic nights for local musicians will be continue; the staff—save a couple defections—will remain in place; and the menu—minus a tweak or two—will be unchanged.

Even the fact of the sale will be downplayed, the new owner suggested, evidenced by his decision to forgo grand opening festivities.

“This is an established venue,” he said. “It’s going to be a name change with nothing else and upgrades will be going on as time progresses.”

Roy said the sale came together quickly. He met MilkBoy co-owner Tommy Joyner through a mutual friend “just a couple months ago and things progressed from there.”

Roy, an ex-musician who played drums in classic rock cover band Buckwheat for over 20 years—“We did stuff like Allman Brothers and Santana,” he explained—said he will be a visible presence at Melodies.

“I’ll be here everyday,” he said, adding that, when he was a young musician, his cafe is precisely the sort of place that would have appealed to him.

“I love music and coffee," he admitted.

As he’ll soon find, he’s not alone.