GRAND MARAIS, Minn. — Sarah Jorgenson-Hallberg didn’t need a rehearsal. She just stepped out to the shore of the Grand Marais harbor on Lake Superior, held up her iPhone, and started recording.
“Hi, guys!” she said with a smile the morning of April 30. “Happy Tuesday to you all!”
Acknowledging that the south wind would make her difficult to hear, Jorgenson-Hallberg went on to report the likelihood of coming rains. “Rain is good, keeps the fire danger down, I know, but we could use some really beautiful sunny days, I think!”
Posted to the Instagram account of Jorgenson-Hallberg’s coffee shop, Java Moose, the video quickly racked up several thousand views.
“I’d love to visit there real soon!” wrote one commenter. “The North Shore is so magical and spiritual!”
“As a Minnesotan, I think it’s my duty to be passionate about the weather,” said Jorgenson-Hallberg. Most days, she posts a video giving viewers a window into the small but extraordinarily picturesque harbor city of 1,350.
When Jorgenson-Hallberg started working at Java Moose as a high school student back in the 1990s, she couldn’t have guessed her family would one day own the business — and that she would become her city’s best-known online ambassador.
“My dad worked for the state of Minnesota, and my mom worked in customer service, and they were approached to buy (Java Moose),” remembered Jorgenson-Hallberg. “They were like, ‘Well, we don’t really drink a lot of coffee, but we can learn.'”
At that time in 1999, Java Moose was a seasonal kiosk outside the Lake Superior Trading Post. In 2002, Jorgenson-Hallberg’s parents opened the current year-round location at 218 W. Highway 61. Two years ago, the family closed the original kiosk to focus on the main shop.
“My parents, Ann and Gary (Jorgenson), still retain ownership, and then my sister Becca (Jorgenson) and I, along with about 20 employees, run the shop for them,” explained Jorgenson-Hallberg.
“We’ve been coming to Java Moose since the very beginning,” said Beth Kennedy, a local who was visiting the shop April 30 with a friend, Lee Stewart. “It’s been a great gathering place for us.”
Although Kennedy and Stewart live in town, they still keep an eye out for videos like the one Jorgenson-Hallberg had just recorded.
“I watch them every day,” said Stewart. “Not that I need to — I could look out my window! But I love listening to her.”
“I’m not always downtown, so I don’t get to see what the lake looks like,” said Kennedy. “I live a couple blocks up, so it’s really fun to hear her report.”
Many of Jorgenson-Hallberg’s regular viewers log on from much farther away.
“We have followers from all over the world, as crazy as that is,” she said. “They’re very loyal, they’re very kind, and just super supportive.”
The brief videos typically feature Jorgenson-Hallberg standing in or near the lakeside coffee shop, dressed in store swag suitable for whatever the weather might be. A Lake Superior sunrise often figures in the videos.
“We do not need a ring light when we have sunshine like this!” said Jorgensen-Hallberg, sporting aviator shades in a warm-hued November video. In another widely viewed video from April 2023, Jorgensen-Hallberg chuckles and shakes her head in the face of a wintry wind and just says, “Nope. Nope. Nope.”
While positive vibes predominate in the Java Moose videos, the unofficial weather reports started during the calamitous wildfire season of 2021.
“The Forest Service was very busy fighting the fires, and maybe couldn’t get all the information out as quickly as we now want,” Jorgenson-Hallberg said. “So what I decided to kind of take on was … share air quality, that was a big thing for us, and just sort of reassure people that the entire shore was not on fire.”
Even as the fires abated and seasons changed, Jorgenson-Hallberg found that her following remained.
“It’s really brought people the chance to see what Grand Marais is like in the winter,” said Kennedy, “rather than just tourist season.”
“I had posted something (about) the waves on the East Bay, and (a commenter) was like, ‘What East Bay?’ I’m like, ‘Grand Marais, Minnesota,’ and they’re like, ‘Oh, I thought you were on the East Coast.’ Superior does not look like a lake!” Jorgenson-Hallberg observed with a laugh. “They thought they were looking at the ocean.”
MaTaya Fairbanks, Becca Jorgenson’s teenage daughter and a Java Moose employee, said the response to her aunt’s videos has helped turn her attention to the beauty of her daily surroundings.
“It’s kind of crazy,” said Fairbanks, “because living here, I don’t realize, Oh yeah! The lake is just right there. I just look past it every day. Reading the comments of everyone saying how beautiful it is, I look out and appreciate how nice it is.”
Fairbanks said her experience with Java Moose customers has been “pretty good” overall. Peak-season patrons can sometimes be rude to the people making their coffee, though, and a video commenting on customer behavior became one of Jorgenson-Hallberg’s most discussed.
Standing in front of the lake’s gently lapping waves in July 2022, Jorgenson-Hallberg said she wanted to remind visitors “why you come here.” Speaking directly to “you, the customer,” she said staff had recently been treated “nothing short of horrifically, and it’s inexcusable. Our staff are kids. They are teenage kids that are doing the absolute best that they can do.”
That video now has over 40,000 views on Instagram, and Jorgenson-Hallberg said it was prompted by an adult customer who said “something incredibly derogatory” to her own son when he was working at the former kiosk location.
“July, August, September are very busy on the shore,” she said. “You will wait in line everywhere you go, and we’re so fortunate that we do have those lines, but they can be long and tiresome. Your expectations, maybe they’re not met. We’re all trying to do the best that we can.”
While the weather videos don’t always directly promote Java Moose, Jorgenson-Hallberg said they have certainly helped her bottom line. With over 23,000 followers, Java Moose’s Instagram account has become an order of magnitude more popular than that of a typical Grand Marais business.
“I do have a lot of people that will walk in like, ‘We’ve been following you!'” said Jorgenson-Hallberg. “Sometimes that can feel a little overwhelming, but I’m getting more used to it.”
One thing she’s nervous about, said Jorgenson-Hallberg, is disappointing visitors who come in with high expectations based on her Instagram persona. Based on Kennedy’s experience, that shouldn’t be a concern.
“Sarah has done a great job being friendly and welcoming,” said the Java Moose regular. “It’s such a great family business.”
Jorgenson-Hallberg also takes her responsibility as a go-to weather source seriously, “religiously” following the National Weather Service and striving for accuracy in her statements about current conditions. However, she clarified, “I don’t forecast anything because I’m not a meteorologist.”
Just a North Shore business operator looking to connect with customers and community by sharing dispatches from a setting that “spurs people’s passion,” said Jorgenson-Hallberg. “For so many people, Grand Marais has a place in their hearts.”