Here’s something that sucks. There’s a new coffee shop opening up in Dallas’s University Park neighborhood, near the SMU campus. It’s called Rollin’ Joes Sips & Co. and it’s got a super vibey chill cartoon bro as its mascot.
None of that’s why it sucks. Nor does it suck because the brand is being started by the CEO of a luxury real estate firm and the a Panera Bread franchisee. The issue at hand is not who that CEO is (Jerry Mooty, Jr.) but who he is related to. Mooty is the nephew of Dallas Cowboys owner and General Manager Jerry Jones, and everything in his orbit sucks.
View this post on Instagram
Is this fair? Is this cruel? Am I judging a nephew by the sins of his uncle? Perhaps. But let me explain.
I’m writing this from Dallas, the city where I was born and have lived my entire non-college life. And as such I have no choice but to be an ardent Cowboys fan. I don’t want to be, truly I don’t, but it’s written in my genetic code. I mean, who would want to be a Cowboys fan? Everyone hates us despite over three decades of irrelevance, due entirely to Jerry Jones’s insistence on us still being called America’s Team. And it’s not like the team treats us any better. Every year is Our Year, or so they tell us, only to finish somewhere around the middle. And every year we fall for it. We just lost to the 0–4 Tampa Bay Buccaneers with an undrafted rookie at quarterback. At home. In prime time. We’re terrible.
To express my frustration in visual terms, here is the last twenty years of the Dallas Cowboys:
Yet somehow, the Dallas Cowboys are the most valuable sports team in the whole entire world at an estimated $13 to $15.5 billion (with a B). That’s double what the nearest soccer team, the world’s most popular sport, is worth. And the reason for that is Jerry Jones, who sucks, just not at marketing.
To put it into coffee terms, Jerry Jones is a civet and the Dallas Cowboys are kopi luwak. He has produced literal shit but somehow has convinced everyone to buy it at a steep markup. Myself included. Major Jerry Jones highlights include the creation of seat licenses at NFL stadiums, NDAs and hush money to his alleged out-of-wedlock child, donating one million dollars to MAGA Inc., and trading generational talent Micah Parsons to the Green Bay Packers. There aren’t enough living fingers to count the number of ways Jerry Jones makes this world an objectively worse place, though I do have one finger in particular I’m willing to give him.
Now of course ole Jurrah isn’t going to be pulling shots at Rollin’ Joes so he won’t be actively fucking up your coffee, but this place has his stink all over it. The suck is generational. How do I know? Because Rollin’ Joes has all the hallmarks of a Jones joint. Just look at the branding. Joseph B. Rollin (get it, he be rolling, a doobie probably), his birthday is given as 4/20/4Ever, which is like, super dope and chill or whatever the prompt was that was given to the White Unicorn advertising agency to create the aesthetic. But who’s really behind Rollin’ Joes? Just this chill bro, who is Jerry Jones’ nephew, and is totally cool with you rolling up a dooberino and definitely wouldn’t call the cops on you for it.
Anyway, it all sucks. Coffee sucks. Football sucks. Dallas sucks. This place is going to make a million dollars isn’t it? Go Cowboys.
Zac Cadwalader is the managing editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.
