Local Flavor: E-Town Coffee

Editor’s note (August 2025): E-Town Coffee transitioned ownership and is now known as Terrapin Station. Learn more on their Facebook page.

E-Town Coffee brews up lattes and local fare with its menu plus shopping fun with their boutique offerings. The shop, on Main Street in Elizabeth, not only serves up delectable drinks, scrumptious sandwiches and salads, and tasty pastries, it also houses an adjacent boutique, where shoppers will find local wines and hard ciders, pieces by local artists, barbecue sauce crafted in nearby Galena, and the shop’s own coffee packaged for retail.

“We’re a local business supporting other local businesses,” says Jodi Korte, a Farm Bureau member.

Korte bought E-Town Coffee eight years ago when she noticed it was for sale and began building on the menu and boutique offerings established by the previous owner.

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“I’ve increased the types of specials we offer,” she says. “I’m a foodie. I like to try new things, and our specialty menus give the public an opportunity to try things that normally might be out of their comfort zone.”

While she particularly enjoys the salad specials, patrons favor the homemade chicken salad made from a top-secret recipe and served on a croissant with greens.

“They’ll sell out before lunchtime, so people have started ordering it ahead when they see it’s going to be our special,” Korte says.

Other customer favorites include the seasonal drinks, which rotate every two to three months.

Inspiration for Korte’s kitchen creativity stems from helping her grandmothers cook when she was growing up. On the regular menu, Korte says she likes the Tuscan sandwich. It comes with turkey, bacon, fresh slices of tomato, mozzarella cheese, pesto and mayonnaise.

“We strive for consistency in the way our food is prepared,” she says. “There are four other employees, and no matter which one of us makes your food or drink, we want it to taste the same.”

To-go food orders pair nicely with a boutique selection of wine from Elizabeth’s own Massbach Ridge Winery or cider from Hanover’s Orchard Landing and Galena Cider Co.

“What we offer is unique,” Korte says. “I’ve never been anywhere like what we’ve created here, and each of the three owners has contributed something to make E-Town Coffee what it is now.”

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