Blue cookies draw VP to Red Mug

An informal poll — cookies in the colors and shapes of blue donkeys and red elephants — gave Vice President Joe Biden a second reason to stop in Superior.

He bought all four blue donkeys remaining on the tray half-filled with red elephants, along with bread and brownies at the Red Mug bakery, before heading down the stairs to the coffee shop below.

Downstairs, patrons watched in disbelief as the vice president of the United States rounded the corner.

“I just came in for a sandwich,” one woman said.

Retired teacher Judy Hack, a regular at Red Mug, was quick to react to the vice presidential visit, rushing to Biden for a hug.

“I’m working 12-hour days for you,” Hack said.

Another woman asked the nation’s second in command to pose for a photo. Biden’s reaction was immediate; he handed a cell phone to a member of the campaign staff and posed for the photo.

And the trip gave owner Suzanne Johnson the opportunity to tell her story. As a first time business owner of the coffee shop, when Johnson heard the Artisan bakery upstairs was going to close, she didn’t have the heart to let the business go in the midst of a struggling economy, and she made the investment to save the business in the Old Commerce and Trade Building at Broadway Street and Hammond Avenue.

Johnson told Superior Telegram photographer, Jed Carlson, the vice president’s visit was a bit unnerving, but she waited outside after hearing his speech “shaking in her boots.”

She greeted him at the black sport utility vehicle, and before he left the coffee shop with coffee in hand at 6:15 p.m., the vice president shared a hug with the Superior entrepreneur.

About a half hour later, the vice president and his entourage crossed over Lake Superior as the sky approached full darkness for the two hour flight to Colorado, Superior-made coffee in hand.

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