A native of Rochester who has lived “everywhere” before settling down in Batavia eight years ago, Eric Zwieg could easily be described as a journeying artist.

Zwieg, who has more recently racked up academic degrees with no stopping in sight, spent his childhood in his grandmother’s cultural Chautauqua Institute surroundings, where he saw great jazz legends, later pursuing music performance in college before quitting after a year to indulge in the real thing — hitting the road for the next several years, forming his own bands, writing songs, recording albums, and scoring acting gigs for Indie movies. 

“I really wasn’t getting out of it what I wanted. My mother had been an opera singer in college, so she really wanted me to get the schooling, but it wasn’t meant for me. I’d rather hang in the bars,” Zwieg said during an interview with The Batavian. “I worked really hard. I was very industrious,” he said, adding the piece that most aspiring artists can relate to. “I was a personal trainer, did restaurant jobs, gallery jobs, I used to light shows for galleries, anything to make a buck here and there. And it all added up to put food on the table and pay rent.”

His travels have led him to a master’s in fine arts at Goddard College and the thesis he is using as the basis for his staged reading of “Passenger: A Billion Little Pieces.” It debuts at 7 p.m. Nov. 9 at GO Art!’s main gallery, 201 East Main St., Batavia.  

Twenty years ago Rob Credi set out to blaze a trail of business ownership with a couple other like-minded entrepreneurs, and they established a coffee shop in the middle of downtown Batavia on Main Street, hence its name Main Street Coffee. 

That was in December 2003, ending on New Year’s eve in 2008. Fast forward to August 2020, when Credi opened Pub Coffee Hub on the other side of town, Harvester Avenue, with a bit more experience, business acumen, and hard-won lessons under his belt. 

“It was more of a learning lesson than a success,” he now says of those earlier days, though he wouldn’t exactly label them a failure either. “It does feel good to know it existed in its timeframe and served its purpose." 

The Batavia Middle School Choir performed Christmas carols on Friday evening at the Pub Coffee Hub on Harvester Avenue, Batavia.

The high school choir will be at the coffee shop this coming Saturday at 4 p.m.

Rob Credi did something unusual last summer -- he opened a physical location for his business -- Pub Coffee Hub, which up to that time had been purely mobile -- in the middle of a pandemic.

It hasn't hurt business at all. In fact, Credi said yesterday the business is doing well.

But it did mean there was no ribbon-cutting with the Chamber of Commerce.

That item on the business-opening checkbox was ticked off yesterday.  

Previously: Moon Java to become new location for Pub Coffee Hub under ownership of Rob Credi

Photo courtesy the Genesee County Chamber of Commerce.