Grab A Cup Of Coffee...And Find Out If You're The Baby Daddy

[PhillyPhreak54]

Saw this on the news this morning. You can also have your taxes done and get real estate consulting while drinking your coffee and having your paternity test. And soon you can have family portraits done there too.

Grounds for coffee or for divorce?
Regular, decaf and DNA tests.
By Dwight Ott
Inquirer Staff Writer

At City Coffee, just across the street from Camden City Hall, they are offering a cup of joe, help with tax returns, and - if you really want to know - that pesky DNA paternity test.

Owner Ronald Ford Jr. has produced the region's first known marriage of coffee and DNA. In just five workdays, you can find out who's really your daddy.

The advertising flyers at his shop picture a cuddly toddler and the question: "Is this your child?... Maybe? Do you want to be sure?"

Ford said he was in a prime location - a few blocks from Camden's Family Court and across the street from the Camden County Board of Social Services, which processes thousands of child-support payments annually.

"There may be guys who want to find out before they make their support payments across the street whether they should be paying child support at all," Ford said.

"We did a Camden cop. She was testing her husband because he had an extramarital affair," Ford said. The other woman "was saying her baby was his, but it turned out the baby was not."

Ford, 37, of Newtown, Bucks County, said he had gotten a lot of inquiries about the test from customers. He has done seven since he began the service in November.

It's not cheap - $550 to test a father and child and $600 to test two parents and a child.

Ford points to a line from his flyer: "It's cheaper than a lifetime of testing."

A $150-a-month child-support payment could total more than $32,000 in 18 years.

Ford got the idea for DNA Gene Inc. when a friend had a paternity test, he said. Ford learned that most medical offices were just drop-off spots for testing laboratories elsewhere.

Coffee shop worker Vanessa Tidwell, 51, swabs inside the mouths of the mother, child and suspected father. She ships the saliva samples to a firm in Texas. The results come back within five workdays.

The test is 99.9 percent accurate, Ford said. He tried the test on the 2-year-old child he has with his girlfriend. There was never doubt that he is the father, he said, and the test confirmed that.

Ford's shop, in the 500 block of Market Street, also features some of his other business ideas: a tax-preparation service and an apartment-rental agency. He also provides consulting services for businesses.

"When you come in this place, you have no clue who you're sitting next to," Ford said. "They may be here for taxes, or they may be getting a DNA test."

His customers seem to like the eccentric mix.

"Ron Ford is in tune with everything," Linda Jones, 60, a city employee and a shop regular. "DNA testing is a twist. Why not do it, considering the rate of things going on all over the country?"

The statistics are as sobering as Ford's coffee. Latest census figures indicate that 34 percent of Camden families are headed by women with children, nearly four times the state average. The city and national numbers are climbing, increasing the need to keep track of fathers and child support, Ford said.