Nine to nine. Seven days a week. These are the hours of Liberty Cafe. These are also the hours of Mike Moskowitz, co-owner of the new coffee shop on South Third Street.

A former Jet City Espresso barista, Moskowitz, 38, doesn’t mind the long hours.

“I’m here for the long haul,” he says on a recent day sitting at the bar of the shop he started with business partner Johnnie Uysal, owner and operator of Cascade Awning in Renton.

Uysal initiated the shop’s opening. Moskowitz calls himself the face of Liberty Cafe, and Uysal the backbone.

“He’d been keeping an eye on this particular spot,” Moskowitz says. “He knew it was going to come up for rent. He was hammering and hammering and hammering me to partner up. He got me on board, and we ran with it.”

The slip of a building between Happy Delusions and Ancient’s Arts Tattoo was previously occupied by Venus Moon, which moved around the corner to Main Street.

Uysal and Moskowitz grabbed the building about 18 months ago. Opening was slow because they went low-budget — painting, building a bar, installing new floors and redoing the electricity — all themselves.

The result? A comfortable spot with a couple wheeled booths, a bar, two small couches with a guitar sometimes stowed between, a collection of games and books and a variety of art on the walls.

Moskowitz calls the design 21st-Century Deco.

“Art deco for the new millennium,” he says.

“I really wanted a worldly cafe, like a coffee shop you’d find on the European peninsula,” he explains.

He wanted to create a meeting place, for everyone, regardless of background.

“This place is not supposed to be about me. This place is supposed to be about the community,” Moskowitz says.

The community has responded.

A crowd gathered on this recent day at Liberty Cafe. A group of middle-agers at a booth, a younger guy on a couch and a young couple at the bar.

“I think it’s just a great addition,” Linda Middlebrooks says from the booth. “As you can see, it’s a gathering place, for all ages. A heterogenous gathering place.”

Middlebrooks and husband John have designated Liberty Cafe their new place.

Carlee Wolcott and Sage Howard are also happy with Renton’s new hangout. The couple is sipping a mocha and cappuccino at the bar on this recent day, looking out the window at downtown.

“We’ve been waiting and waiting for the store to open,” Wolcott says. “It’s really cute.”

Wolcott was laid off from Expedia in June, and Howard laid off from the same Bellevue company just a couple weeks ago. But they still find money for caffeine.

“Even if we hit bottom, we’ve still got to have coffee,” Wolcott explains.

Liberty Cafe sells coffee from Seattle roaster Caffe Vita. Moskowitz also sells other drinks, including juice by Fresh Juice Works, a Renton company.

For munchables, Liberty has Turkish and a variety of other pastries and soup with what Moskowitz calls “good, thick, barbarian bread.” Soon to come: “Meatball sandwich Mondays”, on the same day as Magic tournaments. (Magic, as in the card game, “Magic: The Gathering.”)

Internet pay stations are on the way, and soon after Moskowitz hopes to roll out Wii bowling. He’s also planning films on Friday, live music on Saturday and art by a new artist each month.

“People need a nighttime gathering spot,” Moskowitz says. “I want to give people a place to come with things to do besides talking to each other.”

Liberty Cafe entertains even without all those future distractions.

“I love it. I could spend the rest of my life here and be very comfortable doing so,” Moskowitz says.

Not that he will. He has a 10-year plan for the place. Or, more precisely, a one-year plan followed by a nine-year plan.

Moskowitz’s one-year plan is to work 12 or more hours a day as the cafe’s owner and only barista while working to become debt-free. His nine-year plan is to make money, while livening up downtown Renton.

“If this place does well, then everything does well,” Moskowitz says.

He’s willing to put in the work to make that happen.

“This is not a get-rich-quick scheme — this is the long haul,” he says.

It helps that Moskowitz lives nearby.

“Seventy-seven steps. That’s what I was going to call this place,” he says.

He liked Liberty Cafe better.

“Liberty is good,” he says. “Solid. It’s like a principle and an idea. It’s unshakeable.”