Date: Sep 25, 2025

cafe series -- edition 1.0

This post has to go out. We've been editing this post for way too long (~2 months).

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We are looking to open a brick-and-mortar cafe space. There — it's officially public now.

We've been discussing opening a space consistently over the past year, but we only started considering it more seriously a few months ago.

This edition won't get into any of the gritty details. I'm sure as we get deeper, we'll have more stories to share. This post is largely the output of the "vision" work we've been thinking through.

Why?

I have 2 types of responses for this.

The first is a business reason. There are a lot of synergies that come into play when opening a cafe front for a roastery.

Having a brick-and-mortar location allows us to have a consistent spot to showcase our coffees. We sometimes get asked: "where can we try your coffees?", and we never have a good response. The big business benefit is that there's a higher opportunity to be profitable as we could operate the cafe at lower costs (than other cafes) since we are also the roaster. The cafe would also allow us to go through more coffee, enabling us to purchase more and potentially access higher-volume discounts (for the roasting side).

The second reason is that this is a step closer to our initial dream of opening a late-night cafe space in NYC. If a small spot works out, then we can hopefully move forward to take on a larger (and maybe more open) space in the future.

Who will be the cafe's target audience?

Our primary audience will be the cafe's surrounding neighborhood.

The neighborhood locals will likely be our primary regulars, and they will contribute to the core of our revenue. I intend to price our base/core offerings (milk-based drinks, drip coffee, etc.) consistently with the ranges of other cafes in the neighborhood (hopefully no $10 lattes).

We will work to incorporate opportunities to showcase and highlight neighborhood businesses and projects. This idea is a bit hazy to me, as I'm unsure if we'll have much space to work with, but I do want what we create to be perceived as a "positive" within the neighborhood context.

The secondary audience would be for the specialty coffee enthusiasts. The space will be a public outlet for those who want to try our coffees. I intend to continue our style of sourcing (fruity, floral, and complex coffees). I'd love it if our cafe shows up in the usual "which specialty coffee shops to check out in nyc" query. 👁️

I want us to be the neighborhood coffee shop that happens to serve good coffee.

The location:

I'm currently targeting something in Greenpoint, specifically something nestled around the border of McGolrick Park. That area feels slow-ish, and I think being nestled within residential makes the spot all the more "home-y".

McGolrick Park to the left

This residential interest comes from visiting leaves coffee in Tokyo. I remember sitting outside the cafe, and thinking how odd the cafe was located in front of residential homes.

leaves coffee in tokyo

We want Greenpoint since our audience skews heavily towards Greenpoint/Williamsburg/Long Island City, and Greenpoint is a good middle spot. This data might be biased since we heavily posted in those subreddits when starting off...

But regardless, I know North Brooklyn more than other areas. I've called North Brooklyn home for 5 years, and it just makes things easier if I know the cafe's neighborhood.

But, if something else comes up and the opportunity makes sense, we'll make it happen.

The space:

I'm hoping to find something that's less than 700 square feet. I don't want to deal with the pressures of an expensive space and making rent.

I'm going into this search with a priority on budget. The ideal scenario is if a previous cafe space becomes available on the market. This would mean that we likely wouldn't have to worry much about infrastructure (water and power), we'd have an easier time with cafe-related permits, and there'd likely be a prior coffee-drinking audience we could tap into.

The space is likely not to be... stylish due to our hope to save on costs. But also, having a visually appealing design isn't what our brand is about. We care more about the end product and hospitality rather than the design.

some examples of minimal(ish) long bars (kolo, special guests, prolog) that I like

If I got to choose, I'd love to have a long and open bar that is also very minimal. I believe this format fosters an open experience, enabling conversation between the baristas and guests. I'm sure there are complexities behind such a setup (i.e. errors become more visible, there's more pressure to keep things clean, etc.), so that'll be something I investigate in the coming months. But given that one of our main items will likely be pourovers, I think having an open space where people can watch their pourover being made is important.

Oh, and I'd love for a sidewalk large enough to put outside seating (bench, etc). This is important.

Menu

I want to keep the menu seasonal, simple, and ingredients-focused.

I'm hoping to have the usual espresso-based drinks (cortado, macchiato, etc.). I'm not sure how to choose the beans for this yet. I'm leaning towards having a line of coffees that we roast more darkly towards espresso, and maybe use one or two of our light roasts as a "specialty" espresso (that still cuts well with milk). I think there's a way to offer both, but I can see this idea complicating the ordering conversation. I guess we could always default to the base option unless the customer specifically chooses the specialty option. This might be something we'd test out during service to see if it's worth it to take on that complexity.

I'd also like to have one or two seasonal signature drinks on the menu. I want to approach signature drinks in a way where the coffee is the star. Whether this be overloading brewing ratios to get higher concentrations, or having the non-coffee components only be minor accents (idk, maybe a thin layer of cold foam with a hint of jam?), I want to have it where the coffee is the focus of the drink.

Something similar to what Kafei.af created for their signature drink around POL Peach Catimor

We will also have pourovers on the menu. :) But it won't just be our beans, we'll also act as a multiroaster shop. This idea came from talking with Suyog (from Driftaway). He brought up the point that being a multiroaster lets you build off of other roaster's networks (social shares, etc.), and helps build more relationships.

Maybe we have two non-thoughtfulcoffee slots, with one of them always being a local nanoroaster. This idea comes from Alex (from Paper Son Coffee), and seeing how he operates with the idea that if you want your local scene to be good, then support local. Plus, I know how hard it sometimes can be to get a spot in a cafe, and I'd like to pay back for future cohorts of nyc nanoroasters.

Our immediate to do's:

• Continue talking with people. Fortunately, people have been extremely open to these conversations. There are a few others I'd like to talk to about their journey, thoughts, and experiences.
• Start modeling out costs. Our priority has been determining our high-level vision. After noodling about this for the past 3 months, I think we know what we want in a space. I think the next step is to try and model out what our spend might be.
• Figure out financing. I'm hoping to finance this through SBA loans. We'll see if I can get anything. This is the dumb way to do it, as I take on all the financial risk. But I don't know, we'll see how the numbers look/turn out.
• Understand possible vendor relationships: Have an idea of who our vendors might be and their rates.

Thank you's

I would like to highlight and acknowledge that the surrounding coffee community has been extremely helpful in our journey so far. I wasn't sure how people would take to me asking questions about their journey, their perspectives on opening a shop, everyone has been incredibly open and helpful.

Brandon from Bird & Branch (@birdandbranchnyc):

Brandon

Brandon has been extremely kind/helpful with this journey so far. He's made intros (how we met our current real estate agent), shared his story and advice, and even offered to go to a showing with us. Things I learned from talking with him:

• It's not going to be the super enthusiasts who'll keep the lights on, it'll be the regulars.
• Taught me a lot of the basics of commercial real estate and what to look into a space (adequate power + water, what the "good guy clause" was, etc.).

Leeor from Three Legged Cat (@threeleggedcatbk):

Leeor

Leeor was on my list of "people to talk to and learn from". I saw his opening journey from the outside and was just super impressed at how quickly he was able to get the shop up and running. Usually you hear stories of half a year to a year til open, but I felt he got it up and running in like — 2 months. He was also super open with his process, and also offered to intro us to his GC team. Biggest takeaways from speaking with Leeor:

• Consider looking for your team (ie architect) early in the process. This way, you can have them provide feedback on spaces during your search. You intend to give them your business, so it's a win-win for both parties for you to find a space.
• Take more cash than you need. I've read and heard about this from others (Principles + Brandon shared this too), but I think hearing Leeor reason why really hammered it home.

Then there are all of you who've been provided help. I'm 90% certain that we'll find our space through one of you. This seems to be a common occurrence with brick&mortar spaces. Someone's block has a opening, and they reach out to XYZ about it. After seeing the support you all have shared, I totally believe it.

just thank you to everyone who's shared ideas 🙇

This is partially why I'm making this news public, I'm hoping if something comes up in your circles, you'll think of us. :)

More learnings to have. <3