2024 Noteworthy New York City Cafe Openings

GATHER CAFE | LOWER EAST SIDE, MANHATTAN

January 20, 2024 (soft opening)
Gather Cafe is a large Orchard St spot on a quiet block primarily populated with galleries and vestiges of both Chinatown’s northward expansion and the street’s former identity as the neighborhood’s discount shopping thoroughfare. They serve coffee and coffee drinks using modern Italian roaster Niccolo, based in Melbourne but planning a huge US expansion, smoothies, Viennoiseries made in-house, and a creative sandwich and salad menu conceptualized and cooked by on-site chef, Sol.
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POSTCARD | WEST VILLAGE, MANHATTAN [NOW CLOSED]

Feb 9, 2024
I appreciate that West Village bakery, Postcard, by the same team as next door restaurant, Nami Nori, didn’t phone it in when it came to the drinks side of their menu, choosing specialty roaster, Coffee Project NY, which works with a lot of Asian-owned cafes and restaurants, and Greenpoint’s Kettl, a Japanese tea specialist.

The small bakery is stunning and crammed with beautiful design touches, like the plastic replica of a Japanese post box that holds menus. They offer a compact menu of sandwiches, cakes and other baked items, most of them Japanese-inpired (and sized).
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3 LITTLE PIGS | FLUSHING, QUEENS

Feb 14, 2024
3 Little Pigs is the only coffee shop in the area southeast of downtown Flushing and the only specialty coffee shop in a many block radius. The fact that they serve Rabbit Hole Roasters, the Roast Magazine Micro Roaster of the Year 2023, makes them unique even in New York City as a whole; afaik no other cafe uses it as their everyday coffee.

Despite their coffee’s pedigree, this is a shop firmly devoted to the average coffee consumer – a shot of espresso isn’t even on the menu, although they did make me one. There are all kinds of lattes and flavored drinks as well as bubble teas and fruit teas. Interestingly, the food menu is almost entirely onigiri (Japanese rice balls) along with a selection of sweet and savory croissants and egg tarts.
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DRIP COFFEE MAKERS | FINANCIAL DISTRICT, MANHATTAN [NOW CLOSED]

February 26, 2024
The Drip Coffee Financial District location (32 Old Slip) is their second in Manhattan and the fifth in their far-flung New York City empire, with three others in disparate parts of Brooklyn. All of Drip’s cafes are housed within other entities save the original Belvidere St, Bushwick location, which opened right before the start of the pandemic.

Similarly to the SoHo West branch, the FiDi location inhabits the lobby of an office building with no bathroom, although in this instance, it is the back lobby of a particularly dystopian, somewhat forbidding corporate skyscraper. Drip’s anti-decor works particularly well here.

Like the others in the family, Old Slip is a multi-roaster cafe, serving pourovers from four different roasters at any one time plus batch brew, and quality shots of their house espresso, Stumptown‘s Holler Mountain. Retail bags are available as well. Be aware that the entrance is at the rear, northwest corner of the building.
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BLUE BROWN | WILLIAMSBURG, BROOKLYN

February 29, 2024
Prosaically named after the building’s exterior colors, Blue Brown is situated on the east side of Williamsburg proper, paradoxically just a few blocks from everything but in an area with little foot traffic. Run by Southeast Asians, Blue Brown’s menu skews that way, with drinks such as espresso with palm juice and a Thai tea croissant. They use Brandywine Coffee Roasters, out of Delaware, for some drinks, and various Thai coffee purveyors for pourovers.
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WATCHHOUSE | MIDTOWN, MANHATTAN

March 6 2024
WatchHouse, an upscale mass market specialty coffee chain, something along the lines of Blue Bottle, but with better coffee and not owned by a multinational conglomerate (yet), soft-opened a couple of weeks ago in Midtown, with a grand opening planned for April 2nd.
Although they snagged a 5th Ave address, the cafe is actually on 52nd St, a few shopfronts off the avenue. With lots of open space surrounding the large three sided bar in the back center of the room, it’s a rarity in New York City.

The coffee menu contains most of the usual suspects, although here you’ll find the standard slate of Australian drinks rather than the ersatz Italian ones we’re most familiar with: a long black instead of an Americano, a piccolo instead of a macchiato, a flat white instead of a cappuccino. There are also a bunch of pastries including various laminated items and danishes, both sweet and savory.

WatchHouse, which opened its first location in Bermondsey, London in 2014, apparently has deep pockets, and after opening 16 other shops in the UK, has now set its sights on the US. They have seven branches planned for the US this year, at least three of those in New York City, with a 2000 sq ft spot in the Chrysler building coming next followed by one in Brooklyn.
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SOFREH CAFE | PARK SLOPE, BROOKLYN

March 16, 2024
After a brief existence in East Williamsburg in 2021, Sofreh Cafe, an offshoot of nearby Sofreh Restaurant, reopened in March 2024 in Park Slope. Although not a coffee destination, Sofreh has an extensive menu of Iranian drinks, food and sweets.

When I visit I tend to start with their chai (black tea) and go from there, often ending with the Ab-Haveej Bastani, a carrot juice and saffron ice cream float. Despite its utilitarian ambiance and somewhat chaotic service vibe, I find Sofreh to be a welcoming spot. The Instagram is unfortunately shared with the restaurant, so not a good place for cafe updates.
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SPITFIRE CHEESE & SUNDRY | HELL’S KITCHEN, MANHATTAN

May 4, 2024
Don’t let the name fool you; Spitfire Cheese & Sundry is just as much about coffee as anything else and sports a cafe space replete with a high end espresso machine and a full suite of Kinto ceramics for your coffee-drinking pleasure as well as a large communal table and window counter seating at which to enjoy your beverage.

Owned by coffee veteran Brandon Duff, who cut his teeth at seminal TriBeCa multi-roaster shop RBC, and his partner, Diana Cole, Spitfire uses East Williamsburg’s Sey Coffee on bar and also sell Bushwick’s Loveless Coffees, although I’m not sure if they use it in the cafe itself.
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THREE LEGGED CAT | EAST WILLIAMSBURG, BROOKLYN

June 1, 2024
After a fast three month build-out, East Williamsburg multi-roaster cafe, Three Legged Cat, opened on June 1st and quickly became a fixture in the New York City specialty coffee scene, holding bar takeovers and pop-ups on a near-weekly basis.

Run by two passionate but completely unpretentious individuals, Adelaide Cope and Leeor Waisbrod, Three Legged Cat pulls perfect shots of espresso and prepares well-extracted pourovers using a wide variety of roasters, from the hyper-local nano roaster (Obscure Coffee) to the quickly growing neighborhood micro roaster (Loveless Coffees) to the regional (Onyx Coffee Lab) to the international (DAK Coffee Roasters). They also use high quality matcha from Bushwick’s Tekumi.

It’s not just for coffee nerds though – they’ll happily prepare any drink. All prices are tip-inclusive and they pay their baristas a living wage.

The airy space, sporting three skylights, has great light and an understated, clean-feeling layout, with white walls, a concrete floor and an unfinished wood ceiling as well as a thrift-furnished living room nook in the front.
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CAFECITO SOCIAL | GOWANUS, BROOKLYN

June 4, 2024
Cafecito Social, on the west side of Gowanus adjacent to Carroll Gardens, is a cheery, colorful box on the relatively sleepy corner of Sackett and Bond Streets. Owner Gabriel Tejada launched the business on June 4th to showcase Guatemalan coffees to New York City; all coffees are roasted at origin, medium to dark.
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BANH BY LAUREN | TWO BRIDGES, MANHATTAN

June 15, 2024
After getting furloughed at the beginning of the pandemic by Gramercy Tavern, Lauren Tran started a French-Vietnamese pop-up bakery which became immensely popular, and parlayed that into a brick and mortar on the corner of Madison and Market Sts in Two Bridges.

Unlike most bakeries, Banh By Lauren has a serious coffee program under direction of Ryan Rhodes, with separate roasters for the more standard coffee menu and the Vietnamese specialty drinks. I have a seriously hard time choosing between a perfectly extracted cup of batch brew, the deliciously sour lime drip, or one of the specialty drinks when I visit.
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CHA & | LOWER EAST SIDE, MANHATTAN

August 10, 2024
Sitting astride the corner of Essex and Grand on the Lower East Side, Cha & is a bright white high-ceilinged space with (almost too much) natural light. While not a high end tea destination, Cha & has its heart in the right place and is staffed by cheery humans who will endeavor to make your day better.
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LA CABRA ROASTERY | BUSHWICK, BROOKLYN

August 16, 2024
The most hotly anticipated opening probably since Dayglow in 2023, the La Cabra Roastery inhabits a huge space on Willoughby formerly occupied by dual-level bakery Sweet Generation. La Cabra makes a much better use of the cavernous space, walling off the roastery in the rear of the building, and devoting the front area to a beautifully-designed cafe space.

This cafe joins the two Manhattan locations in the La Cabra family and serves the same quality coffee we’ve come to expect from them as well as a full suite of their famed bakery offerings. The roastery will allow La Cabra to begin their massive US expansion which has long been in the works.
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DAE DAY | MIDTOWN EAST, MANHATTAN

November 5, 2024
Dae Day, an attractive cafe with creative bench-style seating ringing the shop, occupies a storefront on a sterile Midtown block close to Grand Central. Dae Day is the American offshoot of Brisbane Roaster Semi Pro and they use coffee partially roasted there and partially at Shared Roasting in Brooklyn. They apparently have deep pockets and are planning a US expansion.
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THE MANDARIN | TWO BRIDGES, MANHATTAN

November 24, 2024
The Mandarin is a uniquely-designed cafe for New York City; its rounded contours and sepia coloration give off desert planet vibes. They use Sey Coffee, roasted in East Williamsburg, and extract it really well, but the pastry selection is run-of-the-mill. Luckily it’s catty-corner with another Coffee Klatsch favorite, Vietnamese bakery Banh By Lauren.
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