I am enamored with a new coffee shop here in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. A former glass shop in disrepair, the space is almost unrecognizable as a cafe from outside. I’ve been watching it fill in over the last few months. Done on a very limited budget, they started with basically an espresso machine and a coffee pot. Over time, they’ve been nursing something really beautiful out of the ugliness, using blueprints of possible archictural designs as wallpaper, leaving the cracks in the wall, cleaning the tiles, adding a mirror then using it as a menu by writing it in semi-permanent marker.
The antithesis of most New York renovations with the focus on a complete reworking, this is an unrushed building up of what is here into something new.
I can’t say enough about it, I’m just so happy they’ve come into the neighborhood and hope they can stay. Unlike most other New York whiplash arrivals and departures, maybe their focus on an unhurried foundation will pay off financially as well.
