(Courtesy of Cafe Grumpy)
Cafe Grumpy, the Greenpoint coffee roaster that shot to fame as Ray and Hannah’s place of employment in Girls, is opening a seventh shop in Nolita. The roaster just signed a lease at the Brewster Carriage House, the luxury condo building on the corner of Mott and Broome where John Legend lives.
News of the 15-year lease comes via broker Eastern Consolidated. The 19th-century building was once home to a factory that built carriages used by the Astors, Vanderbilts, J.P. Morgan, and Abraham Lincoln, the press release notes.
Ross Morgan, the developer who restored 177 Mott Street, originally planned to use the ground floor as a posh restaurant helmed by an ex-Le Cirque chef and ex-Rose Bar GM, but residents of the notoriously nightlife-averse area where Chinatown, Nolita and Little Italy meet balked at the idea in 2010. The project was still alive in 2012, but ultimately Morgan “was never able to obtain a liquor license,” Eastern’s James Famularo says in the release. “After analyzing the space, we quickly determined that a restaurant wouldn’t be a viable option, so we reached out to different types of businesses and within a few weeks leased the two spaces to Café Grumpy and a consulting cooperative.”
This will be the seventh outpost for Grumpy, which launched in the wilds of Greenpoint in 2005 and eventually parlayed its cult following and Girls notoriety into locations in the Lower East Side, Chelsea and even Grand Central.