Cafe Grumpy

Overview

Cafe Grumpy was founded in 2005 in Greenpoint, Brooklyn by married couple Caroline Bell and Chris Timbrell, who opened with a hospitality background and an Australian finance day-job respectively before going full-time after the second Chelsea cafe (2007). The company began roasting in-house in 2009, expanded to a Greenpoint roastery with a 15kg Probat L12 and 45kg G45, and is certified as a Women-Owned Business Enterprise by NYC.

Known for

• Greenpoint flagship cafe used as Ray's coffee shop on HBO's Girls
• WBE-certified — independently owned and woman-led
• Roasts in-house since 2009 on Probat L12 (15kg) and G45 (45kg)
• First specialty cafe to take over a Grand Central Terminal Starbucks location (2014)
• Limited Wi-Fi and laptop policy at certain locations to encourage conversation

Why it matters

Cafe Grumpy is the most public-facing chapter of the early NYC third-wave story — predating Joe Coffee and Stumptown's NYC arrival, and providing an unusually grounded counterweight to the male-dominated founder narrative of US specialty. The Grand Central takeover symbolically marked the moment when independent specialty became viable real-estate competition for Starbucks in marquee NYC locations.

Production

head roaster

null

roaster machine

Probat L12 (15kg) and Probat G45 (45kg)

roastery location

Greenpoint, Brooklyn (former flower warehouse adjacent to original cafe)

Café

This roaster operates a café.

Recognitions

• NYC-certified Women-Owned Business Enterprise

Sources

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caf%C3%A9_Grumpy
• https://cafegrumpy.com/about-us/
• https://sprudge.com/cafe-grumpy-caroline-bell-grand-central-56203.html
• https://bondstreet.com/blog/cafe-grumpy.html
• https://foodgps.com/interview-cafe-grumpy-caroline-bell/