New Haven · United States
Willoughby's Coffee & Tea
Willoughby's Coffee & Tea roasts in New Haven, Connecticut.
Since 1985 · Bob Williams, Barry Levine
Overview
Willoughby's Coffee & Tea was founded in 1985 by Bob Williams and Barry Levine on Chapel Street in New Haven and is recognized as Connecticut's first specialty coffee roaster — a 'micro-roaster' before that was a marketing term. It now operates four retail stores across greater New Haven plus a centralized roasting plant, and the New Haven Museum mounted a 40th-anniversary exhibition in 2025 to mark its place in the city's cultural history.
Known for
- Connecticut's first specialty coffee roaster (1985)
- 'Serious Coffee' tagline and rigorous blind-cupping selection process
- Four greater-New Haven retail stores plus mail-order and wholesale nationwide
- Yale School of Architecture cafe inside the Charles Gwathmey-designed Loria Center (2009)
- Subject of a 40th-anniversary exhibition at the New Haven Museum (2025)
Why it matters
Willoughby's is the operation that taught the Yale corridor what fresh-roasted coffee tasted like, opening a year before Starbucks went public and predating most of the East Coast specialty wave by a decade — a continuously operating specialty pioneer rare in any U.S. city.
Production
- cupping frequency
- Blind cupping is the core selection process
- roastery location
- Greater New Haven, CT (centralized roasting plant)
Café
194 York St, New Haven, CT 06511 (Yale School of Architecture / Loria Center) — plus three other greater-New Haven locations