Uptown Roasters: A Friendly Community Café Comes To 7th Avenue
Unlike its neighbor Starbucks just a block away, Uptown Roasters, located at 355 7th Avenue (between 10th and 11th Streets), is a friendly, community-focused coffee shop that wants to bring neighbors together and make everyone feel welcome.
Officially opened this morning, this is Uptown Roasters’ second outpost. Husband and wife co-owners, Dan and Shanna Hildebrandt, launched their first location in Harlem in June 2015. “We started in Harlem because it was kind of an under-served area [for] coffee,” Shanna explains. “A fun thing we noticed in our Harlem café is…[we would] see people from different walks of life…interact…and start conversations and become friends….”
The Hildebrandts met their Park Slope landlord at their Harlem café and learned that he was interested in opening a coffee shop in the 7th Avenue space that formerly housed the Pepper Mill Deli and had been vacant for years.
Even though the couple were aware that Park Slope already has its share of coffee shops, once they visited the neighborhood, they were immediately taken by the area’s community vibe. “Our goal is to have a [café] where everybody feels comfortable coming in and it’s a very community type feel. With a space this large we saw a lot of opportunities for different things we could do.” Since their café is Harlem in much smaller, the couple would like to take advantage of their new spacious spot and make it a gathering place for the neighborhood.
A private meeting room in the back of the café will host a variety of events. Shanna, formerly a kindergarten teacher, plans to host sing-a-longs, story times, and mommy-and-me groups for local parents and their children. The couple also plans to host game nights and possibly movie nights in the space. Anybody interested in reserving the meeting room for an event can call the shop to make a reservation at (347) 844.9292.
Uptown Roasters literally roasts the beans it serves and sells in a facility uptown in Harlem. Dan previously co-founded a “socially-motivated” company that grows and distributes green coffee sourced from small producers. Originally from Peru, he worked with farmers there focusing on the quality of the water they used as well as their working conditions. A true coffee pro, he then went on to roast beans and then to open the 2 cafés.
Uptown Roasters is a welcome addition to the area with a friendly staff, bright and inviting surroundings, and vibrantly colored walls, chairs, cups and saucers. What sets them apart from other coffee shops is their mission to be part of the neighborhood. As Shanna says, “We want everyone to feel welcome coming in and we want it to be a place where the neighborhood comes together.”