At 25 North Broadway in Tarrytown, the espresso comes from behind a teller window. The building was once the Washington Irving Trust Company bank. Since July 30 it has been Dahlia's Song, where owner Linh Hoang runs a flower shop, a cafe, a workshop space and an event room under one roof. She brews Vietnamese Robusta where tellers used to count deposits, as The Hudson Independent reported in August.
Dahlia's Song is one of several. Many of the coffee counters that opened in Westchester this summer and early fall sit inside another business, such as a working greenhouse, a coworking venue or a planned neighborhood grocer. That changes how you find a new cafe in the county. The next good cup may be in a building you already pass for some other reason, and it will keep that building's schedule.
Three counters in places that sell something else
The clearest examples are spread across the county, from the river towns to northern Westchester.
Dahlia's Song, Tarrytown. The bank building sets the mood, and the flowers and event space are as much a part of the business as the coffee. It is open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday through Sunday. The Journal News also pointed to the almond croissant in its late-August roundup of new Westchester coffee shops.
Gardenside Kitchen + Coffee Bar, South Salem. This cafe is inside the greenhouse at Gossett Brothers Nursery, 1202 NY-35. Pastries and focaccia are made in-house, and the cafe partners with South Salem Winery, according to Gardenside's own site. Pastry chef Tracy Kamperdyk Assue started it as her own business. The Journal News photographed a brioche with plum and pastry cream there in August.
Eyes Closed Coffee, Dobbs Ferry. Carla Sanders, owner and barista, runs a coffee kiosk inside HudCo at 145 Palisade Street. HudCo profiles her coffee counter as part of the building, and the venue describes itself as a coworking and event space, not a food hall. The kiosk opened Friday, August 7, per Picture Book's announcement. The drink to try first is the EC Egg Cream, a caffeinated take on the New York classic.
Further north, The Journal News also included a cafe that opened in May inside Yellow Monkey Village in Cross River, which serves sandwiches along with coffee and pastries. Like the others, it sits inside a destination people already visit.
The host business sets the hours
This is where sharing a building affects your Saturday plans. A standalone cafe can open early every day. A counter inside another business runs on that business's week, and this year's openings show it.
Gardenside is open Thursday through Saturday from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Sunday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. It is closed Monday through Wednesday. It works best as part of a late-week nursery trip, and a Tuesday drive will find it closed.
Eyes Closed Coffee keeps an even shorter schedule. Its opening announcement listed Tuesday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., plus select Saturdays. That fits a coworking space's weekday rhythm. The kiosk also shows up at HudCo events, and HudCo's calendar lists Eyes Closed Coffee at the bar for an October 12 event. One small caution: the Eyes Closed website still says "popping up soon," so HudCo's own pages are the more reliable guide to when the counter is open.
Dahlia's Song has the longest week of the three, closing only on Mondays. A florist with an event room has reasons to stay open on weekends.
The pattern reaches into what opens next
The openings planned for this fall follow the same lines.
Courier's September 17 roundup, More than 45 Westchester restaurant openings are planned for this fall, described Tarrytown Local as a hybrid grocer, cafe and bakery slated for early October. The plan includes a grocer up front with produce, dairy, meats, cheeses and pantry staples, plus a 25-seat full-service cafe serving breakfast and lunch, with dinner to follow. Katrina Poulin leads the bakery, where bread is hand-milled daily from locally sourced grains on an Austrian mill. Fox Schanzer and Steve Wazny are behind the concept. Early October is now, but that date was a plan as of mid-September. Check that the doors are open before you go.
The same roundup links two Rivertowns counters. Austin Furnas used to run Boxing Day Cafe at HudCo in Dobbs Ferry, the building where Eyes Closed now serves. He is opening Aussie's at 579 Warburton Avenue in Hastings-on-Hudson, in the former Wild Culture Waffle space. The plan draws on his Australian background with coffee, matcha and all-day breakfast, including avocado toast, scrambled eggs and French toast sticks. Courier said it "should open mid-September," and no later report confirms an opening date, so treat Aussie's as recently slated rather than confirmed open.
In Yonkers, a cafe called Coffee Shop is coming to 28 Wells Avenue from John Racanelli of First Generation Hospitality LLC. Signage advertises breakfast, lunch, dinner and cocktails, but no opening date had been set as of September 17.
Even the standalone shops borrow from someone
The cafes with their own storefronts this year make the same point in another way. Several are built around products or partners from somewhere else.
il Caffe di Napoli, Hawthorne. Three friends opened it after seeing a need for an authentic Italian cafe in town. It opened quietly August 17 and held its grand opening August 23. Co-owner Arielle Poli is one of the three. The baked goods come from Neri's Bakery in Port Chester, and the ice cream and ices are from Uncle Louie G's.
Maman, Rye. The French-inspired all-day cafe opened its first Westchester location at 64 Purchase Street on July 23, MyRye reported. The chain was founded by Elisa Marshall and Benjamin Sormonte, and the nutty chocolate chip cookie is its best-known item. Hours are 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekdays and 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekends. The Rye location also serves the chain's croissant waffles with homemade caramel sauce and salted whipped butter.
The Cloudy Bean, Mamaroneck. This one is the closest to a classic stay-awhile cafe. It is at 325 Mamaroneck Avenue, run by the father-and-son team of Joseph and Joseph Michael Carrasquillo. The menu pairs Japanese-sourced matcha with single-origin coffees from Peru and Ethiopia, according to Westchester Magazine. It announced an August 31 opening. During its soft opening, hours were 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekdays and 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekends.
Fifth Coffee, Pelham. Brothers Frank and Ilir Krasniqi run it at 153 Fifth Avenue, with Ilir handling food and drink. They describe it as a lower-priced, "regular joe" kind of place, and alongside coffee they serve gelato, juice, pastries and matcha drinks, the Pelham Examiner reported in July.
Matching a new cafe to the day of the week
Since the hybrid counters keep their host's schedule, the day you go matters more than the town. Here is how the published hours line up. Most of these reports are from July through early September, so confirm before driving any distance.
- Monday. Dahlia's Song, Gardenside and Eyes Closed are closed. Maman in Rye opens at 7:30 a.m., and The Cloudy Bean's reported soft-opening hours start at 7 a.m. on weekdays.
- Tuesday and Wednesday. Dahlia's Song is open 8 to 5, and Eyes Closed serves 8 to 2 inside HudCo. Gardenside is still closed.
- Thursday and Friday. All three hybrid counters are open. This is the only stretch of the week when you could visit the Tarrytown bank, the Dobbs Ferry coworking bar and the South Salem greenhouse on the same days.
- Saturday. Gardenside is open until 7 p.m., the latest of any spot here. Dahlia's Song runs 8 to 5, and Eyes Closed serves only on select Saturdays.
- Sunday. Gardenside closes at 5. Dahlia's Song and Maman stay open, with Maman serving until 6.
For a fall weekend, the South Salem greenhouse and the Tarrytown teller window are the two hybrid counters that are reliably open on both Saturday and Sunday.
A greenhouse cafe in South Salem or a florist in a former bank on North Broadway is the kind of everyday detail that shapes how a town feels from week to week, and it is the detail Nicole Isaacs keeps track of across Westchester and Rockland. If you're weighing towns on either side of the river and want a clear, local read on what daily life there looks like, Let's Connect.
