Cafe Grumpy 224 West 20th St Btwn 7th and 8th New York, NY 10011 212-255-5511 M-F 7am-9pm Sat/Sun 8am-9pm Map | Web Site

Okay, so if you Google “coffee tour” and “New York City” it’s likely that 99 of the top 100 forum posts or blogs will mention that you go to Café Grumpy first.  Many will tell you that Café Grumpy is arguably leading the charge in NY to destroy the status quo in coffee selection and preparation. I found this to be true. 

Getting There.  Café Grumpy is located on 20^th Street in Chelsea, between 7^th and 8^th Avenues.  How and why these cafes keep following me, I don’t know, it starts to get really weird.  I lived around the corner at 23^rd and 7^th next door to the Hotel Chelsea for a while.  When will one of these coffee houses open up in my closet?  My proximity to coffee houses that weren’t there when I lived there aside…you can take the C or E train to 23^rd and walk there in a few minutes. 

The Coffee House.  I went to Café Grumpy twice.  Once in the morning around 7:40 and then the next day at about 9 AM when it was much busier than the day before.  Be careful to look for the grumpy face in the window and up high.  You would totally walk by the place (my friend did twice) when I met him there the second day.  It’s a narrow coffee house with a simply (not simple) and elegantly designed service area that included Ditting grinders, two Clovers, and a Synesso espresso machine.  There are a few chairs and tables to enjoy your coffee for a few minutes and read the paper, but I wouldn’t want to work there for a few hours. 

My First Trip.  Café Grumpy brings in coffees from some of the top roasters in the country.  While I was there they were serving a bunch of stuff from Novo, Verve, and Intelligentsia. Since I live in CO and can get the Novo stuff pretty easily, I first tried the direct trade Intelligentsia Rwanda Zirikana, Byumba Province.  The barista ran it in the Clover and served it in a white ceramic Bodum Copenhagen mug, the kind I got for my wedding.  It was a nice touch, because it is taller than it is round and I prefer drip in something like this, rather than in a more rounded demitasse shaped cup used for lattes and cappuccinos.  It seems the coffee stays hotter longer in this kind of vessel. 

In my first sip I thought the coffee was way hot and should have let it cool down.  I couldn’t taste much in it except bright acidity and twigs.  I gave it a few minutes to cool down and quickly was amazed how the cup transformed into delicious green apple.  Really, it was a nice cup. I also had a shot of the Novo Heartbreaker Espresso they make exclusively for Café Grumpy.  Not my favorite, but seemed to be a well balanced African and Colombian blend.

My Second Trip.  On my second stop by I met my friend from work there to grab a coffee before a breakfast meeting.  He’s not much of a coffee drinker but I told him if he EVER wanted a good espresso based drink this place would be different from any drink he could remember.  He got a latte and after one sip, he said “Holy crap, this is good.  It’s sweet and I can still taste the coffee.”   I had a latte too and had to agree.  It was darned good.  Preparation = terrific.

Before we left, my friend had to get some coffee for his wife, who’s the real coffee drinker in their house.  I looked at their list of whole beans and suggested a couple I thought would good based on how she prepared it.  He picked one of them that I suggested and then asked the guy at the register what he recommended.  The guy eventually helped him pick another out, but really didn’t go out of his way to talk through the coffees.  Honestly, he even seemed a little put off that he had to walk over to the display to pick one up.  That’s when I realized that the baristas there were awesome and perhaps very knowledgeable about coffee, but not very outgoing at all. 

Good Service + Attitude - Education.  So here is the bottom line.  The coffee here is awesome. Very few places come close to the variety and excellence of preparation.  If you take even the most pretentious and picky coffee nut here, they will be astounded and think you really know your stuff.

That said… 

Note: After reading the next sentence, you might ask “What the hell do you expect at a place called Café GRUMPY.”

I felt like the service merited a B+.  Or, rather, it was not as complete as it could be.  Yes, their preparation was fast AND yes, it was stellar.  But, I think that if we want to create more demand for good, direct trade, high quality coffee, a critical aspect of service is education.  I didn’t get that at Café Grumpy.  Maybe others have or do, but it just wasn’t there when I was there. 

Despite these final notes, you cannot miss these guys next time you’re in NY.