Let’s Go Joe! New York’s Neighborhood Coffee Shop Turns 20

Joe Coffee keeps the big city small with its friendly, neighborhood vibe and consistent, delicious cups of coffee. Hitting the milestone of 20 years this year, Joe celebrated recently with Waverly Fest at the intersection where the company began and, to many, is the center of Manhattan’s cultural universe.

Back in 2003, Jonathan Rubinstein and his sister Gabrielle took a chance on a corner spot available in “The Village” near NYU at Waverly Place and Gay Street. Originally from Cleveland, the place where he cut his entrepreneurial teeth, he found himself at a professional crossroads in the early 2000s. The founder of Stagecrafters Youth Theatre, who had also worked for several years as a talent scout, Rubinstein was familiar with the perpetually romanticized view of café life, but could he make it a reality as a business? He admittedly had no real business plan, let alone personal coffee chops, yet he knew who did, and knew that magical corner in the village could be something.

In a neighborhood known as an artistic melting pot for the last century, with artists, writers, and actors coming and going daily, Joe Coffee soon leaned on those locals to become its regulars. With a built-in customer base and doses of what many know to be a signature of Midwestern geniality, Rubinstein knew they had two elements that could make Joe Coffee stand out amidst the growing coffee culture and Third Wave movement that hit New York City in the early 2000s.

Until that time, New Yorkers filled their coffee pumps at corner bodegas, street carts, and certainly, at the 24-hour diners. Unless you made the trek to the Italian cafés of Manhattan’s dwindling Little Italy or traveled up to Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, getting an espresso could be an exhaustive effort. And until Joe Coffee opened, it was few and far between that a decorative rosette accompanied your cup, let alone a shop with a serious latte art repertoire.

Once they dove in, Joe Coffee became a family affair. Gabby Rubinstein, a trained opera singer and co-owner, knew coffee and quickly became a master at the craft; her coffee know-how enabled the business to go from being opened just a few hours a day to eight. The team enlisted a high school friend to create the Joe logo; the siblings’ mom Alice worked behind the counter; and their dad Richard, an attorney, focused on accounting.

“We were so excited for our first customer to come in,” Rubinstein recalls in a recent Instagram Bench Talk. “Everyone was standing near the espresso machine ready to wow this woman, and then she asked, ‘could I have a bottle of water, please?’” They’ve come a long way since that first day. “We were very lucky that this location had a patio,” continued Rubinstein, “so the day we first put two benches out, we never knew that they’d soon be part of the brand, an icon, and a regular part of what Joe is.”

In 2011, Joe Coffee had not only expanded to several locations, but they had begun to roast their own coffee. They made a short-lived foray into the Philadelphia market, began conducting classes, and became participants in the annual New York Coffee Festival. In 2017, Joe Coffee created a partnership with Danny Meyer, one of the nation’s top restauranteurs, who believed in the brand’s potential to be New York’s neighborhood brew. Soon after the partnership began, Joe rebranded, which included making their own signature blue an official tie to its name.

Today, the business has grown to 24 locations, most recently opening a location in New Rochelle in Westchester County, approximately 24 miles from the center of Manhattan. Joe has an extensive in-person and virtual Education program offering courses from tasting and cupping to home-brewing or latte art skills. The company makes a concerted effort to discuss best practices, feature stories about its growers and partnerships, and take steps to reduce its carbon footprint.

Having seen a lot of changes and growth in the last twenty years, Rubinstein and his family are proud of the quaint experience Joe has been able to nurture and maintain despite the expansions. Amidst last weekend’s Waverly Fest celebration, where music played, the coffee poured endlessly, and benches were warmed by New Yorkers from all corners of the city, one of Joe’s earliest regulars, actress/comedian Amy Sedaris, baked cupcakes for the event, just as she did twenty years ago when the business wasn’t sure who would walk through the doors.

“Sometimes I only delivered seven cupcakes. I did it to make allowance money, we charged 1 dollar. It was also a job I could bitch about…I baked every night; I started around midnight. Eventually I got a mouse problem and got busy with show biz…” Sedaris says on a Happy 20th Anniversary post to Joe.

Treating everyone, even if it’s their first time in the shop, as if they are an essential part of the Joe family, is frankly what keeps them going every day. Well, that, and maybe couple of shots of “Waverly Place” espresso blend.