Cafe Grumpy

Cafe Grumpy opened in 2005 as the original location of what became one of New York's most influential specialty coffee brands. Founded by Caroline Bell and Chris Timbrell in what was then an uncharted stretch of Greenpoint, the festively orange, airy cafe sits beside Grumpy's own roastery — making it both a neighborhood gathering spot and a working window into how third-wave coffee gets made in Brooklyn. The space features a huge shelf of free books, generous communal seating, and the kind of casual, anti-pretension energy that put the brand on the map. The coffee program runs on Cafe Grumpy's house-roasted beans, sourced through long-term direct relationships with farmers in Latin America, Africa, and Indonesia. Espresso is pulled tight, milk drinks are competently executed, and the rotating single-origin pour-overs reward the regulars who come in for them. Cafe Grumpy has been featured on HBO's Girls (the Brooklyn HBO comedy filmed several scenes here), profiled by every major NYC food publication, and is widely credited as one of the shops that made Greenpoint a destination neighborhood for coffee.