by K. A. Keener
Gotham Coffee Roasters is crafting interesting coffees in a beautiful minimalist space–white marble, black matte paint–in the Flatiron District. Two moments were a tip-off for me that this was a hidden gem in NYC coffee: one, on a recent coffee tour of the Flatiron District, the Geisha Chemex-brewed for us was the hit of the tour!
Two, when I first met Patrick, head barista, at the 2017 Coffee Festival, he offered me their the single origin Ethiopian espresso. It stopped me in my tracks; I spent more time at their booth than all the swankier, larger booths combined. Who were these guys?
Turns out, these guys, specifically their owner Chris Calkins, has been around for a long time, but the handle of “Gotham Coffee Roasters” has recently stepped out of the shadows. Calkins is the man behind Prodigy coffee fame in the East Village which has been around since 2012. But, Gotham Coffee just started in 2017. Calkin’s own coffee birth story goes back even farther to an apprenticeship with Alfred Peet of Peet’s coffee in CA. He then became a part of the original Starbucks team and finally took a temporary retirement from coffee and worked as a sommelier.
Calkins, who roasts out of a coffee roasting co-op in Red Hook called the Pulley Collective, began just roasting for his own shop, Prodigy Coffee, and a few wholesale accounts. Then, he decided to step out of the shadows with this inaugural shop in the Flatiron and Gotham Coffee Roasters was born. (But insiders new about it long before this little shop opened.)
The shop is hyper-clean, minimal and brewing some of the most secretly delicious coffees in New York. These guys are the spot you take your wine friends to for coffee–Calkins’ sommelier’s palate is certainly roasting some of the most special speciality coffee in our fair Gotham– and where you take your coffee friends to for their next big find.
Location: 23 W. 19th Street (between fifth and sixth avenue)
Hours:Weekdays 8am-7pm/ Weekends 9am -6pm
Open Since: January 2017
Amenities: no wifi, no bathroom, seating for 8
Must Try: single origin espresso or single origin pour-over
Owner: Chris Calkins (Prodigy Coffee)
Roaster: Roasting out the Pulley Collective in Red Hook, BK