A Whole New Joe: Iconic New York Brand Refreshes, Opens Roastery

Photo by Kathryn M. Sheldon, courtesy of Joe Coffee.

The proudly New York City-born roasting and retail company Joe Coffee has just cut the ribbon on an all-new roastery, lab and cafe in Long Island City, Queens, while unveiling a comprehensive brand refresh.

After launching as an independent single coffee shop in Manhattan’s West Village in 2003, Joe Coffee began roasting its own inside the roaster-share Pulley Collective space in 2013. Now inside its own dedicated roastery, the Joe team is employing a Loring S35 Kestrel with an Ikawa for sample roasting.

The new Joe Roastery and Cafe in Long Island City, Queens. Photo by Kathryn M. Sheldon, courtesy of Joe Coffee.

Coffees coming out of the roastery are heading into fresh new Joe Coffee bags or straight to any of Joe’s 20 retail shops, which were all transformed with the new branding this week. The new brand includes an refreshed color palette with prominent use of a true blue, a new hand-drawn logo and updated typography and iconography for all kinds of Joe bags, ceramics, to-go cups, sleeves and merchandise. A bench in the new logo is a nod to the bench at the original Joe cafe.

The company said the rebranding effort is a direct result of the 2017 investment from renowned restaurateur Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group. The New York office of Godfrey Dadich Partners (GDP) led the brand transformation effort.

The new Joe Coffee bags. Photo by Kathryn M. Sheldon, courtesy of Joe Coffee.

Under a reinvented Joe banner at the Joe roastery in LIC, guests are welcome to enter a small, 11-seat cafe offset from the production area and coffee lab. There’s a full cafe menu along with a rotating selection of seasonal single-origin coffees for espresso preparation and pourovers.

The remainder of the 4,000-square-foot facility is dedicated to production roasting, quality control and wholesale training. Joe Coffee Director of Training and Education Christopher Malarick told Daily Coffee News that among the shiny new toys within the lab are a two-hoppered Mahlkönig EKK43 grinder, a Mahlkönig Guatemala 710, a 2-group La Marzocco Linea PB espresso machine, two Nuova Simonelli Mythos grinders, a full complement of cupping gear and numerous manual brewing devices.

Photo by Kathryn M. Sheldon, courtesy of Joe Coffee.

While these are high times for Joe Coffee in New York, the company confirmed with DCN that it is regrettably closing its two Philadelphia locations — its only retail shops outside the greater New York City market — at the end of this year. Joe first opened in Philadelphia six years ago, maintaining shops in Rittenhouse Square and University City.

“We’ve spent many years trying to make these locations work, but unfortunately had to accept this fall that this was the best course of action as we turn our focus to our hometown of New York,” Joe Coffee CEO and Founder Jonathan Rubinstein said in a written statement to DCN. “We feel so deeply embedded in, grateful to, and proud of the specialty coffee community of Philadelphia — one that has given us so much, and one we hope we were able to contribute to equally. We’re also proud of the Joe Coffee community and family we’ve built here.”

Jonathan Rubinstein. Photo by Kathryn M. Sheldon, courtesy of Joe Coffee.

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