For the Love of Coffee: Abraco

NYC Velo is a neighborhood joint. We love and support small business, local business, independent business…the neighborhood joints.  One of our favorites, make that definitely our favorite, joint in the hood (well, the east village), is Abraco Espresso. Actually, Abraco would probably have to be our favorite espresso purveyor in the entire city, hell, maybe of all time.  Lucky us, it’s just 4 blocks away.

We’re not professional food writers (Sorry, CJ), so we won’t attempt to review the quality of Abraco’s offerings (you can read professional reviews here).  I wouldn’t even go as far as labeling us “foodies”, though we are really into eating food (a 3 hour ride can really stir up some huger pangs).  We also rely on the legal stimulant caffeine to get us outta bed every morning, onto the bike and through that 8pm closing time.  We prefer to have our stimulant of choice administered via the everyman concoction of scalding hot water forced through dried-then-crushed beans.

This love of coffee, read: good coffee, led us to check out Abraco when they opened up on 7th St at 1st Ave a few years ago.  The drip coffee (both hot and iced) is excellent, the espresso sublime, the food amazing. As much as we love the consumables, we love the atmosphere at Abraco even more.

At the risk of sounding ridiculous: there’s something about having a cortado at Abraco that always puts us in a better mood.  We’ve sampled espresso from many of the downtown mainstays, and the drinks are generally very good, but the rooms lack that je ne sais qua.

Jamie, Liz, and the crew at Abraco, simply put, have created an environment that is friendly, congenial, while maintaining an impeccable level of culinary execution. We love having Abraco in our neighborhood, they’ve raised the bar concerning the small business experience in New York City.  They make us work harder to do the same for bicycle retail.