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The Village Voice covers our opening here...

  Come see us at our new store!

159 Second Avenue @ 10th and Stuyvesant Streets

The Rail runs East (again)(this time for good)!!

We’re stoked to officially announce that we’re in the process of building out a second location in the East Village!!

This location’s a bit special in my heart since I have a little “history” with it…Basically I’ve loved Stuyvesant street forever. It’s an anomaly for one, a little remnant of a street that basically just runs from 9^th to 10^th. But it also just has a cozy feeling to it. When we were deep in our initial location search for what would turn out to become Third Rail Coffee I haunted the area.  I was especially taken with the storefronts facing St. Marks church and it’s little “piazza”. I was also very  fond of the cobbler at the intersection of 10^th and Stuy and was fortunate enough to strike up some friendly banter with the man himself, Angelo. 

Angelo Fontana was a true craftsmen and I admired him very much. He was great to talk to as he had been in the neighborhood forever and was a font of history. I believe he was at this particular location for over 25 years and we talked a lot about the retail landscape and the Landlords that were redefining it nowadays, and not for the better. At the time, Angelo was in his youthful 70’s but we talked about his impending retirement in a few years time. I remember thinking that whenever that might happen, I hoped to be able to acquire that spot – if the bank didn’t gobble it up first of course… Unfortunately, not long after we struck up our conversations, Angelo’s landlord decided to hike his rent to an unsustainable level for him and he was forced into an “early” retirement. The whole thing was upsetting so we never  put a bid in because it just didn’t feel right. We watched as someone else took Angelo’s spot and set about transforming it …

As fate would have it, a few years later, the space became available again and we were ready to expand. The timing was right and we pounced, we got it, and now we’re really excited! We should be open sometime before June and hope to see you there of course. And Angelo, should you happen to see this – please come by, you’ll get coffee for life from us ; )

Best of VII 2012

Running until February 6th....

VII Photo and Third Rail Coffee

invite you to their latest show,

THE UNDECIDED 

featuring photographs 

shot on assignment for

The New Yorker 

in a feature story about 

swing voters in Dayton, Ohio

by Ashley Gilbertson and Ed Kashi

The exhibition will run from Election Day through December 1st

For the full Undecided story, please see:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/photobooth/2012/11/video-the-undecided.html

 

SANDY has shut us down people! We're CLOSED until further notice. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZ314hldal4&t=3m44s


 

Geisha/Gesha Time!

Starting this Sunday (9.23.12) we will be affording our customers a unique opportunity to experience the pinnacle of specialty coffee without any price markup on our end. 

Our current guest roaster, Ceremony, has two beautiful offerings from Ninety Plus Gesha Estates in Panama. These coffees represent the apex of what we believe specialty coffee can be. Loads of people in the coffee world have been able to experience coffees like these time and time again, but unfortunately the high price-tag they carry makes it difficult for the average consumer to justify purchasing. 

It's not that this cost is unwarranted (any product of equal quality in other food realms would carry the same), but there isn't necessarily the same understanding and appreciation of coffee to allow people to rationalize the purchase. We think that this is a shame and perhaps it's partially our (specialty coffee shops) fault for not sharing the experience with customers on a wide-enough scale for people to even be aware of what true quality can be. 

Therefore, we are going to sell these coffees for the same price as the other coffees on our menu to allow everyone the opportunity to taste them. We're sharing the cost, meaning we won't profit from this monetarily but we believe that there is still a huge benefit from making these available. 

They will be on our Chemex (made-to-order) menu for as long as we have them in stock, and if all goes well we'll order them again so those who miss out can have a chance to purchase a cup. We are also stocking order forms from Ceremony so you can buy your own bag from them if you're so inclined. Just ask the barista for one and we'll send it in with our next order so you can pick it up at the shop. 

We hope you're as excited for this as we are; tell your friends and share a Chemex if the 5 bucks seems too steep. We really want you to taste these. 

 

Really. 

 

See you this weekend,

Mike Jones

Coffee Director

Third Rail Coffee