It’s a bold move opening a coffee shop close enough to smell the pumpkin spice lattes steaming inside Bronxville’s always bustling Starbucks, but the owners of the new Booskerdoo Coffee & Baking Co. have set out to provide a different daily buzz.
“We roast to order,” say Westchester residents Katy and Scott Edlitz, which means that every cuppa that crosses the counter to their eager and already loyal customers was roasted no more than seven days earlier. “The beans are roasted one day and shipped out the next,” they explain. And, since those little nuggets of awake hail from just over an hour away in Asbury Park, NJ, the end result is a remarkably fresh cup o’ Joe.
Booskerdoo was founded by the Edlitzes’ close friends, Amelia and James Caverly, who on a fateful night in 2011, took a shot at roasting coffee beans on a pizza tray in their NYC apartment. It worked. And, the experiment yielded the finest java they’d ever tasted (and a whole lot of smoke).
Armed with the knowledge that extreme freshness is the secret to the best brew, the Caverlys moved to the Jersey Shore and opened a coffee shop and roaster in Monmouth Beach. A few years and a couple of NJ locations later, they expanded to their current roasting space in Asbury Park, and have now set up their only NY shop in Bronxville, overlooking the tracks.
Beans for regular, decaf, and espresso sips are sourced from around the world, and the offerings shift with the seasons. “Right now, our light brew is from Tanzania,” says Katy. Light it is, but it’s also flavorful and subtly rich. Espresso beans are organic and make for the most intense, smoothest foam-kissed kick this side of the Arno. For a low-octane pick-me-up, pumpkin spice apple cider goes down nice and easy.
Loose leaf tea is also on the menu, and Katy and Scott fill the bags right there in the store. “Whatever we can do ourselves in-house, we do.” Which also means the Arnold Palmers are stirred with homemade lemonade. Locally sourced cookies and pastries tempt the weak, including Amelia’s oh-so chewy, not-too-sweet, surprisingly satisfying “…But The Kitchen Sink Bar,” described as “a granola bar with a little bit of everything.” (That about sums it up.)
The company website notes that Booskerdoo offers “really, really delicious things from really, really nice people” — a claim that comes to life each time Katy or Scott presses a smiley-face cookie into the palm of one of their smallest customers. That’s enough to perk anyone up. And, it’s not something you see every day in a coffee shop in Bronxville. Or, anyplace else.
Booskerdoo Coffee & Baking Co.
76 Kraft Ave
Bronxville
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