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Cafe Grumpy opens in Park Slope!

By Gersh Kuntzman
The Brooklyn Paper
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The Brooklyn Paper / Julie Rosenberg
Happy smiling people: Cafe Grumpy, which opened on Seventh Avenue this week, does not live up to its name, thanks to cheerful owner Caroline Bell.

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The coffee is fantastic. The servers are friendly. And there are flowers on the wall.

So why is Park Slope’s newest java bar called “Cafe Grumpy”?

“We named our first location [in 2005] as a sarcastic comment on the snooty espresso culture a few years ago,” said co-owner Caroline Bell (pictured).

That Greenpoint location led to a second coffee shrine in Manhattan in 2006 — the Chelsea shop where none other than Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz had a cup of Cafe Grumpy joe, brewed in one of those $10,000 Clover machines, and promptly bought the appliance maker.

Yes, Cafe Grumpy coffee is that good. Bell and her husband Chris Timbrell offer a revolving slate of meticulously selected beans — including a Costa Rican Monte Cristol (with hints of “nuts and red berries”) — that are all ground to order on the spot.

And you can taste the berries. But this ain’t diner joe; prices start at $2.25 for a 12-ounce cup.

Bell lives in Park Slope, so she knows that there are at least 700 places within three blocks of Cafe Grumpy to get a cup of coffee, but she thinks her little cafe — which offers Blue Sky Bakery muffins and nothing else — is doing something unique.

“We’re not a place to type away at your laptop or get lunch,” she said. “We’re a place to get a great cup of coffee.”

Cafe Grumpy [383 Seventh Ave., between 11th and 12th streets in Park Slope, no phone yet].

©2009 The Brooklyn Paper

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→Park Slope: Quiet riot

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