Inside the newest Pueblo Querido Colombian Coffee shop in Queens, New York City. All images courtesy of Pueblo Querido.
Brooklyn, New York-based Colombian coffee specialist Pueblo Querido Coffee Roasters is continuing its expansion in one of the world’s biggest cities, opening in Queens.
On the ground floor of the 71-story Sven residential tower in Long Island City, which opened in 2022, the new Pueblo Querido shop opened last month. It maintains the Colombian brand’s penchant for vivid design, yet the shop blends even more multicultural influences for a truer reflection of the surrounding neighborhood.
While bright reds and yellows, Colombian textiles and even a parked Jeep Willys are hallmarks of Pueblo Querido’s other four shops around Brooklyn, the Queens shop features natural wood slats fronting the bar, slim modern shelving behind it, and a calm palette of pink and pastels.
“The new location is more minimalist and more Asian-oriented,” Pueblo Querido Owner Christian Guzman Herrera told Daily Coffee News. “We wanted to design it based on [the local community’s] culture, but keeping our roots with our two big murals that shows the coffee process from the seed to the cup in a more fun way, with Japanese characters.”
The new shop is also the first to offer manual pourover brews, as well as protein shakes and new sandwiches.
Said Herrera, “We are offering what our new neighborhood is asking us for.”
The original Pueblo Querido bar included a roastery in Greenpoint in 2016. That was followed by a second shop in Williamsburg in 2019. Two more Greenpoint locations have opened since, and production has moved into a dedicated 4,000-square-foot facility.
A 20-kilo Mill City Roasters machine was added alongside the company’s 2.5-kilo Diedrich roaster. The facility also offers professional services for other coffee businesses, including classes, equipment rental, packaging and design consulting.
Services offered have been informed by Pueblo Querido’s own experiences growing a small business in the city.
“This [cafe] location took eight months to open, and with the new environment and city regulations at the end, everything cost three times more than expected. It leaves you in a very vulnerable position,” Herrera said. “It’s been very hard for us to learn how to navigate every single aspect of looking for a place to rent, what to look for a lease, rules and laws to comply with, etc. The idea of the roastery is to provide every kind of service for business.”
The production facility also includes a substantial cold brew operation that is available to others. A custom production line designed by Herrera involves four 200-liter tanks with a platform in the center to load coffee and stir the brews. Operators use a control panel to program water flow and brewing time.
Pueblo Querido Owner Christian Guzman Herrera.
With five cafes now running in two boroughs, Herrera said the focus will be to continually reinforce quality and efficiency while pushing forward with in its wholesale business and additional B2B services.
The new Pueblo Querido Coffee Roasters Café de Colombia is located at 2947 Northern Blvd in Long Island City. Tell DCN’s editors about your new coffee shop or roastery here.
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Howard Bryman
Howard Bryman is the associate editor of Daily Coffee News by Roast Magazine. He is based in Portland, Oregon.
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