New Jersey Gets More Brews from Bleu Coffee

At the new Bleu Coffee shop in Montclair, New Jersey. All images courtesy of Bleu Coffee.

New Jersey’s got the Bleus — three of them to be exact — with the opening of Jamaica-focused Bleu Coffee‘s latest cafe in the township of Montclair.

Just steps from the Walnut Street station of the New Jersey Transit railway, the 1,000-square-foot shop at Depot Square fleshes out the Black-owned brand’s luxurious ensemble of cafes with marble countertops, white walls, fresh French pastries and Bleu’s freshly roasted single-origin coffees.

Bleu Coffee Founder Kevin O’Gilvie told DCN that the company avoids blends in order to “keep the authenticity and true taste of all of our single-origin beans.”

These true tastes are expressed at the new cafe through a SanRemo Cafe Racer espresso machine supported by a SanRemo F83 grinder, and through individual manual brews. 

Coffees from Kenya, Indonesia and other origins are purchased through importers such as Armenia Coffee Co, Agora Coffee Merchants. A 100% Kona coffee comes from family-owned producer Lion’s Gate Coffee. The house espresso is an organic coffee from Honduras, while the cold brew comes from a Fair Trade/Organic coffee from Nicaragua. O’Gilvie, who is the son of Jamaican immigrants, also proudly features Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee.

“Bleu is ‘blue’ in French, [and] the reference is to Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee, which is still the roots of the business,” said O’Gilvoie. “We started by bringing in coffee from Jamaica by traveling there four times a year and returning back with suitcases full of green bean coffee, which we would have roasted and packaged locally.”

Today, Bleu Coffee Head Roaster Raul Gomez roasts all Bleu coffees on a San Franciscan SF-25 located in Scotch Plains. 

Roasted coffees make their way direct to consumers through online sales, to wholesale customers, and to each of the three Bleu Coffee bars, including one opened in Jersey City in January 2023 and the original inside a Jersey City gated community. 

“We opened [the original shop] during the pandemic, and started with just a coffee cart outside as a safe way to serve people who were stuck in their homes during lockdown, which then grew to building out a space in the lobby,” said O’Gilvie. “Montclair is prime real estate in New Jersey and the center of Essex County. We wanted to enter into that market to serve customers that we could not reach from Jersey City.”

At the new Montclair cafe, an outdoor deck is expected to be open for Spring 2025. A second Montclair shop is also planned for next year, as are improvements to the original shop in Jersey City.

Bleu Coffee is located at 8 Erie St. in Montclair. Comments? Questions? News to share? Contact DCN’s editors here.