New Jersey’s Fair Mountain Coffee Roasters Opens First Standalone Cafe

Inside the new Fair Mountain Coffee Roasters cafe in Gladstone, New Jersey. All images courtesy of Fair Mountain Coffee Roasters.

Monmouth County, New Jersey-based Fair Mountain Coffee Roasters recently branched out from its all-organic roastery with the opening of its first standalone retail cafe. 

Aligning with the look and feel of the original Atlantic Highlands roastery cafe, the new 900-square-foot coffee shop in Gladstone is dressed in earth tones and features mostly reclaimed wood surfaces and furniture. Evergreen and gray custom mugs made in New Jersey by Ryush Ceramics also suit the coffee company’s eco-friendly, sylvan vibe.

A Faema Teorema espresso machine paired with Mahlkönig grinders on the new cafe bar is custom powder-coated with a dark British racing green, nodding to the suburban borough’s lush tree-lined avenues and green spaces, as well as the local community’s penchant for classic cars.

“When I started cycling, one of the first longer routes I did passed through Peapack and Gladstone. It’s a quiet town — so clean, so green, full of understated elegance,” Fair Mountain Coffee Roasters (FMRC) owner and competitive cyclist Steven Almonte told Daily Coffee News. “Vintage exotic cars adorn the streets and there are beautiful horses, hills and valleys. I enjoyed their roads, and the calm, when riding through. When it came time to open our second coffee shop, this was my top choice.”

Roasting continues to take place at the 950-square-foot Atlantic Highlands location, resulting in more than two dozen organic single-origin and blended offerings. That shop features a 30-kilo U.S. Roaster Corp machine, as well as a 5-kilo Ambex machine. 

“The roastery has a vibrancy and energy that is hard to explain,” said Almonte. “The smell of green and roasted coffee, the noise of the roaster, the grinders, smell of freshly brewed espresso — it’s a fully immersive experience.”

A world map hanging by the storage area was hand-painted by Greg Lewis, who along with his wife, Barbara DiBeneditto, co-founded Fair Mountain Coffee Roasters in 2008. Now free to pursue his non-coffee passion as a professional artist, Lewis is also almost finished with a mural inside the new cafe.

Lewis and DiBeneditto each spent years working with or around coffee through import/export companies in the 1980s and ’90s, prior to launching FMRC with a dedication to coffees bearing certification marks such as Organic, Fairtrade and Rainforest Alliance. 

Steven Almonte

Almonte, who was born in the Dominican Republic, moved to the U.S. in 2003 and became a chemical engineer by trade. He also developed a passion for coffee, becoming a FMRC regular and friend to the owners, who sold the business to him in 2022. In April of last year, another career engineer, civil engineer Juan Carlos, took over as head roaster. 

“We work closely together on developing the roast profiles. We lean on our deep love for math to optimize our roast curves,” said Almonte. “We look for elegant flavor profiles, a certain harmony in which the flavor notes present work together to bring a sense of cohesion and elegance to the cup.”

So far Almonte, said he’s added a few new farms to Fair Mountain’s sourcing network, while keeping the entire original selection of blends and profiles consistent during the ownership change. With the first freestanding cafe up and running, the focus has been on growth, but not necessarily change. 

“Greg and Barbara created something beautiful here, and it’s our responsibility to work on this with the same level of passion as they did, adding and improving where it’s appropriate, but preserving everything that makes this coffee special,” Almonte said. “Our next goal is to improve our website to better serve our nationwide audience.”

Fair Mountain Coffee Roasters is located at 258 Main St in Gladstone, New Jersey. Comments? Questions? News to share? Contact DCN’s editors here. For all the latest coffee industry news, subscribe to the DCN newsletter. 

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