The interior of The Coffee Bar at 350 Ryders Lane in Milltown — Courtesy: The Coffee Bar/CBRE
By Joshua Burd
A local operator has opened a new coffee shop in Middlesex County and is eyeing additional locations, seeking to build a cluster of upscale but relaxed destinations within retail and mixed-use settings in the region.
The business, The Coffee Bar, recently debuted its nearly 2,600-square-foot location at the Ryders Crossing Shopping Center at 350 Ryders Lane in Milltown. Brokers with CBRE represented both the landlord, Morel Operating Co. LLC, and business owner Ben Yabra in the 10-year lease.
“It’s a beautifully built space,” said Nicole Jadoo, a CBRE associate, who completed the deal alongside CBRE Vice President Steven Winters. “It definitely gives you the feeling that you can come in and sit down and relax with your cup of coffee. You can grab and go, but when I walk in, I feel very comfortable, like I can read a book, study or have coffee with a friend.”
Yabra, who has another location under construction in Woodbridge, originated the concept in 2015 with a coffee shop in Edison. As he recalls, his inspiration came a few years earlier, when he had spent more than a month in an extended stay hotel in Charlotte.
“Every morning I’d go downstairs and spend a few hours in the lobby,” Yabra said. “It had a beautiful setup and that just stuck with me. And I said to myself, when I came back, maybe I could do something like that, but somewhere anyone can go without being part of the hotel.”
Yabra is no longer affiliated with the Edison location, but has evolved and refined that vision with The Coffee Bar in Milltown. The space offers a “European vibe,” he said, with a modern and clean design and coffee and food products from Italy.
Admittedly, the concept is simple and straightforward.
“My goal is coffee with a little bit of ambience and a little bit of customer service,” Yabra said. “And it works. … I only serve food that I would eat myself and I only provide the type of ambience that I would expect myself.”
The new coffee shop, which has a bar area with wireless chargers, benefits from anchor tenants at Ryders Crossing including Target, Home Depot and Acme. Yabra notes that the plaza has hundreds of cars parked on site at all times, providing a steady source of traffic.
In Woodbridge, the operator expects to have a similar layout but a different customer base. The Coffee Bar is building out its new location within the Station Village at Avenel, a high-profile mixed-use project with some 500 apartments and an on-site performing arts center.
To that end, Yabra expects the traffic to come largely from residents of the property and eventually other residents in town.
In the meantime, he and the CBRE brokerage team are looking for other locations in the area. Yabra said he is seeking sites within 10 to 20 minutes of the current shops, allowing him to create a “triangle” for his staff to shuttle from one location to the other.
With the Milltown location off to a fast start, he now has a proof of concept that he feels will appeal to other retail owners.
“Now that we have this location that we can show to potential landlords or brokers,” Yabra said, “I feel much more empowered to say, ‘Something like this in your plaza is going to bring a lot of value to the plaza.’ ”
