Coffee Labs Roasters in Tarrytown Celebrates 20th Anniversary

The husband-and-wife team of Alicia and Mike Love are celebrating the 20th anniversary of their Coffee Labs Roasters on Main Street in Tarrytown this year. The couple also has lived in Tarrytown for the past two decades, relocating there to open shop in 2003 and giving back to the community over the years they have been in business. 

“We decided to open up Coffee Labs because we really felt there was a need for a good local coffee shop in the area,” Mike Love said. “Secondly, Alicia and I had just left the restaurant industry and were looking to ‘do coffee’ in order to change careers and change life paths.” 

Alicia Love added: “From the start, our philosophy at Coffee Labs has been all about community, which locally is Tarrytown. However, it’s also about the communities that we work with by buying directly from the farmers and creating relationships with them.” 

The Loves buy their coffee from farmers in Burundi, Kenya, Ethiopia, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Papua New Guinea, among other locations. 

The Loves have visited many of these places and have also brought farmers here to see the final product. “We believe that coffee is all about relationships from beginning to end, and without that it cannot be sustainable at all,” Alicia Love said. “Not only are we working with the farmers but we are also providing the customer with a quality cup of coffee, roasted with expertise.” 

Coffee Labs Roasters is unique in that it’s one of the few shops in Westchester that roasts their own coffee. In addition, Mike Love says they are part of the “third wave” of coffee shops. First, there were basic coffees like Folgers and Maxwell House that consumers could buy in grocery stores. Then, came Starbucks and other stores with café environments. “The ‘third wave’ focuses on the direct relationships with the farmers and creating a better cup of coffee through training, quality, consistency, technology and better equipment,” Mike Love said.  

In addition to roasting and selling their coffee in their shop, the Loves also have an online business and sell to grocery stores, restaurants, bakeries, offices, schools, and other coffee shops. 

The Loves have donated to Feeding Westchester and local veterans’ organizations, schools, arts programs, and senior centers over the years. With their focus on sustainability, they also send all their used coffee grounds to the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture in Tarrytown and have sponsored a litter removal program for one mile on I-287. 

“I feel like we have to give back to the community because I don’t believe we can conduct a business in a vacuum, especially a coffee shop where people gather and meet,” Alicia Love said. In addition to giving locally, the Loves have raised money for organizations around the world, including those that provided relief to hurricane victims in Haiti. The Loves have also supported Rayyan Mill coffee farmers, helping them to get their coffee out of war-torn Yemen and into the hands of coffee roasters.  

For their 20th anniversary the Loves decided to make a donation to the Rotary Club of the Tarrytowns’ Little Free Pantry, which provides food, hygiene, and paper items to help people in need. “Instead of having a party to celebrate our 20 years in business, we decided to make this about giving back to the community and helping people in need,” Alicia Love said. 

JoAnne Murray, the Rotary Club’s treasurer, has known the Loves for 20 years and said their generosity isn’t new.   

“From the very first opening of their coffee shop, they would always support fundraisers with coffee, and this continued and expanded as they became the success story they are now.”  She added, “Alicia recently dropped off an SUV load of food and supplies for the Rotary’s Little Free Pantry, and we are so appreciative of their support throughout the years. They exemplify the ideals of Rotary: ‘Service above Self.’” 

Another development is the opening of a new branch of Coffee Labs Roasters in Eastchester, planned for this summer. 

“We put together a pilot program in Manizales, Colombia, working with our coffee farmers at Finca Tio Conejo to harvest coffee wood and mill it down to spec for use in the decor of our store,” Mike Love said. “We were able to pay them for wood, which would have been scrapped, and we can now use it to feature as a beautiful architectural finish in our new shop. The whole entire concept is to share the story that it’s more than just coffee. It’s about relationships, working hand and hand with people, and sustainability.”