Listen to this articleA growing Hudson Valley-based coffee chain is coming to Long Island, after the company bought 10 former Dairy Barn locations here.
RC LI LLC, an affiliate of Ready Coffee, a drive-thru coffee shop that offers an assortment of coffees, teas, energy drinks, shakes and smoothies, purchased nine former Dairy Barn properties in Nassau County and one in Suffolk County for a little more than $9 million, according to a broker on the deals.
Ready Coffee, which opened its first express cafe in Wappingers Falls in 2019, now has additional locations in Newburgh, LaGrange and Hyde Park. The company, founded by former hedge fund investment manager Jed Bonnem, credits the quality of its coffee to local small-batch roasting, according to its website.
The former Dairy Barn properties acquired by the coffee chain include 870 Atlantic Ave., Baldwin; 2885 Grand Ave., Baldwin; 2805 N. Jerusalem Ave., East Meadow; 2020 Jericho Turnpike, East Northport; 114 Franklin Ave., Franklin Square; 177 Atlantic Ave., Freeport; 94 Forest Ave., Glen Cove; 1600 Broadway, Hewlett; 241 Hempstead Ave., Lynbrook; and 2735 Oceanside Road, Oceanside.
The new Ready Coffee locations on Atlantic Avenue in Baldwin and in Glen Cove are already under construction and are expected to open later this year.
The Dairy Barn brand was born a couple of decades after Swiss immigrant Edgar Cosman purchased a failing dairy in East Northport in 1939 and turned Oak Tree Farms into a profitable milk wholesaler several years later. His son Dieter Cosman came up with the Dairy Barn concept as an idea to help sell more of his family-owned dairy’s milk, and opened the first store in 1961. At its peak, the iconic, red-siloed Dairy Barn, had as many as 70 area locations.
The Cosman family closed the Oak Tree dairy on Elwood Road and sold the land to the Engel Burman Group and the 37-acre property was developed into a 246-condominium community for people aged 55 and over called the Seasons at Elwood, which opened in 2019.
The Cosmans sold 38 of the remaining Dairy Barn properties in 2009 to Long Island City-based Simi Enterprises, a family-owned company that began managing the convenience stores under their Loop Food Management affiliate. Several of the locations were leased or sold to independent operators over the last few years.
In early 2021, Simi made a deal with a company called GFG, which stands for Greek From Greece, to lease 28 of the convenience stores. But after operating the chain for nearly two years, GFG ended up returning the stores to Simi in Nov. 2022. Last year, Simi listed 17 of the properties for sale with Clem Coté of Syosset-based Sovereign Realty Group.
“When we began the marketing process on the portfolio, we understood that these properties would garner a lot of attention due to their history, location, and unique configuration,” Coté said. “However, the size of the properties and the fact that they were vacant for so long were the main hinderances. We found that a few of the municipalities had even revised their zoning code and drive-thru convenience stores were no longer even classified under current guidelines. When we were approached with the Ready Coffee concept, we felt there was high probability that municipalities would welcome the brand and be relieved that these long vacant sites would be brought back to life. Ready Coffee’s unique business model should prove to be very successful within the confines of the former Dairy Barn locations.”
Ken Hochhauser and Evans Cyprus of Winick Realty Group represented Ready Coffee in its Long Island acquisitions, while Coté represented the seller, Simi Ent. LLC, in nine of the 10 sales transactions.