Great Barrington — A world of specialty coffee has come to Railroad Street the opening of ilse’s new café at 47 Railroad Street, the former location of Marjoram + Roux, which closed in August after five years of business.
Lucas Smith and Rebecca Grossman founded ilse in 2019. Smith is a native of Westport, Conn., and Grossman is a native of North Canaan, Conn.
The company started as a roastery seven years ago in an old garage on Railroad Street in North Canaan, but over three years ago, the couple opened a café next door to the roastery at 35 Railroad Street.
“Why did we get into coffee? For years, we never thought that coffee could ever taste good on its own,” Smith told The Berkshire Edge. “We would always put milk and sugar in our coffee, and we both thought that it was what you had to do to make a cup of coffee taste good. But then we had a cup of coffee that had all of these kinds of complex and unique flavors, and it opened our eyes to a whole new world of coffee.”
“We both got into coffee together,” Grossman said. “At the time, Lucas was working at the White Hart Inn [in Salisbury, Conn.] managing its Provisions Café, and we started looking at this commodity that we all often drink in a very fast-paced, quick environment. We wanted to spend more time with it to understand coffee in a better way.”
Smith said crafting a good cup of coffee starts “with a good raw product.”
“Most of our focus is in sourcing high-quality coffee that has good flavors already, and then it makes everything else way easier,” he said. “You can’t roast bad coffee to make it taste good.”
“In addition to a great raw coffee product, the people and the story behind the coffee make it even more special,” Grossman said. “Another part of our focus is sourcing coffees from single producers and small farmers that have never either had market access, getting them into the market for the first time and then bringing them out to new customers.”
Some of the company’s many coffee offerings include beans from:
- Sebastian and German Hoyos from San Agustin, Huila in Colombia;
- Jhon Jairo Gomez from El Rosario, from San Agustin, Huila in Colombia;
- Ricardo Romero Roque of Sierra Sur, Oaxaca in Mexico;
- Irineo Ramirez frim El Durazno, Jalapa in Guatemala; and
- Keramo from Bensa, Sidama in Ethiopia.
“All of our coffees are single-origin, micro lots,” Smith said. “What that means is that they are all coffees from a single farm, or small cooperatives. When you look at our coffee menu, you can look at the boxes in our store to read a biography about the farmer who grew the coffee. We are very intentional with our sourcing, and we want to have people to be connected to what they are drinking instead of just being like ‘Oh, this coffee is from Colombia.’ At the end of the day, we’re just roasting the coffee, but they are doing all of the work. We are just here to showcase their work.”
Grossman said that Great Barrington was an important part of her life while growing up in North Canaan. “I came to this town a lot growing up,” she said. “We always felt like it would be an amazing place to have a café. When this opportunity came about, it was perfect in many ways. We didn’t have a clear plan, but it all just worked out.”
“Great Barrington is a special place for us,” Smith said. “We had our first date in Great Barrington, so it’s cool to have a coffee shop here now.”
The couple said they will continue to operate both locations in North Canaan and Great Barrington.
Smith said the Great Barrington café currently offers a menu mostly focused on breakfast. “But we will expand the food menu as we go along,” he said. “We just added soups, and we will add sandwiches and salads down the line.”
ilse is located at 47 Railroad Street in Great Barrington and is open Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Monday, from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., and Sunday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
For more information, visit the company’s website.
