Toby’s Estate, the coffee roasters out of Australia that have a cult following, is scheduled to open a week from today. L. gave me a heads up that the paper was off the window, and the co-owner — it’s a franchise — was nice to come out and introduce himself. It’s looking cute in there! And sitting in the windows facing both south and Washington Market Park will be a treat.

When they first took the space in May, B. sent in this bit of background (helpful since I don’t drink coffee): “In the world of coffee, Toby’s is legendary and on the lists of the best roasters in the world. Originally from Sydney, they had two outposts in NYC not long ago [they opened in 2015] (Williamsburg and West Village), but it appears they had a falling out with their U.S. partners at some point and those locations were renamed (ironically) as Partners Coffee [in 2019]. I’ve been to some of their Sydney locations as well as the original ones in NYC and they were all amazing. Very happy to have this right across the street from my apartment.”

They have tons of cafes in Australia, plus a few scattered across Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE and Kuwait.

The company was founded in 1997 by Toby Smith, an Australian lawyer who ditched his day job to travel the world to learn coffee production, then turned his mother’s garage into a mini roastery. If LinkedIn is up to date, he is still the president and CEO.