Caribou Coffee plans Long Island entrance

Caribou Coffee is brewing up an entrance into New York State.

A Caribou Coffee shop is planned for the 1100 block of Broadhollow Road in Farmingdale, according to plans submitted to the town of Babylon for approval.

The Minneapolis-based coffee chain has more than 800 shops in 11 countries, but none in New York State.

Babylon’s planning board will hold a public hearing and site plan review at 7 p.m. Monday on a plan to demolish existing buildings on the Broadhollow Road site in Farmingdale to build a 1,800-square-foot shop.

The proposed coffee shop would have a drive-thru and 30 indoor and six outdoor seats, according to a planning division memo from Denise Graziano, Babylon’s commissioner of planning and development, to Planning Board Chairperson Pat Halpin.

The project would include two adjacent properties at 1116 and 1118 Broadhollow Rd., covering nearly half an acre. Because one of the lots is currently zoned for residential use, the applicant for the Caribou plan, GC-2L LLC, is asking the town to rezone it for business use, according to the planning memo.

Parcels to the north, east and south of the proposed Caribou site are zoned for business uses, while single-family homes are located to the west, the memo said. 

Creative Window, a siding, roofing and custom window business, used to occupy 1116 Broadhollow Rd., according to a sign on the building’s front window. Next door, at 1118 Broadhollow Rd., is a vacant, boarded-up house.

Both properties are fenced off.

It is unclear when Caribou's Farmingdale location would open or if the chain plans to open other shops in the state before the project moves forward. Caribou representatives could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

John and Kim Puckett opened the first Caribou Coffee in Edina, Minnesota, in 1992.

The coffee chain is now part of Panera Brands, which includes Panera Bread and Einstein Bros. Bagels. JAB Holding Company, an investment firm based in Luxembourg, owns Panera Brands. 

Caribou operates in 20 states, but about 60% of its 502 U.S. loc ations are in Minnesota.

Caribou is the eighth-largest U.S. coffee chain, based on sales, according to Technomic, a Chicago-based restaurant industry research firm. Last year, Caribou's total sales were $386 million, a 5% increase from 2023, said Kevin Schimpf, senior director of industry research at Technomic.

Caribou's "sales growth was slightly better than the overall performance of the coffee cafe category," which grew 4%, he said. 

By Tory N. Parrish

tory.parrish@newsday.comToryParrish1

Tory N. Parrish covers retail and small business for Newsday. She has worked at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and Observer-Dispatch in Utica, N.Y.