Caribou Coffee plans to open new shops, in Westbury and East Farmingdale

Minneapolis-based coffee chain Caribou Coffee has set its sights on expanding into New York State, and its plan includes opening at least two shops on Long Island.

A Caribou shop is planned for a former Starbucks location in Westbury, at 1149 Old Country Rd., according to plans submitted to the Town of North Hempstead.

Plans also have been submitted to the Town of Babylon to open a shop in East Farmingdale, where an applicant wants to demolish two adjacent properties in the 1100 block of Broadhollow Road and replace them with a Caribou Coffee shop, which Newsday reported in December.

Caribou has more than 800 shops in 11 countries, including 487 in the United States, but none in New York State.

Caribou Coffee did not respond to Newsday's requests for comment, so it is unclear when the two Long Island locations would open or if the chain plans to open locations elsewhere in the state.

The two applicants that have submitted building plans for the Westbury and East Farmingdale locations, GC-1F LLC and GC-2L LLC, respectively, have the same Farmingdale post office box as a mailing address.

The East Farmingdale location would be a franchise, Daniel Plant, president of GC-2L LLC, told Newsday in February.

He did not respond to requests for comment.

For the Caribou shop planned for Westbury, GC-1F applied in June for a commercial building permit for a 1,439-square-foot shop, Glenn Norjen, deputy commissioner in the town's building department, wrote in an email. In January, the company applied for a conditional use permit, but no hearing has been scheduled yet, he said.

A Starbucks at that Westbury location closed in June 2024.

For the shop  in East Farmingdale, GC-2L submitted plans to the Town of Babylon in August for a proposed 1,800-square-foot coffee shop that would have a drive-thru and 30 indoor and six outdoor seats.

Caribou’s East Farmingdale shop is planned for a site occupied by two vacant buildings — at 1116 and 1118 Broadhollow Rd.

On March 11, the Babylon Town Board approved the applicant’s request to rezone one of the lots from residential use to business use.

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.

Caribou Coffee is the eighth-largest coffee chain in the U.S., based on sales, according to Technomic, a Chicago-based restaurant industry research firm.

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 487 U.S. locations are in Minnesota.

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.