Hungry Ghost Coffee

Hungry Ghost Coffee was born in Brooklyn in 2012. Its owner, Murat Uyaroglu, comes from Istanbul, where coffee and conversation are part of daily life and coffeehouses are the heart of every community. He and his wife moved to Brooklyn in the early 2000s, and after taking over a small café in Prospect Heights he opened the first Hungry Ghost there, with the aim of bringing the best roasts and perfectly pulled espresso together with the coffeehouse culture he grew up in.

There are now twelve Hungry Ghost cafés: ten in Brooklyn, in Williamsburg, East Williamsburg, Park Slope, Prospect Heights, Carroll Gardens, Clinton Hill and Fort Greene, and two in Manhattan, in TriBeCa and the West Village. Each has its own look, from the leather armchairs and living wall in East Williamsburg to the brick walls and long benches in Prospect Heights.

Before the first shop opened, the team went looking for the best roasts available and settled on Stumptown Coffee, the Portland roaster with a roastery in Red Hook. Every café serves Stumptown, roasted in Red Hook in an exclusive partnership, and the baristas have worked on its Hair Bender blend for more than ten years. The motto is “always chasing the perfect shot”. The menu runs from drip coffee and double-ristretto espresso to cold brew and nitro on tap, kombucha, matcha and organic teas from Serendipitea. Food comes from Brooklyn bakeries, with pastries from Ovenly, Colson Patisserie and Lea Bakery and breakfast tacos from King David Tacos.

The Hungry Ghost family also includes the cocktail bar Sweet Polly, Bar Francis and Teo’s Ice Cream in Park Slope.

Photograph: Hungry Ghost Coffee