The Upper West Side has never had a shortage of coffee, but kosher coffee that goes deeper than a sealed cup and a prayer over the ingredients has been harder to come by. That changes now. Caffè Aronne, the kosher-certified coffee brand that became a community story on the Upper East Side, has opened its second brick-and-mortar location, and it landed in one of the most trafficked Jewish spaces in the city.
From One Neighborhood to Two
Caffè Aronne started in 2018 as a catering operation and mobile espresso bar before opening its flagship shop on the Upper East Side. That location built a following well beyond coffee people. After October 7, owner Aaron Dahan turned the cafe into an openly pro-Israel space, his staff walked out in protest, and the community showed up in force to keep the doors open. Dahan, a Ramaz graduate who lost his cousin at the Nova festival, took the community support and ran with it, securing full kosher certification in 2024 and turning the shop into a fixture.
The new location sits inside the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan, a building that already draws thousands of Jewish families through its doors every week for programming, fitness, and childcare. Dropping a serious specialty coffee operation into that kind of built-in foot traffic is a smart move, and it gives the West Side a kosher cafe that actually cares about the coffee.
What’s on the Menu
This is not a place that treats coffee as an afterthought. The menu leans into Levantine and Israeli flavors, with espresso drinks built around cardamom, date honey, lavender, and rose, plus rotating seasonal specials like a saffron matcha. The Cardamom Pistachio Latte, made with house pistachio milk, is the kind of drink you order once and then keep coming back for.
Beyond coffee, there are smoothies, teas, and a toast menu that punches above the usual cafe fare. The smoked salmon avocado toast on seeded sourdough is a full meal, and the fruit smoothies blended with Greek yogurt make an easy grab. Croissants and pastries are baked in-house each morning. The Upper East Side shop also runs a full wine and cocktail program, fitting for a brand whose motto is opening with a coffee and closing with a wine.
Built for the JCC Crowd
The West Side location is designed around speed as much as sitting. There is an expanded grab-and-go food menu and a dedicated service window on the West 76th Street side for quick pickups, which matters when you are running a kid to a class or catching a workout. A full menu of baked goods and sandwiches is rolling out in early August, so the food side of the operation will keep growing past the opening.
For West Siders who have watched the JCC cafe space cycle through tenants over the years, this is the strongest kosher option that corner has seen, and it arrives with a brand that already knows how to run a room.
Caffè Aronne Upper West Side is located inside the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan at 334 Amsterdam Avenue (at West 76th Street), New York, NY 10023. Hours are Sunday through Friday, 7am to 7pm, closing earlier on Friday ahead of Shabbat and closed all day Saturday. The cafe is dairy and pareve, pas yisroel but not cholov yisroel, under the certification of Vaad Kashrus Mehadrin (VKM). It is closed on Shabbat, Yom Tov, and the entirety of Pesach, and maintains a strict no outside food policy.
Looking for kosher restaurants near you? Download the KosherNearMe app at YeahThatsKosher.com/app.
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