Porto Rico Importing Co. is filled with the smell of freshly roasted coffee, the hum of conversation and the weight of history.
Owner Peter Longo pointed to the floor. "All of this tile was here when we were a bakery," he said.
Ask Longo a question about coffee, and be prepared for an education. He wants to know what you're drinking, how you brew it and what kind of filter you use.
Longo is the third-generation owner of the family business and a keeper of its stories.
The story begins around 1900, when his grandparents, Frank and Maria Longo, came to America from Sicily.
"Grandpa Frank's brother Matthew was a baker," Longo said. "You wake up at 3, you do the baking, you open at 8 in the morning, so you have to deliver the bread. I mean, it was hard."
By the 1960s, Longo's father decided to try something different.
"My father became a coffee salesman. He wanted to strike out on his own," Longo said. "He found out from Patsy, who owned Porto Rico Importing Co. at 195 Bleecker St., that he was selling."
In 1964, the Longo family took over the business.
Even now, Longo isn't entirely sure where the name came from.
"I used to think he named it that because it was a rich port of coffee, tea and products," he said. "In the '30s, they changed it to Puerto, the Spanish spelling. So there's a little controversy as to why."
Whatever its origins, the name endured.
"I was going to incorporate the business as Longo Coffee, the family name," he said. "But then I was sitting outside and customers would walk in and say, 'Hey, there's Porto Rico.' So I said, 'Let me leave it.'"
Today, Porto Rico carries coffee from 26 countries.
"People would come into the store and say, 'I've been somewhere. Can you get that coffee?'" Longo said. "That's how we expanded to almost 30 different kinds of single-origin coffee."
The shop has built a loyal following over the decades.
"A customer comes in and buys the same thing every week," Longo said. "And then, if it's long enough, we make a sack of it."
Some customers stay long enough to earn their own custom blend.
In the back of the shop, where the roasting happens, Longo's son Matthew carries on the tradition.
"All the sugars are basically neutral, and then, as you cook it, those sugars turn and caramelize," Matthew Longo said.
The store also stocks specialty coffees processed in ways Peter Longo's grandfather could never have imagined.
Growing up in the business, Matthew Longo was a regular fixture behind the counter.
"I've been in and out of the store since I was a little child," he said.
The shop even played a role in his personal life.
"I met my wife here at the store," he said. "The Village is a really interesting place. Working behind the counter is a lot of fun because you meet a lot of different people and get a lot of different world experiences. It's fun. It's New York."
For Peter Longo, the store represents more than coffee.
"I see students just so happy to be here because they can be themselves here," he said. "That's been a tradition in the Village, and it still is today."
Asked what he wishes people knew about the shop, Longo's answer is simple.
"I do have a certain amount of pride," he said. "It's a comfortable place, and it's been here so long. It's established."
Somewhere in the rhythm of the espresso machine, the opening and closing of the door and the conversations over custom blends, Longo has found what his grandfather understood all those years ago:
A good cup of coffee and a place that feels like home is where he belongs.
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