North Fork Roasting Co. to Open Doors Valentine's Day in Southold

North Fork Roasting Co.—a new venture by Jennilee Morris and Jessica Dunne—will welcome its first customers this Saturday, February 14, in Southold.

The café will serve its own brand of small-batch coffee as well as speciality teas from SerendipiTea in Manhasset and pastries baked on-site. Morris and Dunne will also supply their roasts to other businesses.

They get their beans from Royal Coffee, a coffee broker based in New Jersey. “We go in for a cupping at least once a month and see what coffees they’ve brought in and try different blends out,” Morris says.

Morris has been roasting coffee since 2007. She started with Love Lane Coffee, an offshoot of Love Lane Kitchen in Mattituck, where she has worked as general manager. Later she and a partner started Long Island Coffee Roasters. They split in 2013.

When an opportunity presented itself that she “couldn’t pass up,” Morris bought Country Corner Café in Southold in 2010, and renamed the space Bonnie Jeans. She then sold it back to the original owners in 2013.

Morris says it was her intention to showcase coffee at the restaurant, but it was too big of an operation to do both.

Coffee is really her passion, she says, and the same goes for Dunne, who was the Bonnie Jeans pastry chef.

The North Fork Roasting Co., next door to Country Corner Café, is in an old house, which most recently served as a doctor’s office but has been vacant for about 10 years.

They have been hard at work to transform the space into a cozy café with rustic furniture and a wood-burning fireplace.

The roaster is currently located at Morris’s garage in East Yaphank, and will be moved to the Southold café this spring, when the building is ready for it.

“We’re just prepping the space,” Morris explains. “It’s an 800-pound machine, so we have to plan it out.”

The roaster has the capacity to produce just 21 pounds an hour.

“It’s good that it’s small, because we have a lot of control over our roasts,” Morris says. It also allows them to experiment with many different coffees and flavor profiles.

North Fork Roasting Co. will be open seven days a week. Morris plans to open every day at 7 a.m. and stay open until 4 p.m. She says they may extend their hours into the evening, because she is hearing from many North Forkers that they would like an option for going out at night other than a bar. To that end, Morris would like to schedule open mic nights.

Saturday’s opening will include live music by Jon Divello from 2 to 5 p.m.

North Fork Roasting Co., 55795 Main Road, Southold. 631-876-5450. noforoastingco.com