This feature story will appear in an upcoming “Downtowns and Shopping” edition of Do the Shore magazine, a Herald publication.
STONE HARBOR – Coffee Talk has stood the test of time on Third Avenue, in a section of the borough that owner Madlynn Zurawski said was a “ghost town” when she first opened the café in 1994.
“A lot of people thought I wasn’t going to make it because of the location,” she said. “Back then, people didn’t venture this way.” But through what Zurawski calls “pure determination,” Coffee Talk weathered the initial storm to become one of the best-trafficked coffee spots on Seven Mile Island.
“There are lines out of the door here in the summer,” she said during an interview she squeezed in during a slower moment at the café.
Stone Harbor has changed a lot since Coffee Talk opened three decades ago. Zurawski credited the opening of The Reeds, a luxury hotel, spa and restaurant, on the corner of Third Avenue and 96th Street, with giving a huge boost to the businesses just off the main road into town.
Coffee Talk has expanded four different times since it opened and has taken many forms throughout the years. Today, it is a sprawling café space that feels like an old bookstore or library. Warm wooden dividing walls make the spacious interior feel cozy.
The café was once a hot spot for morning laptop workers to bang out an article or check their emails. That aspect of the business made the café so crowded that Zurawski had to make the dramatic decision to cut off Wi-Fi access to customers. “It was getting so busy and overwhelming with all of the people sitting around, there was almost nowhere to walk,” she said.
The café was open till late at night, 11 p.m., through the early 2000s and would host well-attended singer-songwriter performances. Taylor Swift famously played there during this era of Coffee Talk. “I must have been interviewed at least six times about that by different press outlets,” Zurawski said with a laugh.
But the core of the business – coffee and morning food – is better than ever, she said. The store sells more than 20 breakfast sandwiches that Zurawski and her staff have tweaked over time. Their drip coffee is roasted locally, in Vineland. And managing long lines of caffeine-hungry customers has gotten easier as Zurawski has learned to deal with the punches that life has thrown her way.
The café had no way to serve customers outside of the building when Covid hit. In a scramble, her staff realized that two large windows facing a parking lot could make great takeout counters with just a few adjustments. Zurawski and her staff redesigned the entire kitchen, ordering system and workflow to accommodate the large crowds that came during the pandemic.
“We even had a guitar player outside while people waited for their coffee,” she said. The stress of Covid forced her team to adapt, and now they run the business with greater efficiency.
Hurricane Sandy also threw a wrench into the café’s gears. A foot of water spilled into the building; they had to throw away much of their stock.
But life’s many curveballs have helped Zurawski, and her business, thrive. She started the business when her personal life felt like it was falling apart.
“I had no experience running a business, but I did have experience as an accountant,” she said. “I was visiting Colorado and saw a cute coffee shop, and knew I had to do that. I went from that first spark of an idea to opening in six months. I needed a new trajectory for my life.”
Coffee Talk gave Zurawski new purpose. “When I opened, I could never dream of making it this long,” she said with a smile, customers filing in behind her.
Visit Coffee Talk year-round at 299 97th St., at the corner of Third Avenue, Stone Harbor.
Contact the author, Collin Hall, at chall@cmcherald.com or give them a call at 609-886-8600 ext. 156
