Babylon Bean is changing its address for the first time in a generation. The coffee house announced on its Instagram account this month that it is moving to 54 East Main Street in Babylon Village, a short distance from its longtime home at 17 Fire Island Avenue.

The announcement was short on logistics and long on news. There is no opening date yet, the shop wrote, but there will be a grill, which means the Bean's menu is headed somewhere it has never gone before. The current location remains open while the owners finish preparing the new space, a process the shop described as crossing its T's and dotting its I's before leaving Fire Island Avenue.

Three decades of coffee in the village

Babylon Bean dates to 1994, the year stamped on its logo, which makes this move a change of scenery for a business that has been pouring coffee in the village for more than three decades. The shop's menu centers on specialty coffees and gluten-free treats, served in what its own site describes as a warm, inviting space.

A move to East Main Street puts the Bean in the middle of the village's walkable downtown stretch, among the storefronts that fill up on weekend mornings and during village events. The grill is the practical headline for customers: a kitchen means hot food, and hot food means the Bean can feed people past the muffin-and-latte hour.

A busy season for village storefronts

The Bean is not the only new arrival on the village's business map. The Village of Babylon said on its own Facebook page that The Green Fork is opening at 101 Deer Park Avenue, part of a run of storefront announcements the village has been celebrating this fall.

For a downtown, a longtime business choosing to grow in place is its own kind of news. Babylon Bean could have aged quietly at its old counter. Instead it is taking on a bigger space, a bigger menu and a Main Street address, and it is doing it heading into the holiday season, when village foot traffic is at its peak.

What to know

Babylon Bean is open at 17 Fire Island Avenue in Babylon Village while the move is underway. The new location will be at 54 East Main Street. No opening date has been announced; the shop is posting updates to its Instagram account, @babylonbean, where the move announcement drew more than a thousand likes in its first week.

Sources