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April 8, 2022 • Schneps Media
BY EMILY DAVENPORT
A Chelsea shop is on a mission to provide
delicious treats and coffee all
under one roof.
Seven Grams Caffé was created seven
years ago by Sharon Kazes, who was involved
in the coffee industry in the United
Kingdom and other places overseas. Upon
coming to the United States, what surprised
Kazes the most was that he saw a
lot of places that had really good coffee and
not great pastries, or vice versa.
“I was shocked to see highest level coffee
and bakeries, but not both in the same
place. There would be really great coffee
with outsourced baked goods, or the other
way around. There wasn’t a place that does
both,” said Kazes.
Kazes opened the first Seven
Grams Caffé in Chelsea at 275 7th
Avenue, and has since opened two
more stores; one in SoHo, at 175
Varick St., and another in Flatiron
at 76 Madison Avenue.
Kazes wanted to
zero in on not
only roasting the
best possible
FOOD, DRINK & NIGHTLIFE
coffee beans while also creating delicious
baked goods that were made in-house.
Seven Grams Caffé quickly cultivated a
massive customer base and an array of positive
reviews in Forbes, Food 52, The New
York Times and more. Though the stores
have delicious options such as scones and
banana bread, what really caught the public’s
eye was Seven Grams Caffé’s massive
cookies, particularly the vegan chocolate
chip cookie.
“Being in the US, you have such a classic
in the chocolate chip cookie. Why not innovate
such a classic and make something
plant-based that tastes as good as the original?”
said Kazes. “There’s a lot of vegan
baked goods that have sort of an after taste,
or are compromising on flavor or texture
— we were on a quest
Some of the sweet treats at Chelsea’s Seven Grams Caffé.
to not compromise on anything.”
Perfecting the vegan chocolate chip
cookie recipe was a year-long process of experimentation.
Ultimately, the final product
resulted in a cookie that uses oil and tahini
instead of butter and eggs, as well as vegan
chocolate sourced from California.
The cookie’s popularity exploded, gaining
attention from a number of publications
and customers alike. As a result,
Seven Grams Caffé began to add
vegan and gluten free items to their
baked good offerings.
Like many local businesses,
Seven Grams Caffé had to pivot
its business practices as a result
of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In an effort to keep employees
and customers safe, all
three Seven Grams Caffé
locations closed down for
three months.
“This was such a roller
coaster, no one knew what
to expect,” said Kazes.
“There wasn’t anything you
could look to to see how you
operate. That week, Monday was
fine, Tuesday/Wednesday we saw
that this was escalating. By Saturday,
we closed all three shops.”
Seven Grams Caffé was fortunate
enough to reopen in 2020 with all of the
COVID-19 safety measures in place, but
foot traffic was low as more people stayed
home. Kazes want to still be able to reach
customers during this time of uncertainty
and started up an online store for customers
to be able to purchase Seven Grams
Caffé products from home.
The online store features everything you
can get at one of the Seven Grams Caffé
brick-and-mortar stores, including their
signature coffee beans and all of their
PHOTOS COURTESY OF SEVEN GRAMS CAFFÉ
housemade baked goods.
“We thought about nationwide shipping
but never made it a priority,” said Kazes.
“We then had some downtime and time to
reinvent, that’s when we started the web
store and shipping nationwide.”
The online store blew up, picking up
sales from across the country. Kazes and
the team believe that wanting good quality
comfort food was part of the draw of the
store, particularly with their cookie sales.
“I think the cookies were really a huge
draw, they got so many incredible reviews
from tough critics. People were looking for
comfort food and wanted to enjoy something
that was comforting at home,” said Kazes.
“People started working from home but were
not gonna compromise on quality. I don’t
think people were putting emphasis on coffee
because it was readily available at home.”
Now that New York City has been opening
back up, Kazes is excited to interact
with customers again face to face.
“Our bread and butter has been the
stores and the interaction with customers,”
said Kazes. “We’re proud of being a New
York City small business. There have been
really big coffee players who were bought
out, we’re proud of being that survived pandemic.
I’m excited every day when we get to
operate them.”
That being said, Seven Grams Caffé will
continue to grow its online sales in an effort
to reach more and more people across the
country.
“The online business is so heartwarming
to me, to see people all over the country
interacting, sending our products as gifts,
it’s a blessing to be able to do,” said Kazes.
“We’re conscious of fact we were lucky
enough to reopen and fortunate to have an
online business.”
For more information, visit sevengramscaffe.
com.
Sweet treats
Chelsea’s Seven Grams Caffé gains
more popularity with vegan cookies