Sarina Prabasi and Elias Gurmu’s love of coffee and community led them to co-found Buunni Coffee in their neighborhood. Photo courtesy of Buunni Coffee.
Sarina Prabasi first met Elias Gurmu, her business and life partner, through her nonprofit work in Ethiopia. A colleague introduced them, and since her office was in his hometown, Addis Ababa, they kept running into each other. The details of who invited who for coffee are fuzzy, but they both ordered Ethiopian macchiato.
“Coffee was a big part of us getting to know each other,” Prabasi said. “And eventually we got married; now we have two kids. It all started with a coffee.”
Their journey to ultimately co-found Buunni Coffee in Upper Manhattan all started with that macchiato.
Past and future coffee lives
Before living in Ethiopia, coffee was not Prabasi’s beverage of choice. She grew up in Nepal, with its strong tea-drinking culture, and coffee was limited to Nescafé with lots of milk and sugar. But when she moved to Ethiopia, Prabasi started drinking high-quality coffee. She could really taste the black coffee with nothing in it and appreciate it. It was also a big part of Ethiopian culture.
“I don’t think even once I heard anybody say, ‘I’m gonna grab a coffee,’ or ‘I need a coffee,’” Prabasi said. “It was very much, ‘shall we have coffee?’ ‘let’s have coffee.’ It’s a together thing. So I grew accustomed, and I really admired that culture.”
For Gurmu, coffee was his childhood. Some of his earliest memories were having coffee with neighbors, including the local matriarch he and other kids called “mama.”
Coffee became a link to each other in Ethiopia, and also when they moved to the United States. They settled in Washington Heights, an area whose community reminded them of their immigrant experience. And in 2012, their love of coffee and connection led them to co-found Buunni Coffee in their neighborhood.
Prabasi’s experience working in community development, and Gurmu’s background in entrepreneurship complemented each other. It also made Buunni Coffee what it was: “It is really about community building through coffee,” Prabasi said.
Sourcing the best of both worlds
It was tough to build a network in New York at first, especially as newbies in the industry. How New York cafes prepare coffee is different from how they do it in Addis Ababa, Prabasi says. Yet they also wanted to introduce customers to coffees with distinct flavor profiles.
“Coffee that’s been processed in different ways, roasted in different ways — it all affects how, in the end, it tastes in your cup, and it’s also very much an individual preference,” Prabasi said. “So at Buunni, we want people to enjoy their coffee, and the way I enjoy my coffee might be different than the way you enjoy your coffee. But the main thing is, we want you to enjoy it.”
Their shop’s coffees are mainly Ethiopian, which customers love because they tend to have fruity, floral, even spicy notes, Prabasi says. Buunni Coffee also offers some specialty coffees from Latin America, including the Dominican Republic, where many of their neighbors immigrated from and which tend to have a more chocolatey and nutty kind of taste, she says.
When Prabasi and Gurmu did what they do best — combining worlds — they found “the taste works well,” Prabasi said. So their house blend, served on drip at their now four cafes in Uptown New York, is a combination of Ethiopian and Latin American coffee. And they keep experimenting with new blends.
To source their coffee, Buunni’s owners relied on trusted relationships. They started with farmers cooperatives in Ethiopia, and branched out in part due to climate change threatening areas that grow coffee. But they still meet small farmers on regular trips to Ethiopia and other countries or at sampling events. Through these networks, supporting fair trade practices remains a core value for the business, Prabasi says.
Buunni Coffee’s house blend is a combination of Ethiopian and Latin American coffee. Credit: Shiloh Peruso
A changing neighborhood
Supporting and staying in their own community is just as vital to Buunni’s co-founders. Over the years, they have opened three other venues, all Uptown: three venues in Washington Heights and one in Inwood. Their next step is opening a coffee roastery in the South Bronx.
It’s important to them to serve their neighbors, especially in historically underinvested areas where, little more than a decade ago, many vendors refused to deliver pastries and specialty milks.
“There were people that would be like, ‘oh, we don’t deliver up there,”’ Prabasi said. “Or they would want to charge us more money to deliver up where we are.”
They have noticed the change in attitude with the changing demographics, both with neighbors and industry professionals. When they first started in the specialty coffee business, they rarely saw anyone at conferences who looked like them.
“In the beginning, we were honestly taken aback by just how there really weren’t that many people with backgrounds in coffee-growing countries that were representing that coffee in New York, or in specialty coffee,” Prabasi said.
Vendors don’t refuse to deliver supplies Uptown anymore. More coffee shops have opened up.
“It’s a double-edged sword — Washington Heights and Inwood were considered sort of the last affordable neighborhoods in Manhattan,” Prabasi said. “With that change, yes, there are people that are more willing to deliver up here, and there’s more options, which people want. But it is complicated.”
At Buunni, despite the costs of specialty coffee, they strive to keep something on the menu that’s affordable to most neighbors: drip coffee, starting at $2.50.
Buunni Coffee became a vital part of the co-founders’ family story of making a home for themselves. Credit: Shiloh Peruso
Business as community
Community is important at Buunni. During the Covid-19 pandemic, when their neighborhood was badly hit and their cafes were closed, they sought ways to support others — and to engage neighbors who couldn’t figure out something to do besides banging on pots and pans in honor of frontline workers. The Buunni team started making and delivering coffee to nearby hospitals and essential workers. People soon started to buy boxes of coffee for Buunni to deliver to workers.
“It kept the business going — but it also felt like it was something that was helpful in a time when it was really hard to figure out how to be helpful,” Prabasi said.
Sometimes it’s also tough to find balance between the business and their family life. Their kids, now aged 10 and 14, have only known a world where there was Buunni: “Sometimes they find it annoying that their mom and dad talk about Buunni all the time at home,” Prabasi said. “And other times, they’re super excited, [asking] ‘how old do I have to be before I can work the cash register?’ ”
Their countries of origin are important to both Prabasi and Gurmu, so they take trips to immerse their kids in Ethiopian and Nepali culture. But Buunni — its origins, its connection to their community, its place in their future — is just as central to them.
“When we were first moving to Washington Heights and opening Buunni, the business itself became such an important part of our family’s story of getting to know a new place and making a home for ourselves,” Prabasi said. “We are contributing to the community, but we’re also gaining so much and we’re also really thankful to have a place in a neighborhood like this.”
Order online at https://www.buunnicoffee.com/
Follow on Instagram at @buunnicoffee
Visit Buunni Coffee at one of these physical locations:
- GWB Bus Terminal
4211 Broadway, Suite 23C, New York, NY 10033
Mon-Fri: 7am – 4pm
Saturday: 8am – 4pm
Sunday: 9am – 3pm
- Pinehurst
213 Pinehurst Ave, New York, NY 10033
Mon-Thurs: 7am – 5pm
Friday: 7am – 6pm
Sat-Sun: 8am – 6pm
- Northend
4300 Broadway, New York, NY 10033
Mon-Thurs: 8am – 4pm
Fri-Sat: 8am – 5pm
Sunday: 9am – 4pm
- Inwood
4961 Broadway, New York, NY 10034
Mon-Sat: 8am – 5pm
Sunday: 9am – 5pm
Love good coffee. I will travel to Washington high to try it