Amid many reports about the suffering economy, several businesses seem to be doing fine, and at least two of them are both located in the new Village Center of Plainsboro — It’s a Grind Coffeehouse and Sugar and Sunshine Bakery, both run by West Windsor and Plainsboro residents.
With the new Plainsboro Library nearing completion and the hospital project underway, business owners all around the village are even more excited for the prospects of transforming the center into a bustling hub of activity.
In fact, It’s a Grind is doing so well, the franchise’s owners, Dave DiOrio, a 15-year West Windsor resident, and his brother-in-law John Nuzzo, who moved to West Windsor four years ago to open the business, have been looking at expansion.
Before they opened the business two years ago, what they knew was that they wanted to go into business together and that they wanted to be a part of the Plainsboro Village Center. After researching franchises, they came across California-based It’s a Grind. They both agreed it was the best coffee they had tasted, and went with it from there.
Complete with leather armchairs, the coffee shop has become a spot where friends can catch up comfortably or where students or office workers can sit together at a table and work on a project.
The two owners say the Plainsboro Village Center makes for a great location. “Add the library and the medical center, and this really becomes a downtown,” says DiOrio. “People are excited about having a place of their own.”
But it is also the coffee, good customer service, and atmosphere, they say, that has generated a healthy flow of traffic into their shop. The store offers WiFi connection, and can be used for group business meetings. In the summer the live entertainment, including poetry readings and musical performances, attract upwards of 70 people both inside the shop and outside, lining the sidewalk and Market Street. “It’s the ‘Cheers’ of Plainsboro,” says Nuzzo.
DiOrio and Nuzzo both grew up in Brooklyn. DiOrio’s father was a steam fitter and his mother worked part-time in the administrative office at a Catholic school. DiOrio worked for Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch, which drew him to West Windsor in 1994. His job required him to work in the new business and product development and new sales and marketing sectors.
In order to go into business with his brother-in-law, Nuzzo moved to West Windsor three-and-a-half years ago. His mother was a homemaker, and his father worked for the New York City Department of Sanitation. He earned his degree in accounting and business from St. Francis College in Brooklyn. For 31 years he worked for an electrical construction company. Then he and his wife, Deborah, who serves on the board of directors for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation in East Brunswick, were involved in fundraising for the JDRF while in Connecticut.
Both men run the coffeehouse with help from their wives, as well as DiOrio’s three children, two of whom are students at High School North. Alexandra, 19, who attends Arcadia University, was a junior when the shop first opened. Now her brothers, Andrew, 17, a junior at North, and Nick, 15, a sophomore, are among the 15 students from North and South employed as baristas. Cathy and Deborah, their wives, help organize the store’s entertainment events. “We’re looking for this to be a diverse, cultural entertainment place where young people and artists can hang pictures and read poetry,” DiOrio said.
With the slew of services already offered, Nuzzo and DiOrio are now looking to expand their business into some space in the unit next door, where they hope to build a kitchen to be able to serve lunch.
It would also come in handy for the new venture the two business owners have also taken on — catering. The men have launched a menu available to groups, parties, or businesses who need their breakfasts’ catered. With options including brew boxes and speciality airpots of various sizes and trays of bagels and pastries already, the men say that an expansion would prompt a revision of their catering menu to include lunch options.
And to be sensitive to the economy, the shop will be rolling out a new promotion in which the afternoon through evening, patrons will be able to buy one cup of coffee and one dessert item for $4.
This isn’t the first economic storm the owners of It’s a Grind have experienced. When corporate America changed dramatically from what it was in the 1990s, DiOrio says he “wanted to do something here in my own neighborhood. Now I’m around for everything.”
It’s a Grind Coffee House, 7 Schalks Crossing Road, 609-275-2919. Home page: www.itsagrind.com.
