Avid travelers Andrew Underwood and Annabel Figueroa are bringing their global coffee shop experiences to Bethlehem with the opening of Zen Cafe, inspired by cafes the couple has visited around the world.
“Annabel is from Chile, I’m from New Jersey. We’ve done a lot of traveling. We’ve been to a lot of different countries together. Everywhere we go, our first stop is always a cafe. We take notes on every cafe we go to—what we like, what we don’t like. This cafe is a combination of all our favorite things,” Underwood told Whatnow Philadelphia.
The cafe will open at 3 W. Morton St. in the former Saxby’s space. The husband-and-wife duo were initially approached about the space as a potential location for their other business, Donerds Donuts, but the idea for Zen Cafe had been brewing for more than a year.
Underwood describes the interior as a “very clean, relaxing space.” The cafe will feature Japandi style, blending Japanese and Northern European aesthetics.
“It’ll have different variations of green and a lot of imagery that will promote the relaxation vibe. We’re going to have plants inside. We’ll have little bonsai trees,” he said.
The cafe will serve what Underwood describes as the “freshest” cup of coffee in the Lehigh Valley, using beans from Devoción, a Brooklyn-based coffee roaster.
“All the coffee comes from Colombia. It’s farm to cup in as little as 10 days, which is unheard of in the coffee world. A lot of times, coffee is at least 180 days out from the farm,” he said.
It will also feature high-grade matcha sourced directly from Japan through a partnership with ARTEAO, with offerings including ube, salted caramel, black sesame, tiramisu and berry matcha.
To pair with its drinks, Zen Cafe will serve croissant sandwiches, Irish soda bread scones and blueberry lemon scones, along with sourdough cookies and Japanese milk bread from Saray Bakery. The Japanese milk bread is softer and sweeter than traditional bread.
“We’re going to use that Japanese milk bread to make Japanese sandos, which are trendy Japanese sandwiches. The most popular is the Tamago Sando—a Japanese egg salad sandwich,” Underwood said.
Underwood looks forward to bringing his and his wife’s dream cafe to life.
“My wife and I have imagined the perfect cafe, so creating a space that we’d like to hang out in and drink the best possible coffee is exciting,” he said.
The team plans to debut Zen Cafe this fall, though an exact opening date has not yet been determined. Follow along on Instagram for the latest updates.
