The new Smiley Coffee shop in New York. All images courtesy of Smiley Coffee.
A group affiliated with the iconic yellow 1970s-era smiley face icon has established a coffee brand called Smiley Coffee while opening a cafe on New York City’s Lower East Side.
In keeping with the icon’s vintage appeal, the Smiley Coffee bar aims for a refined European streetside cafe feel.
The shop, which opened late this summer on the ground floor of a red-brick building, is warmed by red sapele wood, vintage brass fixtures and soft, residential-style lighting. Pops of Smiley yellow and logo-driven apparel and merchandise fill shelves and racks.
The 550-square-foot hybrid shop feels as much like a boutique or literary lounge as it does a hotspot for fresh specialty coffee and laminated pastries.
“Our goal was never to design a conventional cafe. We wanted the space to feel lived-in and remembered, closer to a European cafe or an editorial archive rather than a retail environment,” Smiley Coffee Co-Founder Joelle Gringarten told Daily Coffee News. “The space is emotionally paced rather than visually loud. It’s designed to support connection, whether someone stops in briefly or chooses to linger.”
The icon may draw people in, but the coffee program is meant to stand on its own. A third-party roasting partner produces two core Smiley blends: an espresso blend with chocolate-and-fruit notes, and a brighter alternative built around gentler acidity and natural sweetness. Drinks flow from a 2-group La Marzocco Linea PB AV paired with a La Marzocco Swan grinder, while filter coffee is ground on a Mahlkönig EK43.
“Together, these coffees reflect how we think about New York: dynamic but grounded, diverse but cohesive,” Gringarten said. “They’re familiar without being boring, refined without being intimidating.”
Coffee and branding are dual passions of Gringarten’s. A former director of brand and partnerships for Los Angeles-based tea company Art of Tea, Gringarten also cites lessons from her father, Hagai Gringarten, a marketing professor at a Florida university who founded and ran the South Beach Coffee Company in Miami for eight years beginning in 1996. The elder Gringarten has also written about the intersection of coffee, marketing and branding.
Joelle Gringarten said her father’s pursuits helped shape her professionally. “Even as my studies and career took me in other directions, coffee remained my point of gravity,” she said.
As for the Smiley brand, the Smiley mark was trademarked in France in 1971 by The Smiley Company and Smiley Coffee Co-Founder Franklin Loufrani, who is now in his 80s. Ieva Juskaite is another partner in the coffee venture. The original Smiley illustration is widely attributed to Massachusetts-based artist Harvey Ball in 1963.
The icon became famous in part through regular appearances in the French newspaper France-Soir as a marker for positive news during a period shaped by economic anxiety and social and political upheaval. From there, the Smiley grew into an internationally recognized symbol.
“The Smiley has always stood for something deeper than optimism as a graphic,” Gringarten said. “Coffee felt like a natural extension of that intention. It’s universal, ageless and embedded in daily rituals across cultures.”
Heading into the new year, Gringarten said the coffee program will grow only if it is “driven by narrative, seasonality and fit rather than scale alone.” A similar strategy will apply to store growth.
“What comes next is depth rather than speed,” said Gringarten. “The Smiley has endured for more than 50 years because it’s emotionally grounded, not trend-driven. Coffee, when done well, works the same way.”
Smiley Coffee is located at 138 Ludlow St. in New York.
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Howard Bryman
Howard Bryman is the associate editor of Daily Coffee News by Roast Magazine. He is based in Portland, Oregon.
