Popular Matcha Cafe Is Coming To The West Village

WEST VILLAGE, NY — A popular matcha cafe chain plans to open a new West Village outpost and is raising $75,000 to get the ball rolling and the tea brewing, according to a new Kickstarter campaign.

Matchaful, a New York City-based cafe serving up hand-whisked matcha drinks and treats, has signed the lease on its third downtown location on Christopher and Bleecker streets, and construction already underway.

"The West Village offers an idyllic reprieve from the bustle of Manhattan that we feel aligns seamlessly with our “zen in the city” café approach," reads the cafe's Kickstarter description.

"Based on the number of requests we’ve received for a West Village location, we think you might feel that way too."

Founder and co-owner Hannah Habes says that the Kickstarter pre-sale campaign is aiming to raise $75,000 as a way to help the new location simultaneously build community and recoup construction costs that would otherwise take years to pay.

"From the buildout costs to the equipment, we typically spend about $200,000 just to open the doors," Habes says in a video for the campaign. "It takes us about one and a half years to pay back the upfront costs that go into opening a cafe."

Rewards for contributions include matcha drinks or soft-serves and exclusive private matcha brunches and cocktail hours.

Real matcha fans can give $210 for a free matcha every day for a month — or $2,500 for a year of daily matchas.

Habes first started serving matcha eight years ago at various pop-ups and events around the city after falling in love with the green tea drink — and with her now husband who introduced her to it.

She says at the time, it was difficult to find high-quality Japanese matcha in the U.S., and that's when she decided to go all-in on a business to source the powder directly from family farms overseas.

According to their website, Matchaful directly sources "with a sustainably-operated, fourth-generation Japanese tea farm in Shizuoka Prefecture."

In 2019, Habes opened their first location on the corner of Canal and Wooster Streets.

Since then, the cafe has opened two other locations in Nolita and Hudson Yards offering an expanded menu of matcha and plant-based foods, like matcha soft serve, matcha donuts, brownies, miso soup and overnight oats.

To learn more, click here.