The Rye iteration will be more than a coffee shop — there is also a bar, which will become operational once Winfield obtains its liquor license. 

After seven years of negotiations with the MTA, pandemic-related pushbacks, and bureaucratic hurdles, Winfield Street Coffee finally opened its doors Friday at the Rye Metro-North station house. 

The coffee shop had its soft opening, launching limited hours (6 a.m.-2 p.m. Monday through Saturday) and serving coffee, breakfast, lunch, and pastries. 

“We’re just really excited to be opening in such a dynamic and historic town,” owner Breno Donatti told The Record. 

What used to be a vacant space occupied by a single mop and chairs sprawled across the ground —all hiding behind cardboard-shuttered windows — is now a vibrant neighborhood hub, fragrant with coffee aroma and ornate with wooden counters, stacks of books, and plants of all shapes and sizes. 

“Have you checked out the new @winfieldstreetcoffee at Rye train station?” one Instagram user posted on her story set to Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso.”

On Monday morning, soft music played through the speakers, blending with one customer click-clacking away at his laptop and the whirring of the espresso machine operated by Donatti himself. 

One table top had an Amtrak logo on it; another table surface read “TREAT YO’SELF.” 

Books with titles ranging from “The Making of Modern Britain,” to “Big Book of Knitting” and “Tennis Confidential” were scattered throughout the storefront, though it was perhaps too late in the morning for a commuter to appreciate — it was time to get to the city. 

On the New York-bound platform, commuters held cups with various logos of the array of coffee shops around town.

Clutching a cup of iced black coffee from Winfield was Bryce Farr — a Rye resident and college student interning in the Big Apple for the summer — as he waited for the 7:54 a.m. train to Grand Central. 

“I had no idea,” Farr said about the new coffee shop. “I used to go to Starbucks.” 

“Partners,” Donatti wrote in an email announcing the Rye location offerings to the Winfield board and executive team. “Rye isn’t just another store–it’s the next chapter of Winfield Street Coffee.”

Winfield also has locations in Florida, Stamford, Conn., Croton-on-Hudson, and in New York City’s 72nd Street and 86th Street subway stations on the Q line.

But the Rye iteration will be much more than a coffee shop — next to the coffee counter, there is also a bar, which will become operational once Winfield obtains its liquor license from the state. 

“Looking at our new Rye bar menu alongside our trusty regular menu, I can’t help but grin,” Donatti confided. 

The bar menu includes beer ($7), wine ($10), and cocktails ($12) that span across the spectrum of classic-to-quirky, with, arguably, an espresso martini on one end and the “Breakfast Sour” — a drink composed of fat washed bourbon, fresh lemon juice, and bacon syrup — on the other end. 

Once Donatti gets a liquor license, Winfield will expand to its full hours of 6 a.m.-9 p.m. on weekdays and 8 a.m.-9 p.m. on weekends.

The much-anticipated and long-awaited opening of Winfield is the first time the entire Rye station house — outside of a waiting room and restrooms — will be used for commercial purposes, according to an MTA spokesperson. 

“Here’s to pouring out a decade of dedication,” Donatti wrote in the email to his team. “Let’s make Rye our toast to the future.”