Entrepreneurs Yaretsy (Yari) Flores, Kevin Rucker, and Donnell Culver are taking the saying “life begins after coffee” to heart. The trio founded and operate the community-oriented, coffee culture explosion that is the Casaroma Cafe in New Rochelle.
The mission of the shop is to honor “La Republica Dominicana” and Caribbean heritage, offering unique and rich flavor combinations reminiscent of the islands. The owners also are intentional about building a thriving community space for other Black and brown entrepreneurs to flourish in. They have cultivated pop-ups, networking events, holiday markets, open mics, and candle-making classes to highlight small-business owners, as well as draw in community members.
“This is the happiest and most rewarding thing that we’ve done, but also the most overwhelming, the most stressed,” said Flores with a laugh. “Full spectrum of emotions, but definitely [glad] that we took this leap. Excited to see it evolve and change through the years.”
Flores and Rucker have been together as life partners for the past 10 years. They were living in Astoria in Queens in 2020 when they decided to relocate during the pandemic.
Flores, 31, was the impetus behind opening the coffee business. She is originally from Rhode Island and grew up in the Dominican Republic, where coffee has been an essential part of the culture dating back to the 1700s. In her “Coffee with Yari” video series, she explored coffee shops and would often rate their coffee or come up with her own creations. Throughout college, Flores worked in several jobs in the hospitality and food industry. She holds a degree in public relations and marketing. At Casaroma, Flores puts her considerable skills toward being a manager and a barista.
A native Bronxite, Rucker, 33, has a background in business marketing and operations management. He created the “Wolf and Unicorn”’ podcast before opening the shop. He said he was always passionate about being an entrepreneur.
“In 2021, we had some really big, tragic events happen. We lost some people in our lives,” said Flores. “We were just considering that life was really short and what we really wanted to do. So we started having a conversation about coffee shops.”
The couple met Culver, the third stakeholder in the business, while at Baruch College. Culver, 33, studied media and photography in school and now runs his own production company called Spacedog.co. As the creative director, he puts a lot of his skillset into creating the look of the coffee shop.
They chose New Rochelle because it is an up-and-coming neighborhood in the north Bronx, although the downtown area where Casaroma is located is still being developed. “We saw the master plan here for growth,” said Rucker. “We saw the coffee options here and we were like, ‘We can put a good product out here’ and really help build a community and develop an identity for this new downtown area.”
Casaroma Cafe is at 391 Huguenot Street in New Rochelle.
Ariama C. Long is a Report for America corps member about writes about politics for the Amsterdam News. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep her writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting https://bit.ly/amnews1.
Thank you for the article on Casaroma Cafe in New Rochelle. New Rochelle is the 7th largest city in New York State and is a few miles north of the Bronx. It is not a neighborhood in the Bronx.