Jacob Alejandro reopens Troy cafe with coffee, cocktails and more room

At Jacob Alejandro’s new Troy cafe, the morning espresso rush now has room to spill into cocktails, natural wine and a longer daypart. The flagship shop reopened at 9 First St. in May after about five years on River Street, and the 1,900-square-foot space, two blocks east of the original, nearly triples customer capacity.

The layout makes the strategy obvious. A two-sided bar shaped like an equals sign splits the room between an under-counter Mavam espresso system and a custom cocktail station from Oslo-based Behind Bars. The owners are not treating the drink menu as an add-on. They said the new space will let them expand specialty coffee, introduce JAJA’s Natural Wine Bar and build a full mixology program while keeping the cafe at the center of the operation.

That balancing act extends to food. The new Troy location adds a basement prep kitchen and a larger ground-floor kitchen, giving the team room to bake more pastries and roll out a low-key breakfast and lunch menu. Sandwiches and other new items are expected to arrive in summer 2026, a sign that the cafe is trying to build a full-service rhythm without losing the pace and feel of a specialty coffee bar.

The coffee program still reads as a serious shop first. Jacob Alejandro continues to run a multiroaster lineup that includes Passenger Coffee from Pennsylvania, Nomad Coffee from Barcelona and Dak Coffee Roasters from the Netherlands. The bar hardware reflects the same international pull: the Behind Bars station was imported after the owners saw similar setups in France and Romania.

Alejandro Griffin-Diaz’s own background helps explain the direction. Born and raised in Guatemala City, he worked as a head coffee trainer there from 2008 to 2012, overseeing training and cafe quality control for 27 cafes. That hospitality and training pedigree now runs alongside his competition profile. In May, he and Sharon Ip tied on score and were named 2026 Coffee Masters champions at the London Coffee Festival, where the winner’s prize was £2,000.

The Troy relocation is part of a larger buildout for the business, which already operates JA. Pequeno at 466 Madison Ave. in Albany and has a JAJA wine-bar location in development there. But the flagship move is the clearest test case. Jacob Alejandro has turned a River Street coffee shop into a bigger, more flexible room, and if the mix of coffee, food and cocktails works, other specialty cafes may take the same route.