Park Slope lost Ozzie's Coffee and Tea, a neighborhood java joint which was open for 18 years, this past August, but it will gain a new caffeinated cafe soon.
Melissa Rapoport, who owned Ozzie's Seventh Avenue location, is opening a new coffee shop across the street, between Berkley and Lincoln places. The construction is almost done, but she has yet to give her business a name. That's the neighborhood's job.
Rapoport, formerly Azulai, is asking neighbors, former Ozzie's dwellers, coffee lovers and Slopers to E-mail name suggestions at namemycoffeehouse@gmail.com.
In the last days of Ozzie's, although Rapoport was distraught over her loss, she was looking forward to starting anew.
"This is the universe telling me to start a new life," she said in August. "I am going to open a new coffee shop, I don't know exactly where, but it will be in Park Slope, I am not giving up."
Now, with her new venture almost ready, she is looking forward to making her cafe without a name, another neighborhood staple.
“Some patrons at Ozzie's were there for 18 years. I have watched children grow up, people met there for the first time and then got married," Rapoport said, thinking about her old shop. "I have seen the neighborhood grow into what it is today from that counter. It has been home for many people and I hope the new place becomes home to many in Park Slope.”
