Windham Local: Brooklyn's 61 Local Heads Upstate
Windham Local, the brand new Catskill Mountain sister shop of Brooklyn's beloved 61 Local, brings a much-needed coffee house and bar to the main drag of Downtown Windham. The cafe celebrates its surroundings with locally sourced ingredients (like fresh eggs from East Durham Farms) and welcomes locals, ski bums, and upstate weekenders with soft pretzels, tasty donuts, great coffee, and crazy-delicious breakfast sandwiches.
The stately space, once a bank and then home to Daly's Coffee Bar, will look familiar to fans of 61 Local. With exposed brick, artistic woodwork, and lots of natural light, the rustic space has a similar feel. 61 Local regulars will recognize the carboy lamps hanging over the bar and the embroidered sconces on the walls, but instead of 61's picnic benches, the Windham outpost offers added comfort in the form of pleasingly mismatched chairs.
On a recent Sunday, we watched a steady stream of customers roll in for coffee, donuts, and surprisingly good bagels for a Catskill mountain town.
Small details, like the ski scenes on Iviva Olenick's embroidered sconces, give the place lots of personality.
The breakfast sandwich -- just a simple bacon, egg and cheese, with a little frizzled kale, served on a chewy bagel with a bowl of harissa mayo for dipping -- is so much greater than the sum of its parts. The hot, soft pretzels get a crunch from flaky sea salt and a bite from just-spicy-enough mustard.
The bright, lemony donuts have a naturally magenta hue, thanks to their rose-hibiscus glaze.
The menu is reasonably priced and much cheaper than Brooklyn, which can be said of pretty much everything here in Greene Country.
Plus, there's free Wifi! This is a huge bonus for those of us who can only dream of an internet connection up here in the mountains. After spending a week off-the-grid, I was very happy to catch up with my email, and my business partners were thrilled to regain access to Princess Sofia on Netflix and the Wild Kratts website.
