Ula Cafe, a beloved Jamaica Plain gathering spot located in the brewery complex on Amory Street, is under new ownership.
New owners Rik Kleinfeldt and Paula Anderson also own New Harvest Coffee Roasters of Pawtucket, R.I., and say Ula has served their coffee "from Day One" nine years ago. Ula customers should notice little difference during the transition, they say, but the cafe did forfeit the beer and wine license Ula held for the past year in order to focus on making enhancements to the coffee program.
Chris Helms
The patio outside Ula Cafe
Jamaica Plain News received the following joint email from the previous and new owners in response to a query about the cafe's status.
As of May 25, Ula Cafe transitioned from ownership by Korinn Koslofsky to ownership by Rik Kleinfeldt and Paula Anderson, who own New Harvest Coffee Roasters of Pawtucket, R.I.
Ula and New Harvest have a longstanding relationship -- New Harvest has supplied Ula’s coffee from Day One. Like Ula, New Harvest is a small business deeply rooted in its community.
As this process unfolded, all three of us had one goal in mind: to keep the core of what makes Ula special intact. That means maintaining Ula as a community resource in JP as a meeting place, a source of awesome food and drink, and an active participant in the neighborhood. It also means keeping the current staff of Ula and (we hope) the regular customers of Ula as well.
Ula customers should notice little difference in the course of the transition. Our food menu will remain the same, with the same focus on fresh, local ingredients and seasonal offerings. The beverage menu will remain largely the same though will change a bit over time.
One thing that changed immediately is that New Harvest has not retained the beer and wine license Ula had held for the past year. Rik and Paula made this decision because they would like to focus on making enhancements to the coffee program. New Harvest is a coffee company and we look forward to introducing new offerings to Ula and JP in general.
In particular, New Harvest has a longstanding direct relationship with a coffee grower in Cielito, Honduras, named Adolfo Reyes. We are excited about the prospect of brewing this direct trade coffee exclusively at Ula. We pay well above the Fair Trade price for Adolfo's coffee, which will create a truly sustainable and transparent supply chain between Ula customers and the coffee they drink.
This farm-to-cup approach mirrors Ula’s dedication to sustainable business practices and community involvement. New Harvest will continue to honor this and every other aspect of Ula that Korinn and her staff have worked so hard to build for the past nine years.
We look forward to many more years of being your neighborhood cafe, bakery and meetup spot.
Rik, Paula and Korinn