Porto Rico Importing

I’m going to miss you porto rico. You were here for 45 years and I’ve lived upstairs from you for 13 years.
You went out like a flash in the night, and will be sorely missed. A very sad day for Thompson Street.

This place is seriously yuck. I went there today and ordered two coffees. What I got were two seriously stale and sour cups of brown water that made my stomach churn. I threw out my coffee after drinking a quarter of it. The place is dirty and the hipster customer service sucks. Someone should tell the coffee guys there to smile and be nice because it’s part of their job. I used to come here a couple times before, but the place has gone totally down hill. I’d skip this joint and opt for a latte at Ground Support down the street. (Don’t get the coffee there either.) At least they’re nice there and the place is inviting.

Great cheap coffee. I think its the best value for money coffee in the city. Its very high quality. I’ve never bought a bag of beans but just go for the drip. The only thing I’m not a big fan of is the milk left out on the counter and not in a thermos or in ice.

This chain of a few NYC and Brooklyn stores had the absolute best variety and quality of coffee beans I’ve ever had. There is a variety for everyone here. You want Costa Rican beans? How about that or maybe some French Costa Rican beans? My fav are Ethiopean and Guatemalan. Mmm!!!

A+ for bargain prices and excellent coffee. I love this basement looking coffee shop. The coffee never disappoints and the lattes are super smooth.

This funny, quirky little outpost of Porto Rico is a major reason why I am so smitten with Thompson Street and why I still believe in old New York. This place is the real thing — quality beans, freshly roasted (you can’t really go wrong with trying something new with their weekly sales), fun staff, and a genuine neighborhood vibe that cannot be replicated.
Bonus: if you bring in your own mug, you can get your morning joe for just a dollar.

When I lived in the city, I used to go over to Bleecker St. location of Porto Rico. Didn’t even know this little shop was here! It is tiny! But it is cozy and closer! YES. The label says that Porto Rico has been around since 1900 or something. It’s a great small shop to come buy a bag of coffee beans or just a cup to go. I’m guessing the Bleecker St location has more room so they would have more varieties on hand???
There’s a really cool table in the back with a few books. Actually, there’s only one table in the place… You just order your stuff and take it away, usually. If you’re lucky and that table is not taken, sit there.
Sit and enjoy your coffee, relax, take a deep breath. It is so cozy back there, especially in sub-​zero winter weather. It’s kind of like the dinner table on a ship, below deck.
The coffee is the cheapest deal you can find for a pound, and they’ve got lots of different varieties. The staff seemed to know what they were talking about and were serious about coffee.
If you want to get away from the hustle and bustle of Broadway and SoHo shoppers, come by here. I hope you get that table.

Shocked that this place only has two reviews. This was an old standby for me back in the day when I lived in the area and a consistent pop-​in when I visit NYC. They make a great cup of joe and some pretty lovely cappuccinos.
There are a bunch of benches down the street to kick back and watch the NYC scene pass-​by on a nice day.

Bliss in the foam of steamed milk and caffeine! I haven’t found a good coffee spot near my office in Midtown West. One morning before work I was in the SoHo area so I decided to stop in for coffee. Sigh. Bliss. Makes me want to take the R train to prince street, get coffee, and then take the R uptown again to go to work.
Now if I’m shopping in SoHo I def always stop in for a nice little caffeine pick me up. YUM!

Wandering in SoHo with plunging blood sugar and caffeine level, I passed by this store with a promising antique-​looking façade. A store proud of its beans must also make good coffee, I assumed, all too naively. Cappuccino and café latte are to be avoided in unknown establishments as they are subject to high risk of being truly repulsive: I am not a three-​month old who needs so much calcium and an adult enough to hold my caffeine. Café au lait a la Puerto Rico Importing Co. was made of two ingredients: Bland coffee and watery milk (or milky water). It, however, had the desired effect: It was so bad that it shocked me into full wakefulness instantly. The only satisfaction I got out of this store was my «Told you!» addressed to my fellow sufferer, who almost committed the error of buying their beans before ordering the café au lait but was smart enough to heed my advice to try out the coffee first.
For more on café au lait, see my review on Roasting Plant and my blog.

This Porto Rico outpost has quickly become my personal coffee haven. Note: this is not a place to come to sit and ponder world events over a cup of Kona blend. There’s really only about 3 chairs in this teeny tiny shop, and the guy who works during the day is usually playing indie metal bands, so you really don’t wanna hang out anyway. BUT– if you want a cuppa on the go, or some great-​quality and ultra cheap beans for home, this is your spot.
I have never found anywhere to buy coffee cheaper than Porto Rico. And the coffee blends are so unique and good, there is absolutely no reason for me to stop coming here. As a bonus, the staff who work here are all friendly, accommodating, and will allow you to sample if they’ve got it brewing.
Simply put: this is a perfect unpretentious coffee connoisseur destination.

My favorite coffee in a closet spot!
This narrow coffee and tea shop serves a no nonsense cup of delicious coffee faster than a John Dillinger bank job. Every time that I go into Starbucks and wait in line for 15 minutes I am 1) late for work 2) feel like Rainman when the fire alarm goes off.
The coffee, priced b/​t the high end (Jacque Torres or Starbucks) and low end (any corner deli) options nearby, is a great value (sorry if I sound like Suze Orman). It’s not over roasted (Starbucks coffee sometimes tastes burnt) or suspect (the coffee from my deli is probably full of bacteria and makes me feel sick).
There are maybe 4 seats in the place, so don’t plan on hanging out unless you’re a lone wolf. It’s a hit it and quit it kind of place. Also, the guy behind the counter sometimes plays heavy music that’s taste specific, so if you want some place to chill with your cup of coffee when the weather is nice, head south on Thompson and sit on the benches next to the playground.

Perfect summer Saturday morning: grab sunglasses and something to read, get a fresh iced coffee from Porto Rico, and camp out in Washington Sq. Park. Their hot coffee is a bit too strong for me, but I’m an iced coffee girl anyway, and theirs hits the spot. Haven’t tried the cookies yet but they look great.

Indian Monsoon Malabar. Buy some — really, buy some. That’s the important thing — the coffee. The Thompson St. outpost of Porto Rico is dirty and the staff are surly more often than not. And I don’t care. I go there for coffee — good coffee. Anyone going to City Girl down the street should just stop and proceed immediately to Porto Rico — it’s really that much better.
I’ve also gotten some Yunnan tea there and it’s great. Bleeker St. location is a better lit and seems cleaner, but the staff is just as grumpy. Did I mention that I don’t care because the coffee is so good?

I had a hard time deciding between 3 & 4 stars for this place. The big, huge plus that made me give it 4 stars is the coffee — it’s always good, no matter what you order, and the beans are great (and a great price!) to take home. Also the cookies are amazing, and cheap!
That said, I almost hate going there because they are so NOT customer-​service-​oriented. The place is tiny, the line is often out the door, and the service is SLOW although pleasant enough. The hipsters behind the counter play crazy music (even at 8:15 am!), have personal, sometimes inappropriate, conversations instead of moving faster, and the place looks downright dirty. I can’t figured out if they have a sink, which is really quite a disgusting thought. I’m pretty sure they have no heat, or at least it rarely works well enough to heat the place.
I suppose it’s very «New York» or «quirky» as other reviewers have said, but personally I’d like to see it skew a bit more into the «professional» category. I’ve been to the other Puerto Rico in the Village and it was a much better experience. .. too bad this is the one 2 blocks from my office!

Fabulous coffee. Easy to buy online. I have been getting coffee shiped from here for two years and absolutely love it.

Love the coffee here — never burnt, always strong. It’s very no nonsense inside which is nice.
Do try a ginger cookie — it’s really soft and moist. Perfect perfect perfect.

I’m accustomed to the strong coffee of Think a few blocks north, so I generally have little patience for weak coffee. The coffee here, however, is strong, and the quality is excellent. The space is tiny-don’t expect to sit and chat with friends over a cup of coffee-​but it’s a good place to pick up a brew on the go.
The few times I have been here, the staff has been pleasant, and I’ve been in and out. Another major plus: putting in your own milk (not being able to do so is a peeve of mine).

If you stop into this, or any other outpost of this mini-​chain of coffee and tea shops, you will find yourself witness to an oddly puzzling phenomenon.
How is it that people working in such a highly caffienated environment can be so sloooooow?
It doesn’t matter if you are the only person in the place (in this location, that is always possible), or if there is a line of twenty people (usual, at the Bleecker location). Your coffee, tea, whatever, will be scooped, weighed and packaged as though the salesperson hasn’t a care in the world, that you have nowhere else to go, and that you should be ashamed of yourself for even THINKING that the twenty minutes you spend in line to buy a pound of .85 cent Pete’s Blend coffee (additional pounds are $ 4.95, btw) during the anniversary sale is too long to wait. Watch, as the blissful barista you entrusted your coffee bean order to gets his or her groove on to Sigur Ros and doesn’t ring you up until that special lick of Icelandic guitar has come and gone. You don’t believe me? Go there, I dare you.
Deafening music of the sort you used to listen to in college, whoever you are and wherever you went, is playing even the moment they open, and lest you think I am curmudgeonly, the coffee’s pretty good. I often give the equally lugubrious people in front of me a dime or few pennies as they always – but ALWAYS – want to count out exact change for their purchase and never, ever have it.
Props to this location for actually having a few seats in the dark recesses of the back. I had been coming here for coffee beans for easily 8 months before I realized there was something alive in the gloomy darkness back there… and that it was human…
On the plus side, the people at the Saint Mark’s location really like dogs.
The best thing about this three-​store chain is the sale. Peter and I like to do what we call the Porto Rico trifecta, where we start at St. Marks, each buy a bag of the .85-​cent stuff, walk to Thompson, do the same, and finish up at Bleecker, where they at least have the sense to prepackage the sale coffee for you to grab. The «go» part of «grab and go» isn’t allowed, though. I once made the mistake of trying to leave .85 on the counter instead of waiting on the 11-​person line since all I needed was the prebagged, unground beans I was holding.
Nope. Not allowed. I was chastised, reprimanded, and forced to wait for 15 more minutes so I could drop three quarters and a dime into the grizzled brown paw of the lead barista.
«Thanks, hon!» he sang out, «that was worth waitin’ for, huh?».
Only because I am so freaking cheap.

So I’m four days into working in Soho and this is the fourth coffee joint I’ve tried and even though everyone is having a love affair with this place I’m giving it a generous three stars. My beef is this: I like hot milk in my hot coffee. It makes no sense to me to pour in cold milk. Hot milk tastes a thousand times better! I like soy milk in my coffee and when added cold it curdles (ew) and turns my hot coffee warm (sad). I don’t like to pour milk in from those thermoses unless I’m drinking iced coffee and I don’t like to feel as though I am putting someone out when I ask for the milk hot.
For the record, the beans were good and the service was nice until I asked for hot milk.