G&M Coffee Roasters

Maria learned to roast in Naples. Her husband helps run the Staten Island shop, which carries the Italian-style profile the family brought back from Sicily, and the smell of fresh beans hits you in the parking lot before you reach the door. The Brick Court location is a working roastery first and a small retail counter second, with a few tables and chairs inside and a counter that Maria herself often staffs.

The room has the feel of a working operation rather than a styled-up cafe. There are beans on shelves, a couple of tables, the smell of fresh roasting in the air, and Maria walking you through whatever bag you're holding. One regular compared the room to being in Napoli, which gets at the feel of it better than any list of adjectives. The free sample espresso at the counter is part of the welcome. You don't ask for it. It arrives because it's how Maria thinks the introduction should go.

This is one of the rare roasters that also services espresso machines. Commercial and home, both ends of the trade. You can walk in with a struggling Breville and walk out with both freshly roasted beans and a tuned-up machine, which is a combination most coffee shops don't offer and most repair shops can't match. The two services feed each other. Customers who get their machines serviced often leave with beans, and customers who come in for beans often discover that the repair option exists for the day their grinder finally gives up.

The lineup is Italian-style espresso roasts. The work owes its character to the Naples training, which means dark and oily and built for the small home espresso machine that most American specialty roasters can't quite serve. Maria walks customers through the family's coffee history if there's time, and there usually is. Customers don't single out one bag over another in any sharp way, so the move is to ask Maria what's freshest and trust the answer.

The one warning, and it's the real one: a recent review flags the storefront as closed at this address. Check current operating status before you drive over. If the shop is open, this is a destination for Staten Island home-espresso brewers who want both beans and machine service from the same person, and for anyone who'd rather buy coffee from a family that learned the trade in Naples than from anywhere else within driving distance. If it isn't, the Naples-trained roasting is worth tracking down wherever it lands next.