In 2006 a young poet named Chris Rockwell went on a second date to a coffeehouse in Long Branch. To get in, he climbed a tiny staircase into a building he later described as "held together entirely by band stickers." In his farewell essay for Soup Can Magazine, Rockwell says a manager recognized him, comped his coffee and asked whether he'd like to host an open mic. He hosted one there from about 2006 to 2009. Attendance grew from 10 to 15 people a week to 20 or 30, until the readings moved out onto the deck.
That coffeehouse was the Inkwell. The lot it stood on serves coffee again, from a new café called Almost Home on the ground floor of a new building named for the old one. The name is back, the address is back and the coffee is back. The hours are not. The Inkwell ran from late afternoon until early morning, and its replacement opened on a schedule built around mornings.
What the Inkwell Sold After Midnight
New Jersey Monthly called the Inkwell "an iconic West End gathering place since 1965" in a 2019 profile. Its regulars were local musicians, poets and Monmouth University undergrads. Since 1979 it had been in a Dutch Colonial on Second Avenue, two blocks from the boardwalk. Customers sat on the front porch or the side patio, colored lights hung inside, and open-mic music filled the patio on summer nights. The menu offered breakfast fare, grilled sandwiches and desserts, plus vegan dishes, smoothies and 12 blended coffees the staff called Inkacino's.
The drink that held it all together was Dutch coffee. In 2022, manager Victoria Pontoriero told NJ.com she poured between 200 and 300 of them a night, and that "I don't think the Inkwell would have existed without Dutch Coffee." She and fellow manager Samantha Seda described nights that ran until 3 a.m. and ended with the sun coming up while they swept the floors for the next day.
Rockwell's memories follow the same clock. He writes about poets talking for hours over Dutch coffee, a staff "busting their asses from late afternoon until early morning," and "countless fried ravioli and coffee." His verdict on a place that had been open since the 1960s was that "it never would have been open long enough."
The Inkwell's business was the hours after other places closed. Everything that came next has to be measured against that.
From Closing to Ribbon Cutting
Four years passed between the Inkwell's last night and the next cup of coffee on the same lot:
- 1965. The Inkwell opens at the corner of Second and Brighton Avenues, according to New Jersey Monthly and The Coaster.
- 1979. It moves farther down Second Avenue into the Dutch Colonial.
- May 2022. The Inkwell announces on Instagram that it is closing for good. Owner Anthony Esposito, who had run it for 18 years as of 2019, told the Asbury Park Press he was retiring from the business.
- July 2024. The Coaster reports the building demolished to make way for 22 homes on three floors, with an 800-square-foot retail space planned for the ground floor. The site manager said several coffee shops had already asked about the space.
- Spring 2026. Owners begin moving into the finished building, the Inkwell Lofts.
- July 30, 2026. Almost Home Coffee Shop holds its grand opening in the retail space.
Coffee shops were asking about the retail space the same week the old building came down, and two years later a coffee shop filled it.
The Second Inkwell, Not the First
Locals tend to call this "the Inkwell corner," but the Inkwell had two corners. The Coaster's 2024 demolition report puts the original location at Second and Brighton and says Bruce Springsteen was a patron there. NJ.com ties the Springsteen connection to a bungalow near that first location, where he lived while writing "Born to Run."
Almost Home sits on the second site, the one the Inkwell moved to in 1979 and occupied for its last 43 years. Patch places the building at Second Avenue and New Court, one block from the Ocean Avenue beach, and the café's address is 665 2nd Avenue. That is the porch-and-patio Inkwell of Dutch coffee runs and poetry nights, the one most current residents would remember.
What Opened on the Ground Floor
Almost Home started in Lincroft, and the Long Branch café is an outpost of that business. Founder Robert "Robbie" Doran grew up in Highlands and Rumson. The Long Branch café sells coffee, pastries, and sandwiches and salads to go, with the prepared food made by The Blonde Shallot, another local small business Doran partners with.
At the July 30 ribbon cutting, Doran was joined by Mayor John Pallone and by Ralph Zucker, president and CEO of Inspired by Somerset Development, the company that built the Inkwell Lofts. The same company is behind Bell Works in Holmdel, which runs on its own nonstop calendar a few towns inland. TAPinto Long Branch reported that the café takes its inspiration from the original coffeehouse and aims to honor it.
Doran knows exactly what he's following. "It was a cafe, a poetry house, a place where kids went after the bar to chill out," he told Patch. "The Inkwell would be open until the wee hours of the morning, and they built a cult following. My parents went there in the '70s and '80s."
He described his own plans to Patch this way:
"I envision it to be a European-style cafe, with good coffee, amazing French pastries and grab-and-go salads, wraps and prepared foods... Most coffee shops in America close in the afternoon. I want the Inkwell to be a late-night coffee cafe."
A Late-Night Plan on a Daytime Schedule
The hours posted when Almost Home Long Branch opened tell a different story from the plan, and a very different one from the old Inkwell. Patch listed them as:
- Sunday through Wednesday: 7 a.m. to 4 p.m.
- Thursday, Friday and Saturday: 7 a.m. to 9 p.m.
The Inkwell's managers used to sweep up at sunrise. On that opening schedule, the latest closing time at the same address is 9 p.m., six hours before the old 3 a.m. finish, and only three nights a week. On the other four days the café closes at 4 p.m., around the late-afternoon hour Rockwell remembers the Inkwell staff starting their shifts. A Dutch coffee after the bars close is no longer on offer at this address. Coffee at 7 in the morning is.
Doran's goal of coffee after 3 p.m. holds three evenings a week. His late-night version exists so far only as the plan he described at opening. Those are the opening-day hours, so check the café's own site, almosthomegeneral.com, before planning a visit around them.
The calendar shows the gap well. The city's Programs and Events calendar lists the Pier Village Tree Lighting for Sunday, November 29, 2026, from 4 to 6 p.m. Under the opening-day hours, Sunday at Almost Home ends at 4 p.m., the moment the tree lighting begins.
The Inkwell used to give its regulars a place on Second Avenue to sit long after the rest of the West End had closed. If you've watched that corner go from stickered staircase to rooftop terrace and wonder what the change means for your own block, the Suzanne Veninata Team follows these Long Branch storefronts as closely as the sales around them. Explore our Long Branch neighborhood guide, or schedule a complimentary consultation to talk it through.
