Coffees From El Salvador Shine Bright at the New Palmas Café in Jersey

Howard Bryman | September 16, 2025

Inside the new Palmas Café in Crandon, New Jersey. All images courtesy of Palmas Café.

Multiple branches from a single family tree are represented at Palmas Café in Cranford, New Jersey, where a championship-caliber specialty coffee program meets scratch-made bites.

Emphasizing coffees from El Salvador, the menu spans from straight espresso and manual pourovers to creative offerings like Matcha Horchata and panela lattes. From the kitchen, indulgences such as pan de bono and tres leches share space with scones, cruffins and cannoli, plus savory empanadas and pupusas.

Tall leafy palms and olive trees throughout the 1,900-square-foot space evoke the lush tropical coffee lands. Beneath a ring of suspended greenery that catches light from front windows, lounge seating invites lingering, while a standing-height counter accommodates European-style quick sips.

Further inside, leather banquette seating lines walls lit by modern vertical sconces. Floor tiling shifts from calm patterns to busier designs as it approaches the 30-foot bar fronted with ice-grey artificial quartz. Permanently parked on a cobblestone patio in the back is a green Jeep Willys, another nod to coffee’s agricultural origins.

“The vision was to create a place you could stay all day, whether you’re a student studying for your next exam, a remote worker looking for a second space or you’re meeting with friends or family,” Palmas Café Co-Founder Sabrina Palacios told Daily Coffee News. “[It’s] an oasis in the middle of the hectic day.”

El Salvador-born restaurateur Taufik Palacios co-founded the shop with his Guatemalan wife Floriselda and New Jersey-born daughter Sabrina. Taufik’s niece, Cecilia Guerra Palacios, who graduated from the Institute of Culinary Education in New York, is head pastry chef, while his sister assists with food operations.

The coffee program, meanwhile, benefits from the assistance of 2011 World Barista Champion and entrepreneur Alejandro Mendez, who is a friend of the family.

The manual pourover program showcases Pacamara and Gesha coffees sourced directly from producers in El Salvador and Colombia, some of which have been Cup of Excellence competition winners.

Coffees are roasted for Palmas by Red House Roasters in Newark before filling the hoppers of Mahlkönig grinders on their way to a Victoria Arduino Black Eagle Maverick espresso machine and V60 pourover brewers.

“The perfect team came together and we were able to create something really beautiful,” Sabrina Palacios said. “When we say we are a family business, we really mean it. Running this business has really demonstrated that it takes a village, but with community, anything is possible.”