The Hub of the Community

By Gia Miller

Photography by Justin Negard

One late October morning in 2009, Sunny Cover (pronounced like “clover” without the “l”) put on her beige 1940s vintage women’s business suit and drove from Peekskill to Hawthorne to meet with the board of Community Capital New York—they were her last hope. Cover needed $63,000 to save her beloved coffee shop, Peekskill Coffee, and after months of planning and several rejections, she was running out of time. Dressed in the most professional attire she owned, Cover was there to defend her business plan. She knew it was solid, but she also knew her chances were slim. It was the middle of the housing crisis, and even though bank after bank told her she had a viable business, no one was giving out loans.

“It was this weird little office building right off the Taconic,” Cover remembers. “There were reams of paper lying around and lots of photocopiers. I was so nervous, but I knew my numbers. I knew I had to keep this shop going. I had already been told ‘no’ four times. And it was getting to the point where I couldn’t have someone run a credit check on me again because it was going to make my credit score go down. It was really a last-ditch effort. I knew I had to wow them. So, I walked into a conference room with a big table and about seven board members, businessmen and women in the community. I stood in the front of the room, in front of this large table, and I answered questions for about 40 minutes. They asked a lot of questions, but I was able to answer them all.”

When it was over, Cover was relieved. The next day, she received a phone call.

“They were really impressed that I had answers to all of their questions, and I got the loan,” she remembers. “I was really proud of myself; I didn’t stop when people told me ‘no.’ I put that business plan and the financial layout together by myself while working full time. I was so happy that I could keep the shop going. I clearly wasn’t ready to leave, and I would have been heartbroken to close it down.”

Today, Cover says people tell her they purchased a home in Peekskill because they fell in love with her coffee shop. Peekskill Coffee, which opened in 2003, has spent over two decades serving as the hub of the community, connecting neighbors and serving as inspiration (and fuel) for the town’s revitalization.

The beginning

Cover, a Nebraska native who moved to southern California with her family when she was 12 years old, landed in Peekskill in 2001 by way of Tarrytown. She, her husband (a tattoo artist) and their young daughter had moved from San Francisco to her husband’s family’s home in Guilford, CT. But the commute to work in Manhattan—Cover was a retail, then wholesale manager—was too much, so they relocated to an apartment in Tarrytown. Cover and her husband became friends with other parents in their daughter’s kindergarten class, who then bought a house in Peekskill and encouraged them to do the same.

“They were like, ‘you can do it,’” she remembers. “And I thought, ‘A house? I don’t know if we can buy a house.’ But we found a house here, and we figured it out.”

Two months later, on Tuesday, September 11, Cover and her husband both had the day off, which was unusual. The friends they’d followed to Peekskill had gotten stuck in the city, but they eventually made it home. 

“That was kind of a wake-up call for us,” Cover explains. “We realized that things could’ve been very different if we didn’t have that day off together, and we couldn’t both work in the city. I started to think about what I could do locally.”

“When I was in Tarrytown, I thought, ‘This place needs a coffee house,’” she continues. “And when I moved to Peekskill, everything was boarded up. There was only Sue’s Diner down near the train station and PJ Kelly’s in the train station. That was really it. I thought Peekskill needed a coffee house, too.”

Then fate intervened.

“One day, my neighbor walked by while I was gardening in the front yard,” she says. “And he said, ‘You know what this town needs?’ I looked up and said, ‘A coffee house.’ And he was like, ‘Yes. We should talk.’”

Her neighbor, James Lorr, owned an acupuncture business in Peekskill, and he was all in on the idea. They began working together on a business plan, applied for loans through various local programs and explored possible locations. One spot caught their eye, but the windows were boarded up, except for two lower ones in the front. From what they could tell, the space featured a white tin ceiling and “horrible carpet.” Lorr thought it was perfect.

“So, we set up lawn chairs across the street and counted cars and people walking by,” says Cover. “We did it off and on for a couple of weeks, trying to hit different times. We also got a lot of information from the Specialty Coffee Association about how much of the American population drinks coffee, how many cups of coffee they drink, etc. We looked at the demographics of our town compared to the demographics of coffee drinkers, and we thought it could work.”

Cover and Lorr, along with Laura Gillan – Lorr’s wife, and their other business partner, got a $100,000 loan that required them to put up their houses as collateral, “which was kind of frightening,” recalls Cover, but they believed in their plan. Gillan managed most of the construction and design elements, and after much hard work and preparation, they opened in June 2003.

A place to connect

“On opening day, it was pouring rain,” Cover remembers. “And we thought it was so appropriate, because Seattle is the coffee capital of the world. It was torrential, but the place was packed. We had huge posters in the windows, illustrated by my husband, so people were driving by and getting excited. And we had the support of City Hall because the loan was coming from them. The Chamber of Commerce was also involved. Everyone was very excited, and they all showed up.”

Peekskill Coffee’s goal was simple: connect (and reconnect) the community. And it worked; people in the community began coming together.

“It was really incredible,” she remembers. “Someone would walk in, order a cup of coffee, turn around and say, ‘Jimmy, is that you? I haven’t seen you since high school!’ When a community doesn’t have a space where people feel comfortable, they disconnect. And that was the purpose of our coffee house. We created that space.”

Going solo

Things progressed well over the years; the owners all got along and the business was profitable—but splitting that profit between three people meant some of their employees actually took home more than they did. In 2009, Lorr and Gillan decided they wanted to live closer to family, so they approached Cover with a proposition: she could buy them out or they could all sell the business.

“I was a little surprised when they made that decision,” says Cover. “It was very difficult for me.”

Lorr and Gillan gave Cover nine months to obtain the funds they requested for the initial buyout, which seemed reasonable, but the housing crisis proved otherwise. The Community Capital New York loan came just in time, and once Cover became the sole owner of Peekskill Coffee, she began to expand the business.

“We always offered pastries and bagels, but people were bringing in pizza and sandwiches from other locations,” she says. “They would leave all their stuff and be gone for an hour, or they would bring other food in and start eating here. So, I wanted to find a way to create some food options, but we had limited space. It was an old building, and we couldn’t do a traditional kitchen, so we started selling paninis.” 

Cover wanted to do more, but space was tight, so in 2011, she started to plan an expansion. Cover wanted to take over the space next door, an antique shop. But first, she had to complete her monthly buyout payments to her former business partners.

In 2013, Cover was ready. The space next door was vacant, and once the lease was signed, she took out a line of credit. Cover then spent three to four months renovating the space, ultimately adding about 20 more seats, space for food prep and an open kitchen, storage and a back office.

Following a half-vacation/half-business trip to Paris, Cover added crepes and waffles to her menu, both regular and gluten-free.

Steady growth

“This shop continually sees growth as the town becomes busier,” she says. “Many of the businesses that opened in Peekskill were made at our tables. People have their meetings here; they pull out development plans and spread them out on the table. I love watching their ideas become reality and attending their openings. It’s always very exciting.”

But as they became busier, the demands on Cover and the staff increased. In 2013, she developed an employee handbook, and in 2021, she revamped her entire training program, breaking it down into five levels: foundation, apprentice barista, junior barista, senior barista and team leader. Each level takes two to three months to complete, and by the time employees are done, they’ve learned everything from how to wash dishes and pull shots to the recipes for every food product (they make everything in-house, including their batters). Once they’ve completed the basics, employees continue their education, learning things like latte art and the flavor profiles of each roast.

“Inflation hit really hard at the beginning of 2022, and my staff felt it very deeply,” says Cover. “I feel it’s my responsibility to always reevaluate pay and how people move through this space. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to go from just putting out fires every day to actually creating transparency and programs that make people want to work full time. So, I implemented a matching 401(k) program for all staff. They must be here for one year to contribute and two years for matching.”

This year, Cover implemented a sales incentive for senior staff and three different employee of the month awards (peer choice, customer choice and manager’s choice) as further incentives.

But employee training, compensation and recognition haven’t been the only changes. In 2017, Cover received a pleasant (and unexpected) surprise. Her daughter, Aleah Conlon, who graduated from Moore College of Art & Design in Philadelphia, asked Cover for a job.

“I actually thought she was going to go work for her dad, who has a tattoo parlor down the road,” says Cover. “That’s what I would have done if I knew how to draw. I would be tattooing and traveling around the world. But when she asked to work at the coffee house, I said, ‘Are you sure?’ She said she was, so I hired her.”

Conlon, who is now an assistant manager, put her education to good use revamping Peekskill Coffee’s branding.

“Aleah’s ability to create images that are fun and make sense has been a game changer for us,” says Cover. “I had made a few attempts; I could never seem to wrap my head around it, so it was usually kept on the back burner.”

In 2018, Peekskill Coffee experienced another big change: Cover started learning how to roast her own beans. One year later, she started driving to shared roasting facilities in Queens and Brooklyn every two weeks to roast her new house blend. She gradually added an espresso blend, and by 2021, Peekskill Coffee roasted and sold only their own brand.

Growing tired of roasting and transporting 400 pounds of coffee back and forth, Cover “utilized the benefit of PPP loans during COVID” to open RYZE COLLECTIVE in the Peekskill Hat Factory building. Cover’s driving time is now just about five minutes, and her new space offers a commercial kitchen for other small businesses to roast their beans, cook products, teach culinary classes and hold events. She currently has seven businesses using the space.

With Peekskill Coffee’s 21st anniversary this June, Cover continues to grow her brand and expand into new business ventures. She does so with three main goals: provide a community hub where locals can connect, offer people careers with opportunities to pursue their passions and share her two decades of knowledge and experience with other small businesses in the area. And if history is any indication, she will achieve those goals.

“I’m most proud of how I show up in the world,” she says.

This article was published in the May/June 2024 edition of Connect to Northern Westchester.