In about thirteen months, Thayer Street lost almost all of its grab-and-go coffee. The Starbucks at 218 Thayer, Aroma Joe's, the Thayer Street Bagel Gourmet Ole, Kung Fu Tea and Tiger Sugar have all closed since September 2025. The openings that followed share a pattern. They are larger rooms with kitchens, outdoor benches, weekend laptop rules or a carefully planned build-out, and most of them sit away from Thayer's busiest block.
Winter is the in-between stretch. Some places are gone, some are new, and some are still behind brown paper.
What Left Thayer, in Order
The Brown Daily Herald put it simply: students came back this fall to "an unfamiliar Thayer Street area," with four fewer places to eat and drink than when they left in May. Add the Starbucks closure from the fall before, and here is the past year:
| Business | Location | Closed | How long it ran |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starbucks | 218 Thayer St. | By Sept. 28, 2025 | Space empty since |
| Kung Fu Tea | 110 Waterman St., off Thayer | May 14, 2026 | 10 years |
| Aroma Joe's | Thayer St. | May 31, 2026 | Opened 2021 |
| Bagel Gourmet Ole | Thayer St. | End of June 2026 | More than 20 years |
| Tiger Sugar | Thayer St. | July 4, 2026 | More than four years |
The reasons were different in each case. At 110 Waterman, the building where Kung Fu Tea stood has been torn down, and Tracy Kelleher, property manager for owner Walter Bronhard Realty, told the Herald the site will become mixed-use apartment-style housing. She said Thayer commercial spaces "didn't seem to rebound since COVID," and that the landlord let the tea shop out of its lease even after cutting the rent. Bagel Gourmet's manager, Guillermina Perez, told the paper the Thayer shop closed because the rent got too high. Aroma Joe's left a note saying its local owner was "ready for their next adventure."
The demand stayed even after the storefronts went. Perez said the larger Bagel Gourmet on nearby Meeting Street has picked up "more business," enough that the chain's College Hill sales are "pretty much the same" as before. Caffe Nero's store manager told the Herald that business at her shop "was a little more steady" during the summer, usually a slow season, after Aroma Joe's closed. Ten One Tea House has hired staff from the boba shops that closed.
Fox Point Got the Biggest New Room
The first real answer to all those closings opened about half a mile south. The Providence Journal reported that Nitro Bar opened at 134 Ives St. the week of Oct. 2. It is the company's fourth Rhode Island location, its second in Providence, and its biggest cafe so far. The shop is in the former Glou space, according to Rhode Island Monthly. Audrey Finocchiaro and Sam Lancaster own it.
Opening-day coverage carried on Yahoo shows a shop built for staying. It describes a wood-and-tile "modern cabin" interior with two indoor benches, outdoor tables, stools and wooden benches, and a full kitchen behind the coffee bar. The fall menu at opening included a Whipped Maple Sea Salt Latte, a Cinnamon Roll Float Latte, a Caramelized Banana Latte and cider from Jaswell's Farm, along with Dark Horse Cold Brew, matcha and chai. Food runs from breakfast sandwiches and bagels with lox or pesto to pizza bagels, avocado toast and ricotta toast.
The opening also took longer than expected. In April, the Herald reported a late-May or early-June target for a shop of roughly 700 square feet with outdoor seating. It opened four months later than that. Keep that in mind when you read the timelines for the two cafes still in progress.
The Two Openings That Will Fill the Winter
Both upcoming cafes are going into spaces that need serious work, and both are built around the same idea as Nitro Bar: a place to sit, in a carefully planned room.
Blank Street, 218 Thayer St. The empty Starbucks space will become the Brooklyn-founded chain's first Rhode Island cafe. Harrison Dulgarian of Dulgarian Properties, which leases the space, told the Brown Daily Herald that "a few dozen places" were interested before Blank Street was picked. He expects "an extensive build-out" with new electrical, heating, plumbing and espresso equipment. On Oct. 5 he estimated two to three months to opening. That points to somewhere between early December and early January. The Providence Journal's coverage, last updated Oct. 18, still gave no date.
Brown Bee Coffee, Waterman and Brook streets. Brown Bee opened on Benefit Street in 2024. Its second cafe will take the ground floor of The Carlyle, in a former lobby that once held two offices. Manager Anjolina Huang told the Brown Daily Herald that the new shop will be smaller than the original, with a takeout window and a room that will be "even more cozy." She hopes it will open by early next year at the latest. The weekend no-laptop rule from Benefit Street is likely to come along, she said, because "we just prefer people to kind of build more community."
The next few months will likely go in this order, with the uncertain dates marked as estimates:
- Now: Nitro Bar on Ives Street is about four weeks old. The 218 Thayer build-out is underway.
- Through Dec. 31: Little Sister on Hope Street is in its last weeks of service.
- Roughly December to early January, per the landlord's estimate: Blank Street could open at 218 Thayer.
- Early 2027, per Brown Bee's hope: Brown Bee opens at The Carlyle.
Thayer also has bigger storefronts in play. Dulgarian told the Herald that an Italian restaurant is set for the old Spectrum India space, and that he has "over a dozen letters of intent" for the former Andrea's. Neither has an opening date yet.
Hope Street's Last Weeks of Little Sister
The one big change on the north end is a closing. Little Sister, the Puerto Rican cafe at 737a Hope St. at the corner of Rochambeau Avenue, will close at the end of the year after eight years. According to Rhode Island Monthly, brunch continues until then, but it is now first-come, first-served. Owner Milena Pagán has said the decision is purely about lifestyle. WPRI first reported the plan in late July. From the end of October, that leaves about nine weeks. With no reservations, arriving early on a weekend matters more now than it did over the summer.
Two other Hope Street updates from the same Rhode Island Monthly column round out that end of the neighborhood. La Fe Taqueria has opened in the former Blue Cottage space and is partly owned by the owner of Lotus Pepper. Not Just Snacks had a roof fire with no injuries and stayed open as usual.
The Places That Stayed Put
The new arrivals on Ives Street, Thayer and Waterman are joining a set of East Side spots that are still open and have absorbed much of the overflow:
- Coffee Exchange, Wickenden Street. Its own website lists it as open 363 days a year, 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. With Nitro Bar a few blocks away on Ives, Fox Point now has two serious coffee stops close together.
- Ceremony. The cafe's FAQ lists two locations.
- Caffe Nero, Thayer area. Its summer got steadier after Aroma Joe's closed, according to its store manager.
- Bagel Gourmet, Meeting Street. Its manager called it "exactly the same" as the closed Thayer shop, only with more room.
- Ten One Tea House and Vivi Bubble Tea. These are the two boba shops left on Thayer. Ten One's shift supervisor told the Herald the closures have been "great for business."
- Brown Bee, Benefit Street. The original shop is still open while the second one is built.
Put together, the changes add up to fewer counters near the busiest corner of Thayer and more places to sit near the edges: Ives Street in Fox Point, the Waterman and Brook corner, and a Thayer storefront that has been empty for a year and is being rebuilt from the wiring up.
At DiCenzo Advisory, we follow the East Side storefront by storefront, because that's where the day-to-day life of a neighborhood shows up first. If you'd like to talk about how these blocks are changing and what that could mean for your home, we'd be glad to have that conversation over a coffee. Schedule a free consultation.
