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After 20 strong years on East Main Street in Port Jeff Village, the original Toast Coffeehouse will be moving soon — and a couple miles south.
Terry Scarlatos, who owns four Toast Coffeehouses across Long Island, will move the original Toast at 242 E. Main St. to 650 Route 112 in Port Jefferson Station. The location was most recently home to Mr. P’s Southern Skillet. The new space is larger — with room for 118 seats — and offers more flexibility, Scarlatos said.
In addition to limited seating capacity, Scarlatos said sparse available parking in downtown Port Jefferson hastened the relocation. The new spot — expected to open in late May or early June — provides enough parking for the catering and takeout facets of his brunch business which boomed over the last two decades.
“Usually, we do baby showers and bridal parties and that kind of thing,” Scarlatos said of his other Toasts. “Most of them ask for them during the day on the weekends, and we would have to turn people away in Port Jeff for that because we’re so small. Now, we’ll have the opportunity for that here.”
“This place … is more in line with what we’re doing nowadays,” he added.
‘It reminds me of the Smokey Mountains’
Scarlatos plans to open his relocated Port Jefferson Toast around late May or early June.
He said he will retain the lease at 242 E. Main St., and is considering plans to transition the old Toast storefront space into a new concept in the future.
Looking both west and east for his next Toast locations, Scarlatos wants to run nine Toast Coffeehouses in the next five to seven years, he said. In addition to the Toast in Port Jefferson, he owns Toasts in Patchogue and Bay Shore, along with a Toast Coffeehouse Express Café in Bohemia.
With each new location, the brunch boss will plan unique interior designs, all of which will capture nostalgia for a less screen-centric era, he said.
“We went with a vintage farmhouse look in here, hence the half-windmills,” he said gazing up at the freshly painted and adorned back room of the new Toast location. “It lent itself to that. I looked at this place, all the exposed wood, it reminds me of the Smokey mountains.”
